Every day I have more conversations around social media and the best ways to use it to sell brands, promote good public relations and engage loyal fans. It’s more than getting your book sold or noticed by readers, it’s who makes the best taco and where should you get your car serviced. I have a large client list with some businesses deep in the social media mindset and others who are still trying to figure out their smart phone. Does their media savvy effect their business efforts? Yes and no. I’m listening and learning and trying to gauge where to spend my social media time for the goals I have in mind for my writing.
The bottom line: you need to know your end-goal before you lay in a plan to get there. The goal and the plan determines the best tools and delivery methods. Sorry this is sounding like a marketing spiel, but indie authors have to be marketers and PR specialist. You have to cut out time vampires whether it’s a bad habit that keeps you from writing or a line of self-promotion that doesn’t deliver.
The best advice I’ve gotten on the subject is to find what you enjoy and make that your focus. Some writers love engaging in forums. Others thrive on Facebook. I’ve decided Twitter has the biggest return for my invested time, as well as blogging and taking part in blog tours.
What works for me on Twitter?
I use the search feature to find followers who may like what I write and are interested in the same subjects I’m researching. My follows bring them in as followers and soon I have a dialog.
Knowing where my followers live allows me to tweet on their time. No, I don’t look up street addresses, but knowing the country or time zone lets me tweet when they are looking. Carolyn McCray oft tells on the IBC Blogtalk radio show, “on Twitter everyone sees you and no one sees you.” It’s all in the timing.
I skim through my stream and retweet what I find interesting or fun and in turn they may feel inclined to share my tweets with their followers.
Striking up a conversation is fun and helps build a connection. I’ve met so many wonderful writers and avid readers on Twitter and they have been generous in supporting my work. Guys, I couldn’t do this without you:)
Why does blogging work?
You get to show off your personality. It also helps if you have something interesting to share. If you write with passion it will resonate. If you write well, your blog readers may become your novel readers.
Some weeks it’s tough to come up with a topic, and often I write something completely different than what I planned. This week I intended to write about symbolism in novels to help build the plot and characters using WIRED as an example. Then I had a meeting and the conversation came around to social media. Its a full time job in a growing number of companies. I’m also testing out a new 3rd party Twitter app, Timely.is which analyzes your followers and schedules your tweets for times when they may be on the stream. It’s only been two days and so far not much response. I’ll give it a week or two and see if it really gets more new followers and RTs than my own efforts. At times I think gut feeling is stronger than algorithms.
Share what works best for you and the smart tips that make you a rock star in the social media world.