This is the fourth in a month-long series of posts about organising your writing life. You can find the previous parts in the newsletter archive here: archive.aweber.com/aliventures
Chances are, you have at least one social media account ... and quite possibly several. I've been blogging and writing online since 2008, and in that time, I've amassed quite a few accounts. It's all too easy to let these slide when things get busy.
While your focus should be on your writing, not on social media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites can be very useful tools for
connecting with readers and with fellow authors / bloggers. If your accounts need a quick clean-up, here's how to go about it (even if you only have a few minutes).
Five minute fix:
Login to Twitter (or any social network of your choice). Update your bio and your profile picture, if either are outdated. On all networks, you need to have a profile picture: if you have a default avatar, people
will assume you're very new and inexperienced ... or, worse, that you're a spammer. On Twitter, it's particularly important that you have a bio: it's one of the few pieces of information potential followers see about you.
While you don't have to use a photo of yourself, most people do: if you want to remain anonymous, you might use a cartoon-like version of your headshot.
Fifteen minute
fix:
Check that your Facebook page is up to date ... or if you don't have a Facebook page, create one! When I started out blogging, I added lots of people as "friends" on Facebook who I didn't know at all – they were people who read my blog or who'd come across me online. These days, I keep my personal profile separate from my Aliventures page (
www.facebook.com/aliventures) ... that way, I don't end up boring my real-life friends and family with updates about writing, and I don't over-share about my personal life with my blog readers!
You'll want to
check your "About" section in particular, but also take a look at your page as visitors see it (you can do this by opening a guest / incognito window in your browser and going to your page on Facebook).
Thirty minute fix:
Plan your social media updates for the next few days. I know this may sound a little weird (after all, isn't social media supposed to be spontaneous?) ... but most writers do schedule at
least some of their updates ahead of time. You can use tools like Buffer (
buffer.com/app) to pre-write updates to go out later. I tend to use these for sharing links to blog posts – my own and other people's
– and for sharing quotes about writing.
You might want to think about the types of updates you could write. Those might be:
- Short tips or quotes
- Brief excerpts from blog posts (if they can stand alone)
- Links to other people's posts
- Links to books that you're reading or have read
- Links to your own blog posts or books (don't overdo this!)
- Updates about your life or writing
- Photos or screenshots that your readers
would find interesting ... visual posts do well on social media
You may also want to come up with a schedule for using social media. I think 30 minutes a day is a good maximum, and you may well want to do less. (If you only have 30 minutes a day total, use it to write and don't worry about social media!)
What will you tweak today with your social media accounts? Or will you set up something new? Pop on over to
the Aliventures page on Facebook (
www.facebook.com/aliventures) to let us know how you got on!
