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Writers and Social Media
How to amplify your profile
Why do you need social media?
A web profile will lift search results in Google/Facebook rankings (Facebook is actually
more important for searches now)
Readers like to know more about the author
An opportunity to release extracts before book launch and build an audience
Easy access for journalists, bloggers and other media outlets to contact you for interviews
and promotion
Twitter Profilesedia?
Compare the
profiles on the
following two
slides.
Who has the
more interesting
profile?
This profile
contains a lot
more
information
and uses the
header
space to
contain more
facts about
the writer.
It is a much
better
indication of
who the
author is than
the previous
profile.
You don’t have time for all the social media
out there so narrow it down to 3 or 4
• Know your audience/market.
Where are they?
Who are they?
What platform do they use?
• Facebook is essential
• YouTube for video
Who uses what
Journalists, writers and media personalities love Twitter and Instagram (Insta) Think Donald
Trumps Presidential campaign Kim Kardashian, Charlie Sheen, Major Newspapers etc…..
Pinterest - Lots of women on Pinterest, particularly good for arts, fashion, crafts and cook
books
Instagram popular for photo sharing by artists, foodies, fashionistas, travellers, animal lovers
especially dogs, selfies (over 50% of users are under 25)
Snapchat if you want a younger audience – 75% of users are under 35
Creating multiple profiles
Create several versions of your social media bios (3 versions in one document)
Have a long version, 2,000 character bio – long form bio taken over from cv or resume for
Shorter version, for Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest
Broadcast: 75 to 100 word bio introduction before speech or media interview
What do I write in the profile?
Be specific – not general (show not tell)
Books, articles, speeches, radio interviews, degrees, length of time in business, name
recognition clients, talents, skills, abilities
Provide details (instead of I’m a writer) say author of The Jam Factory and How Deep is the
Learning Curve, freelance journalist for the Huffington Post, MamaMia blogger, podcaster
and regular guest on the ABC and SBS networks – specific examples, facts and figures and
quantity
Brag but don’t exaggerate – be bold but don’t lie, or mislead
Creating a Twitter Profile
An effective Twitter background generates instant credibility for your profile, book, or
product, You can show a series of book covers written over the years
Your next step on the path to Twitter greatness is to write a short 160-character profile. This
is your book-at-a-glance opportunity on Twitter. Five of the key items to consider in writing
your profile include:
Who are you professionally?
Who are you personally?
What keywords describe you?
Use your real name so you can be found, and list your primary website. You'll notice at the
beginning of the profile some of Chuck’s professional accomplishments using keywords.
Try jotting down a Twitter profile now
Promotion
A few elements to consider when composing your customized background include:
your name,
website address,
A headshot, different than your profile picture,
photos of any books you have written,
a favorite quote by you or someone else,
A personal logo, colors consistent with your logo and or website
Using different profile picture to inset
Use Social Media for Cross Promotion
You can cross-promote your other media sites
and content, including webinars, video casts,
podcasts, Ebooks, blog posts and more.
Because of its popularity, roughly 86% of small
businesses have a Twitter account set up. But
only 25% tweet once a day.
TRANSLATION: most entrepreneurs and
businesses don't know how to use Twitter in a
way that's going to produce the best results
for their brand.
Trump’s Twitter Rants
• Trump’s tweeted more than 34,000 times and is
followed by 15 million people;
• Twitter was his outlet for reaching constituents directly,
and he took advantage of that with a tweetstorm
• He’s insulted nearly 300 people, places, and things
Avoid Celebrity Spats
Writers on Twitter
Poets and Puns on Twitter
What should I tweet?
Bear this in mind when you're composing your tweets.
When appropriate, put in keywords that you know reflect your book or brand and that
your audience is likely to be searching for.
Sparingly use hashtags to highlight your keywords. Use the #hashtag, or pound symbol,
before a relevant keyword or phrase with no spaces in between. This will categorize those
tweets and help them show up more easily in a Twitter search for that particular keyword
or phrase.
Use the 90-10 rule of content. 90% of your tweets should be content-driven and only 10%
promotional. This means that nine out of 10 of your tweets should provide valuable
information, content, opinions, and ideas to your audience and only one out of 10 should
be asking them to buy something.
Hashtags and links
Mix up your tweets
You should mix up your tweets. A healthy, robust combination of tips, questions,
comments, opinions, as well as links to other websites, blogs, articles, audio and video
make for a healthy, happy Twitter account.
