By Indie Authors for Indie Authors.

Tag: writer facebook

10 Must-Do Tips for Authors on Social Media

If you’re like me, you constantly have to balance what time you spend marketing on social media with what time you spend writing—you know, that thing you actually love doing and wish you could do full time? Yeah, writing. This doesn’t even account for time with family, friends, hobbies, day jobs, or countless other things that quickly fill up your day.

The point is your time is limited. While social media can be beneficial as you build your author platform, it can also be a never-ending time-suck.

Here’s some advice on how to best utilize social media to build a solid Author platform.

 

Author Social Media Tips

 

1. Be Selective

There’s a mantra I tell myself regularly: You can do anything. You can’t do everything. This is important to remember throughout life.

Managing your social media engagement is no different than other aspects of your life. Be selective on where you utilize social media. Each platform is different.

Twitter can help you reach new readers, while Facebook can drive more traffic to your website and create relationships with readers. Goodreads is wonderful for engaging with the indie author community. Instagram and Pinterest can help you build a brand, if that’s what you’re going for. This is just the tip of the iceberg of social media options.

Figure out what works best for you and focus on those one or two platforms. Personally, I mostly engage on Twitter and Facebook.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”You can do anything. You can’t do everything. Be selective on social media. #amwriting” quote=”You can do anything. You can’t do everything. Be selective on social media.”]

 

2. Create Better Images

People love pictures on social media. Images get exponentially more engagement than just words. This is the very reason Twitter started allowing images on their platform a few years ago. Their lunch was getting eaten by Facebook.

Spend the time necessary to create better images. One place to do that is Canva. That’s how I create many of the images I use on this site. (No, I don’t receive any kind of commission for referring you to them, but I should, huh? Somebody look into that for me.)

 

3. Engage

This really should be rule number 1. Engage! Engage! Engage!

Don’t just scream for people to buy your book. Engage them. Learn about them and who they are. You’re likelihood of finding a new reader will be much, much higher. Answer questions. Respond to comments. And who knows, you might just find a new e-friend.

 

4. Tag People

If you’re talking about someone in one of your posts, tag them so they’re aware. There’s a higher likelihood they’ll interact with the post or that some of their followers might as well.

However, DO NOT tag people just to tag them so they see your latest marketing message. One of the most annoying things on social media platforms is getting tagged by someone with no context on why you’re getting tagged other than they want you to buy something from them.

 

5. Keep Tweets Short

This may sound odd since the very nature of Twitter is already short quips, but just because they give you 140 characters doesn’t mean you have to use all 140. Try to keep your tweets short and simple. Around a 100 character max seems to be a good sweet spot.

 

6. Try Videos

As much as images and pictures get more interaction than simple text, videos do even more so. If you’re inclined to face your fear of being on camera, it can help your engagements on Social Media.

I realize most people have a fear of being on video. I do as well. Just because you have a fear of something, though, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore it further.

I’ve begun dabbling in videos with my content, both with photos I’ve taken and with being in front of the camera myself. I really enjoy the author and reader videos anaisbelieve creates on YouTube as well. Try creating a video yourself!

 

7. Make Your Headlines Work

I’ll admit, I can be much better at this. People that tease the reader and pique their curiosity get more engagement and clicks. I’m not saying to use click-bait as a strategy. Everyone hates that and Facebook is even working to get rid of it where they can. I’m saying captivate your followers imagination with your posts. Give them a reason to think, laugh, or be moved. Put thought into your headlines.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”Put thought into your headlines. Give people a reason to think, laugh, or be moved. #indieauthors” quote=”Put thought into your headlines. Give people a reason to think, laugh, or be moved.”]

 

8. Remain Positive

Social media is a real quagmire of negative individuals, isn’t it? It’s obnoxious. If you’re not careful, you’ll find you’ve fallen into one of the two large cess pools that social media hosts: (1) The cess pool of Negative Nancies (or Negative Nates if you please); or (2) The cess pool of look at how wonderful my family / my vacation / my life is.

Don’t fall into those traps.

Keep your positivity. Show your excitement. There will always be haters. Don’t worry about that. People can sense your excitement. They feed off of it. Remain positive and excited.

