social media tips Archives - Social Media Just for Writers

Social Media Tips for Assault and Domestic Violence Survivors

January 12, 2015 By Frances Caballo Leave a Comment

What can you do to build your author platform if you’re a survivor of domestic violence or rape?

It’s not an uncommon question. Consider these facts from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime
An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.
Females who are 20 – 24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.
Almost one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.

Blogging & Social Media Tips for Writers

August 29, 2014 By Frances Caballo Leave a Comment

This week’s Roundup includes two posts from Adam Connell of Blogging Wizard because we can all learn a great deal from this talented blogger. Don’t miss the post by Denise Wakeman on how to turn your written content into video. Content is king and video is a super way to deliver it. We have so much to learn from her. There are also great posts from Rachel Thompson — with social media tips for writers — and HubSpot. Enjoy!

How To Turn Your Written Content Into Video Content by The Future of Ink: When it comes to marketing, content is still king. Content drives sales of your products and services, and keeps your customers engaged in your business. However, content is also a hungry beast that must be fed – constantly. In order to stay visible and relevant, you have to continue to “feed the beast” and consistently crank out new content and material. That’s why it’s such a great idea to r epurpose your existing content and give your old material new life.

20 Top Productivity Tools For Bloggers: Increase Your Productivity Immediately by Blogging Wizard: I don’t have time. Have you ever said this to yourself or to someone else? I’m sure most of us have at some point in time, even the best of us. It’s a self-limiting belief which stops us from being more productive. It’s not that we don’t have enough time, it’s that we need to find ways to do more with the time we have. In this post I will show you tools to help you become more productive. Whether you want to stay focused while writing, organize your time better or automate tedious tasks.

8 Blogging “Rules” You Should Probably Ditch by Search Engine Watch: As with everything digital, blogging is an evolving field. What was once an accepted blogging practice may just not work in today’s changed landscape. So it may be time to sit back and evaluate whether generally accepted blog best practices still apply to you or not.

The Most Effective Social Media Channel Is… by Rachel Thompson for BookPromotion.com: Easy: the one you like to use the most! Sounds basic and simple, but with all the advice flying around about ‘author platform’ and being everywhere at once (not possible, I’ve tried), what’s an author to do?

How To Make Every Piece Of Blogging Advice More Effective by Blogging Wizard: There’s a fatal flaw in the way we apply advice about blogging. It’s gotten to a point where the lines are blurred. We are applying advice, it’s not working and we’re giving up. Or in some rare cases we apply advice that does more harm than good. But the truth is that it doesn’t have to be that way. There is an approach we can take to help us focus our efforts and make the advice we’re given work for us. In this post I’ll show you how.

How to Get People to Read Your Entire Blog Post by HubSpot: Once upon a time, you wrote an article. It was a good one. It took you four and a half hours, required a ton of research, and maybe cost you a very late night. After you wrote the article, proofread it, edited it, added images, and published it, you felt good about yourself. Clicking the “publish” button gave you a huge sense of satisfaction. Then, you sat back to wait for the accolades, the reads, the shares, the engagement, the fame. Let me interrupt this fairy tale with a cold, hard fact. Most of the people that see your article won’t read the whole thing.

Avoid Social Media Time Suck Final by Frances Caballo

Does social media take up too much of your time? This book is filled with time management tips and apps to save you time.

About the Author: Frances Caballo is a social media manager for writers and author of Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write, Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Presently, she is the Social Media Manager for the Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter and the San Francisco Writers Conference. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

Social Media Tips for Writers (And Reluctant Marketers)

June 10, 2013 By Frances Caballo 4 Comments

Practical Tips for Marketing Your Books on the Social Web

The biggest resistance writers have to jumping into social media is that they fear they will need to spend countless hours in front of their computers posting, tweeting, updating and commenting.

I refer to this as the “time suck factor.”

You’re a writer and that means you love to write. You don’t particularly want to market your book but you’ve been told that you have to and you accept that fact, although grudgingly.

News flash: Marketing doesn’t have to be an ugly word.

We’re not conducting robocalls or telemarketing. And we’re not creating direct mail appeals – junk mail – that people toss without even opening an envelope.

