Social Media for Writers

Presentation to Dorset Writers Network10th January 2015

What are Social Media?

“Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, wiki or video hosting site”

Capilano University

The BIG 4

Twitter – chatty, immediate

Facebook – friendly, informative

LinkedIn – professional, networking

Blogging – in-depth, observational

Should we be joining in?

YES!

Raise awareness of you and your

writing

Customers / fans

Big commitment

Different profiles

The FactsIn the last year:

Twitter – 1,736% increase, 175m users worldwide, average 460,000 new accounts per day

Facebook – 700m users worldwide (30m in UK), over 50% log in every day, 48% over 35 & well educated, greatest growth in over 50’s, 96% increase in women

over 65 *courtesy of Clicky Media

*

Why you should use Twitter

Keep readers / fans updated

Raise awareness of new projects

Comment on other writers / events

Check out the competition!

Research

Reinforce your ‘brand’

Business or personal?

Follow appropriately

Use hashtags #

Use links to Website & Facebook

The Facts

Google sites handle about 100 billion searches each month  (SEL)

YouTube hosts nearly 14 billion videos  (comScore) Facebook is now over 1.1 billion users  (Facebook) Google+ has over 500 million users  (Google) Twitter has over 550 million accounts  (Statistics

Brain) LinkedIn is at 225 million users  (LinkedIn) Pinterest has more than 70 million users  (The

Next Web) Courtesy of of www.socialstacked.com

The reach of social media

Retweeted 2.4 million times by 2 a.m. Monday and had 32.8 million total views

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Tweeting

The ideal Twitter profile should consist of about: 30% conversational @replies 30% retweets 40% interesting broadcast tweets,

hopefully with an opinion or link, of which only about 25% (10% of total tweets) are self-promotional

Courtesy of marketingwizdom

Facebook

More space for information

Photos, video (YouTube) & audio

Competitions

Forums

Fans

Facebook facts

Page not profile

Separate contacts

Check your stats

Target your adverts

Facebook tips

‘Like’ other people / organisations Comment and people will see your

profile picture Vary your content Don’t be afraid to share content Safe vs controversial?

Website

People need to find you

Your shop window

Keep it simple

Landing Page

Links to social media accounts

Basic requirements

Home Page

Who are you

Publications

Testimonials

Contact page

LinkedIn

Professional profile

Networking

Join conversations

Share expertise

Blogs

Great place to showcase your writing

More scope for opinion

Monitor what people are saying about you

Join in conversations

Blogging

Have a plan!

Establish blog goals

Define blog’s purpose

Decide frequency

Blogging tips

Encourage shares by adding button Make the blog title eye-catching Check out other blogs Use Google Trends to tie in content Use keywords effectively Use images

Any Questions?

Liz Gordonwww.brilliantfish.co.uk

Tel: 01202 747136