Writers & Social Media

As writers, what do we need to know about social media? Bluntly put, we need to know how to use it! We need to be able to get our name and our personality out there, we need to be able to build an audience before we get our work out there. Once we get our work out there, we need to be able to market it.

Each social media site works a bit differently. I do have a personal site, that carries all of my diverse interests.

I have one account on Twitter, and I share my thoughts, links to my work (books and blogs), as well as commenting on an sharing posts that have something to say.

On LinkedIn, I do the same thing. I share my thoughts, links to my work, comment on and share posts that have meaning, as well as putting up the occasional article.

On Facebook, I have a personal page that I keep private, as well as a professional author's page, and a page for my wellness blog.

I do three blogs a week - an author's blog, a wellness blog, and a blog for my flash fiction.

I also have a monthly newsletter that I put out through Mail Chimp, devoted to anything related to writing.  

Another important equivelant to a social media site is to create an author's page on Amazon, where all of your work that is published through Amazon, whether it is published by a brick and mortar publisher or self-published (Kindle Direct Publishing). 

(c) September 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.

Video Marketing

Marketing is not my favorite activity, although as a writer it is a necessary one. Making videos - well, I have not attempted doing that yet. So why am I even considering it? If I will follow a link to a video, others will too. And I have learned a great deal through videos placed on individual sites, and on You Tube. There are some definite marketing advantages here.

Videos have their place in personal branding, as do the social media sites. Together they can form a marketing plan ... on that cinches an individual's brand, and gets (and keeps) their product known. We have to "be" how we choose to brand ourselves. Our work, our product, as to reflect our brand. When our respective audiences can see us :in person", through a video, they can identify with us. We become real to them. Now, all videos do not have to be personal videos, but the ones that are will, IMHO, have a greater impact.

We also need to consider conversion rates. What percentage of individuals clicking on a link are then going to follow through and purchase? If we can connect with them through videos, and get them to identify with us, and our brand, we will not only have a single purchase, but we have an audience that will follow us on social media, and want to purchase that next book, or CD, or attend that net seminar.

Allow your personality to come through. I am who I am ... in my mid-60's, a conservative liberal, and a wanna-be writer of cozy mysteries. This is who I am, and any prospective audience needs to understand this. My target audience is specific. Who are you? What do you want people to know about you? Who is your target audience?

I love videos - each has a story to tell! I look forward to getting my story out there ... and to hearing your story!

(c) 2015 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the author.  

Where Did the Time Go?

 

Where does the time go? As authors, we like to think that we are in charge of our own time. That is seldom true, unless we publish independently. Even then we have deadlines ... self imposed deadlines that help us to stay professional, and not wander into the twilight zone of writing.

There are so many things that can claim the time of a writer. It is up to us to decide what is important, what is not, and where we want our time and focus to go. Social media is a very gray area ... how much  is going to bring us in readers/followers, and how much is overkill (or underkill, if we don't do it right)? How many pages do we need on Facebook? How many Twitter accounts do we need? How often should we tweet, and what should be say? Do we schedule our tweets to go out, or do we just send them out spontaneously? Do we play the #FF game? (I did, at first, and then dropped it.) 

Do we send out newsletters? Do our newsletters actually say anything? Are the newsletters converting into sales? How often do we publish a newsletter? How are we getting e-mail addresses for our newsletter? We need to do this in a manner that we reach people who are interested in our work, and will open the darn newsletter and read it! How often do we publish a book? Do we really need to publish more than one book a year? We are generally writing one book, promoting another book, and outlining a third book anyway. How thin can we stretch ourselves? 

Do we really need to go on blog tours? I mean, really! We write a guest post to fit into someone else's site. We keep track of the post, and respond to any comments made. Our face is put into focus for new readers, but how many are really going to convert into fans? Are we going to sell more books? Is this a good use of our time? For me, I have decided that no, it is not.

We don't need a ton of Twitter, Google + or Facebook followers. What we need are a few good followers that interact with us, like our material, and buy our books. It doesn't matter how many people "like" you  Facebook page. Look at how many of them are commenting on your posts, at how many of them are engaging with you. 

Blogging and blog hopping. I have several blogs on different topics. I send out one blog a week ... unless there is something that I really feel that I need to write about. 

What does this all boil down to? Whatever you do, do it with intent and purpose. If it doesn't look like it is working, and you have tried tweaking it ... let it go!

Take charge of your time!

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet

Making Social Media Work For You

This week I am setting out on a stream of consciousness writing related to social media. All this means is that I am going to toss stuff out there, and make no attempt whatsoever to link it together! It’s all good!

Social media for the most part isn’t something that we look at as being expensive – in terms of finances, anyway. We can all use the social media sites, and recommend them to our friends, without anyone going broke. However, there is a cost or two that I am seeing more and more people addressing, and that is the time that we have to spend consistently putting up well written, relevant content, in an SEO savvy manner. That, IMHO, carries a very high price!

What are some of the best ways to spend our time? A priority for me is following people that interest me, that have something to say, both in my professional worlds, and in special interest areas. I skim posts on Twitter, Face Book, and Google +, taking the time to read only those that I have both the time and the interest to read and respond to. I have an active RSS feed that I add blogs that I am interested in to, so that I catch new posts as they are coming out.

Thanks to my friend Anna Burroughs Cook, I can now work with Google Images, and quickly find decent images to use with my posts, and in my webinars. When I was moving from site to site looking for appropriate images, I just about tore my hair out! Now it’s one and done!

I am also paying a bit more attention to my Linked In page – updating as needed and adding connections as necessary. I can connect in a relevant manner with all of the worlds that I venture into on Linked In, as credibility (to me, anyway) is relatively easy to determine on this site.

I have a tendency to share links as I run across them, and I share them on Twitter, Face Book, and Google +. Yes, this does take up some keystroke time! I just ran across this site, and have not worked with it yet, so please do not consider this a recommendation. It is a simple “Check this out.” Bufferapp.com is a site that lets you collect and send relevant material from the Internet at preset times. http://bufferapp.com/ The one issue that I have here is that it appears to only post to Twitter and Face Book, and not to Google +.

Last, but not least – e-mail newsletters. I have friends who do this, and do this well. I have done this on and off over the years, and am currently of the mind that, at least for me, I don’t need both a blog and a newsletter. However, I do feel that a well written newsletter, sent out on a consistent basis, keeps the sender’s name out there, along with quality content.

Whatever you choose to do – make the social media work for you!

© February 2012 Bonnie Cehovet