We’re in the era of new marketing: social media marketing and the beauty of it is that it’s not interruption-based marketing. Your message is waiting for people when they choose to navigate to Twitter or Facebook or other social media networks.

But you’re still afraid that if you start to use social media you will lose track of time and spend hours in front of the computer when you should be writing or going to the gym. Am I right?

Nonsense. Fitting social media into busy schedules is easy.

You can manage your own social media marketing and still have time to write, cycle, relax with a novel, or soak up suds in a tub by following a simple four-point plan.

1. Curate

2. Schedule

3. Be social

4. Measure your results

By spending as little as 20 – 30 minutes a day, you can grow your contacts, further your brand, sell more books, and stay in touch with colleagues and friends.

Here are my social media tips for writers that will help you to better manage your time while marketing.

Curate Stellar Content

There are a wide variety of applications and websites that can help you to find great content in your niche. These are a few of my favorites.

Zemanta

Described as “your blogging assistant” on its website, this WordPress plugin will suggest content and royalty-free images for your blogs. It will also recommend your post to other Zemanta users and suggest posts by other writers to include at the bottom of your post, giving your readers additional resources. What writers may like best about this free application is that it can also help you conduct research for your next post and help you to find images.

CurationSoft: Download this program to receive help in finding information you need based on keywords you choose. The company offers free and paid ($49/year) versions.

Scoop.it

Enter your keywords and this application will scour the Web for you. You can discard or keep the articles and posts that Scoop.it suggests and even create your own customized “magazine.”

AllTop

Not an application but a website, this is the top online source for the hottest trending information on the entire blogosphere from A to Z.

Schedule Your Posts in the Morning

There are numerous applications to help you plan your day. Here are a few for you to consider and use at the start of your day.

Buffer

The free version allows you to post four tweets daily while with the paid version – starting at just $10/month – you can post as often as you’d like. Buffer interfaces well with other applications such as SocialBro and the browser Chrome.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers a great free plan that allows users to tweet and post as often as they’d like. The paid version will allow you to also post to your Google+ pages and offers analytics.

SocialOomph

This application is a scheduler on steroids. You can schedule recurring tweets, track keywords and hashtags, check your incoming feeds, and analyze your click-through-rates to your website. They offer a 7-day trial plan that’s free.

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a free application that enables you to manage your Twitter feed, schedule tweets, and monitor and manage unlimited accounts.

You Don’t Have to Be a Party Animal to Be Social

It’s important to schedule time in your day to be social. What does this mean?

At the end of your day, right before or after dinner, spend some time on social media. Like and comment on posts you find in your newsfeed on Facebook. Check your Contact feed on Twitter to see who messaged you or followed you. Reply to tweets by telling users that you liked a quote they sent out. Follow back users who followed you during the day – assuming they are interesting enough – and comment on their blog, website, or Facebook page.

Read a few blogs and leave comments. Check in on one of your groups on LinkedIn and add to the discussion. Check in on your Google+ communities.

In other words, put the social in social media to work but limit your time to about 15 minutes.

Check Your Return on Investment (ROI)

I love this quote:

“Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better.” Avinash Kaushik, Google Analytics Evangelist

Time is precious so it’s important to check to see whether your marketing efforts are having any effect. Here are some applications that can help you to make that determination.

SproutSocial

I use this application and I really like it. It provides detailed information about my social media accounts. For example, during a recent 30-day period, I had 294 mentions, 184 retweets and there were 3,800 clicks to my domain. On Facebook one week, Monday and Thursday were the days when my page had the most engagement. SproutSocial also measures my influence, analyzes my audience, and let me know whether not I’ve been social enough.

SocialBro

This application will analyze your tweets and let you know which days and times are your optimal times for sending your messages. It integrates with both Buffer and Hootsuite.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics measures sales and conversions and offers information on how visitors arrived at your website and how they use it. This information is important because you can use it to improve your conversations (book sales!).

So, spend 10 to 15 minutes in the morning curating and scheduling, spend 10 to 15 minutes in the late afternoon or early evening socializing, and finally, spend a few minutes a week analyzing your indicators so that you can measure and adjust your posts.

How do you balance writing with social media?

About the Author: Frances Caballo is a social media strategist, trainer, and author of Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Presently, she is the Social Media Editor for the Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter and the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.