 

9. Repost Old Content

Reposting something from a few months ago is called Evergreen Content. Don’t be obnoxious and tweet the same thing out over and over and over again. But if you’re judicious, there’s a lot of fantastic content you’ve posted in the past. Don’t let it go to waste. One plugin I utilize for Nothing Any Good is “Revive Old Post”. I set it to randomly send out a previous post of mine every 16-24 hours.

 

10. Manage Your Time

Let’s end at a similar place from where we began. Just like you need to be selective with which social media platforms you spend time on, you also need to be selective with how much time you spend on social media. Don’t forget about your writing because you’re working so hard to get people engaged with your writing. Manage your time and stay focused on the craft. After all, what’s the point of having an author social media following if you’re no longer writing?

 

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

Author Tweets of the Week (5-26)

 

 

Hi friends! It’s time for your favorite running column on Nothing Any Good – Author Tweets of the Week.

Before we begin, a lot of you seem to be wondering what I listen to when I write. It’s different all the time. Depends on my mood and whether my brain can handle writing and listening to music at that moment.

What am I listening to currently?

 

 

There. Now you can listen along with me while you read.

All right, let’s go.

 

 

Sometimes writing becomes a drag. The words just won’t flow. It feels like your proverbial writing tongue is fat and twisted in knot.

https://twitter.com/bfisher_books/status/866599122878332928

I feel you @bfisher_books.

 

I like this next quote. Most quotes on social media are inspiring or funny, but there are rarely quotes that are deep. I rarely find myself pausing to contemplate the meaning of the quote.

The job of art is to go deeper and deeper into the questions posed by Life. It’s not necessarily to answer them, but good art will never avoid the questions.

 

In addition to not avoiding the questions, good art also…

Ohhhhhh. I’ve been doing it all wrong. This is so simple. Break hearts. Pierce souls. Put them both back together again. Take breath away. And then bend the reader’s mind. It’s a piece of cake!

 

Speaking of desserts…

I’m sharing this for a particular reason. I enjoyed this act of support that Ben & Jerry’s showed, but I was surprised at how much backlash it seemed to receive on Twitter. People were outraged that this was a shameless marketing ploy. I just have to say this. You can’t win with social media. Ben & Jerry’s is a company. Their job is to make a good product and to make money. That’s the nature of capitalism. I’m sorry.

If our companies don’t say anything, we get mad at them and say they’re not using their power and influence for good. But then once they do say something, we throw a hissy fit and say that they’re just being selfish money-grabbing pigs. We do this to our athletes too. We get mad when they don’t speak up, but when they do say something we shout, “Just shut up and play! No one wants to hear your views!”

It’s obnoxious, friends. This is a simple gesture from B&J. Will it change anything independently? Not at all. But change comes through a collective and progressive build up of pressure. Acts like this are needed by corporations.

 

Anyway, if you want to continue listening along with me.

 

 

 

Once again, Facebook won’t let me embed the next post. Don’t get me started again on their embedding feature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post made me crack up when I read it last night. It’s so true! Something about that guy leaning on the chair. If you asked me for my first hundred thoughts about this picture, one of them wouldn’t be, “He’s doing it wrong.” I have no idea what he’s trying to do!

Too funny. Thanks Assaph Mehr!

 

 

 

 

 

Good reminder for everyone. Setting boundaries. Walking away. Knowing your limits. These are all important aspects of strength.

 

 

This.

 

❤️

 

 

And this.

 

 

Point being, spend less time worrying about being weird and more time worrying about being kind.

 

 

 

As I said on Twitter, if you’re like me, so is the second draft, the third draft, the fourth draft…

 

 

What’s on now?

 

 

All right, let’s let good ol’ Van take us home with these final tweets!

 

 

There is never the right time. Never. Did I stutter? NEVER. There is never a moment when you’ll say, “This is perfect. I have nothing else to do or be or see.” It won’t happen. Don’t let there be a memory of What If in your future.

 

 

Thank you @ERHollands. Write. Just write. It’s that simple.

 

Wait, no I was wrong. It can be simpler.

 

 

There it is! Just write the damn book. No more excuses. Let’s go!

 

Happy writing, friends! Be kind. Have a good weekend.

 

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

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