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
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
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