Try adding images. As with most social media today, images generate engagement.
Tweets with images result in a 36% increase in clicks, a 41% increase in retweets, and a 55%
increase in leads.
Tweet this
There was once a competition on who could write the shortest science fiction story.
"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door....“ by Frederick
Brown
Think of a tweet as a short, punchy narrative.
Rewrite the following tweets using 140 characters. Use # (where appropriate):
1. Telling readers your new book ‘The Spy who said no,’ is on Amazon
2. Tweet that Stephanie Myers latest book is full of recipes and color photos,
3. Tweet this profile: I used to be a nurse and now I write romance novels about doctors,
patients, nurses and a thing called love.
Avoid tweets
like these. It
looks like an
obituary,
particular the
one on the far
right. Why does
she need a
white drop
shadow
around the
book and her
image?
Virtual Book Launch on
Hosting a virtual event on Facebook is a fairly simple, three-step process.
Before the event, you should fill out the new event form. This is where you put the relevant
information about your event, including Date, Time, Location, Description, et cetera.
acebook
Create a Facebook
event page to host your
Virtual book launch.
Giveaways
Build buzz for the event
with your email
list, promote the event on
other social media. place
event info on your email
signature line, and offer a
prize to share the event
URL. Amazon allows you to
offer prizes
Should you pay for promotion?
HOT TIP, write up a series of posts
about your event and pay a nominal
amount to make it a Promoted
Post. Only 16% of your fans see a
given update from your page so you
may want to expand your reach
through a Promoted Post. You also
have the option of paying a small fee
to boost your page. This is an
excellent way to get newcomers to
your event.
During the Event
Make sure you do the following things:
Keep people engaged by posting useful information every three to five minutes on your
Twitter Feed, Instagram or Google+, Snapchat
Give away free services and products in exchange for viewer's emails,
Do a Q&A session as part of the event.
Post Event
After the event, you'll want to do the following.
Create a list of tweets attendees can post after the event, follow up with additional
content, such as a
webinar,
ebook, teleclass, et cetera,
and finally, reach out on social media to follow up post-event.
More on posts
Finally, to get the most out of building your personal brand on Facebook, let your personal
brand story unfold update-by-update. Posting consistent, high-quality content that is on-
brand will help strengthen your relationship with your existing audience and expand your
reach to new connections.
Some posts you might consider placing include: quotes, questions, tips, images with
captions, an opinion on a timely topic, and a URL connection to relevant article or blog
posts, videos, surveys and polls, a story, albeit a short one, or a call to action. Just
remember that variety is the spice of life, online and off.
Super Fan group
Create a Super Fan group on Facebook. This isn’t a place for giveaways or special deals,
this is where you can dive into the writing of your books, giving avid readers a behind the
scenes look at her creative process.
Start a mailing list—something authors do better than any publisher—to send semi-regular
newsletters with alerts about deals and upcoming projects. Install a widget on your
website with a writing ticker/progress meter, which shows the status of works in progress.
interest
People pin images to create boards
You can pin your book covers, images from inside the book, short extracts, quotes, recipes,
hyperlinks to articles, your website, fan pages, topics related to your book
Brush up on Photoshop or similar photo imaging software to create unique image that stand
out from the stock photos seen on many websites
Join online communities
Pinterest great for those people who use a lot of visual imagery. Also good for inspiration.
Surprisingly does direct a couple of people to your website most days.
http://www.yourwriterplatform.com/use-pinterest-to-market-book-and-author-brand/
Can be useful for short
pieces of poetry, stories or
accompanying images.
Videos increase SEO – Search Engine
Optimisation
Having an author video improves your ranking in search engines.
You can place your video on Youtube or Vimeo and link to your social media sites
Creating a video has become a lot easier with cheaper software, microphones and
cameras
Talk about your book, but don’t give away all of the plot.
Author Videos
Amazon
The amazon author page is another way you can promote your books and direct people
to your social media brand
Use your author profile that I mentioned earlier, upload an image and cross reference all
your other books
Amazon has promotional deals including: giving people a gift voucher for your book, think
about offering Beat Street as a giveaway, buy 2 get one free deals, or have limited 7 day
deals
Remember, the trick is to stand out from the millions of other self-publishing authors.
Summary
Social Media is about maximising your online presence to create new followers and
engage readers.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the key to landing on the first page of
Google/Facebook searches.
Social media is a free marketing opportunity so start posting today.
#Have Fun
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