Social Media: Waste of Time?

Which Social Media Sites are Perfect for Writers?

Social-Media

 

Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook aren’t going away.  And in today’s connected world, customers research their purchases online.  It’s where your customers are, so meet them!

So many times I have heard writers say that social media just isn’t for them. It takes too much time. They are not sure where to start or how to keep it going. And besides, they should be focusing on running their company – not just posting pictures online – right?  Totally Wrong!

“When using social media, take advantage of something major
that those big publishers can’t match you on – Personality.”

Many writers view social media as a ‘free’ way to advertise.  It isn’t ‘free’ and it’s certainly not advisable to be used solely as an advertising platform.  A cardinal rule is to never ask people to buy goods or services.  I might add: never pressure people to like/follow you on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.  Rather, establish an authentic online personality, offer valuable information, analysis, opinion, and inspiring entertainment. Engage!

Here is an oversight of social media platforms where authors should engage:

Twitter
With more than 340 million visitors every month, Twitter offers an excellent opportunity to build a large base of followers.  To get more follows, use hashtags, retweet other tweets, and follow others.  Building a base of followers takes time, but once you reach 10,000 followers, it tends to take off on its own.

LinkedIn
Popular among professionals, with more than 320 million monthly users. LinkedIn is a great way to connect to others looking for consulting and coaching.  It’s also an excellent way to develop a relationship.  The platform is less effective for selling books than it is for selling services related to your book.  Which in turn might lead to book sales!

Instagram
The most popular of the photo-sharing platforms with over one billion monthly visitors, it is a great platform for posting photos of you or your books/services at any events.  Unlike other platforms, where hashtags either are not used (LinkedIn) or frowned upon if more than three are given, most Instagram posts contain often dozens of metadata tags.

Pinterest
The photo-sharing site is excellent for posting pictures of your book covers and other products.  Make sure to include links to the pages where they are sold. Because tagged items in Pinterest can go viral rapidly and show up high on search engines, it can significantly boost your sales.  Pinterest boasts 340 million monthly visitors.

YouTube
YouTube receives one billion monthly visitors and is the second-largest search engine in the world.  An incredible number of people go right to YouTube to see if there is a video on the topic they want to know about.  Because of this, on other search engines, such as Google, YouTube videos usually appear high in the search results.

Facebook
Facebook allows for excellent targeting of prospective customers if you are willing to pay for ads.  It’s not so great for just making posts unless you can develop a solid base of followers who regularly check your page.

Conclusion: Social media engagement is an area where authors can compete.  The barriers to entry are low and the costs of conducting posts and campaigns are minimal.

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Social Media: Is it a Total Waste of Time?

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Airshow-Acrobatics

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It’s always surprising: when searching on Google for a certain word or topic, I often find our own articles and blog posts, as well as re-posted content from our Google+ sites on Google’s first page. This very high ranking on Google’s Search Engine means that users find easily our content. And if YOU, as an author, write a lot of posts, blog articles etc. – always with a link to your website or Amazon author page – you will be high in Google ranking too and more people will learn about your books.

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Total Waste of Time
Authors flock to Social Media sites to get the word out about their books. However, many writers see it as a waste of time and would rather write on their next book. Smart authors combine the best of the two worlds and post small snippets of their writing or interesting details of their research on Google+ posts. Think about it: if you combine your Google+ page with your Twitter presence, explained here in detail, you post only once on Google+ and it appears on Twitter as well. You save 50% of your time on Social Media!

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Your Goal for Being Online:
Unless you have ten-thousands of dollars every month to spend on advertising for your book, you might use the more subtle way of book marketing and meet your readers online on Social Media sites. But what would your (potential) readers be interested in or want to hear from you? They certainly want to learn more about you as a writer and they want to learn about your books and get samples of your writing. It means you can do what you like most: WRITING and at the same time give your potential readers and buyers of your book reasons to follow you and tell others, or re-post and re-tweet your content.

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Use Your Creativity
Authors often ask: “what should I post on Google+ or on Social Media sites in general?” Nothing easier than that. You can use every word, every fact, every location or scene in your book to write a short post, blog or even a long article. Even novels, such as a Science Fiction story has lots of potential to be used to write short articles. Just one example: I recently thumbed through a clients’ book and found on the first page, under acknowledgements, that she thanked the police chief of her town for giving her a tour and explaining her certain laws when she did the research for her book. Her meeting with the police chief and each one of the laws she learned about, could be the topic of a short article or blog!

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For Authors: It’s a Must to Be on Google+
Google has been using Google+ to discover new content, and many authors have discovered that URLs (links to their sites or articles), but also posts that they commented and shared on Google+ are indexed very quickly – and they find themselves often on page 1 on Google’s search results – one of the main reason to be on Google+ or to post on Google+ communities.
Compare this to Facebook, where privacy settings and restrictions on data sharing, make it rather often impossible for posts to never be crawled or indexed by Google at all. Unlike Facebook, which hides data from Google, or Twitter – which directs Google not to follow most of its links – Google+ data will be immediately and fully accessible on the Internet and readers can find you and your books easily. Each post on Google+ acts like a mini blog post and adds highly share-able, link-able context to the search engines. Last but not least: Don’t miss to link to all relevant profiles from your Google+ “About” page.

To sum it up:  Use your research and your manuscript to write lots of blog posts, articles and Social Media content and post it first on your Google+ page.  Combine your Social Media sites, linking to each of them.  Post with one click on several of your Social Media sites, which can be done by using scheduling sites, such as Hootsuite.com or Shortening Sites, such as Bit.ly. This is just for posting your articles – not for directly connecting with your followers or readers. The time you save when linking your Social Media sites is not only time you save to write, but also some time you can spend to connect directly with your readers!  Social Media = Social Networking.

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More About the Benefits of Google+

http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/how-to-get-your-author-page-on-googles-page-1/

http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/5-tips-for-a-successful-google-presence/

http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/3-top-reasons-to-be-on-googles-page-1/

http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/15-reasons-to-be-on-google/

http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/how-to-get-more-followers-on-your-google-page/

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