I recently got some great advice regarding promoting one's writing on social media and I thought I'd pass it along to you. Well actually, there's two things:
First off, you may have heard all the advice about building an online platform for yourself. You've got to have a presence on Twitter and Goodreads and Tumbr and Facebook and Linkdin and Pinterest and a blog and who knows what else!! All that is fine and good if you are a twenty-something techno-geek that loves playing online 24/7. It's not fine if you have a family and a real job and real life responsibilities like most people. It can get overwhelming in a hurry. Yes, you still do need to promote yourself and your work online. So what to do? Here's the great advice:
Explore your options and decide which ones appeal the most to you. Do those!
If you aren't an "status update" kind of person, maybe Facebook isn't for you. If you don't see the point in saying anything less than 140 characters, maybe Twitter isn't your thing. You will be most effective on those sites that you enjoy visiting and using and conversing with readers on. There's no reason to try to use a site that makes no sense to your brain (i.e. me and Tumblr). You won't be effective there anyway, so don't worry about it. If your writing is good, your readers will find you wherever you are, which leads me to the second thing I wanted to mention:
Writers write! Don't spend so much time on social media that you sacrifice your writing. That's my new problem, so with that, I'm going to write! See you tomorrow~
#31dbc Yes, all of the social media outlets can be overwhelming. It's so easy for me to get caught up in trying to keep up with everything and everyone online that I lose track of time and the 30 minutes that I intended to spend turns into 2 hours. I almost feel driven to compulsion to have an online presence because it seems that no one takes you seriously these days if they can't Google you.
ReplyDeleteGood advice. Your audience is also important in decision-making. If whomever you are targeting isn't really on those other platforms and isn't going to find you there, it's not worth the time/effort involved.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by! I agree, audience should be key. I'm writing for young people and I find myself struggling to reach those readers online via social media. But I'm building my platform anyway with the hopes that some day they'll find me!
ReplyDeleteHey Lisa, my blogging writer friend, you are on point with this. I am working on a manuscript for my application to The Iowa Writers Workshop and there is no way I could manage writing, working, living and all of the social media sites you mentioned. I struggle with keeping up with FB and Twitter, they are more than enough for me. #HappyWriting
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