Social Networking - An Essential Tool in Promoting Your Writing
Published on 11th March 2015 by Diana NadinSocial Networking - An Essential Tool in Promoting Your Writing
Social networking is part and parcel of most writers’ lives these days. It provides a quick and easy way to keep your dedicated readers up-to-date with what you are doing and lets new readers know what it is you do. But, depending on how interactive you wish to be with your readers, it can become so much more than that. I’ve seen writers invite readers to offer up plot lines, character names, book titles and cover art. I’ve even seen one author offering his Twitter followers the chance to feature in his next book!
But which social networking tools should I use?
There are hundreds, but we’ll stick to the most accessible for writers wanting to promote themselves:
•website – first and foremost it’s best to get yourself a website. This will allow you to have somewhere to send people when they express an interest in your book. You can showcase a couple of chapters for people to read about, show the cover art, offer the book for sale and write a blog where you can keep people updated on your progress.
•blog – if you don’t want a fully functioning website, a simpler way to start is with a blog. Your readers can learn all about you and what you are up to. But if you start one, you should really aim to keep it updated on a regular basis. You’ll have to provide interesting, relevant content if you want to keep your readers coming back. However, no matter how great your blog is, if you don’t spend some time promoting it, no-one will know about it and your good work will go to waste.
•facebook/twitter – it’s pretty much expected that writers will have a Facebook page and twitter account at the very least. You can give short updates on the progress of your writing, any new pieces you’ve had published, promote your website or blog.
•LinkedIn – this is more of a professional networking site, but you can still make some very useful contacts as you never know who you might come across – the managing director of a major bookshop for example or a buyer for a supermarket.
This is just a taster of what you can do with social media – there are so many other places to network if you just take the time to look. Pick whichever you feel most comfortable with and which best suits the way you want to promote yourself.
But there’s no point spending hours writing interesting updates if there’s no one following – they won’t get read! So you’ve got to spend some time promoting your social media pages around the web – people need to know that you exist and where to find you. You can do this by:
•commenting on and following other people’s Facebook, twitter and any other social media pages they have
•commenting on blog posts and offering to write guest blog posts
•chatting in forums
And, don’t forget to leave a way for them to link back to your pages so they can follow you and see what you are up to!