Are you still on the fence about social media? Many writers are. The most common objection for ignoring social media that I hear is: “I don’t have time”.
Not too many months later, these are the same writers who contact me to tell me that:
- “My ebook’s not selling…” or
- “My biggest client just dropped off the radar. What now?"
What now, indeed. Now — social media. ;-)
How to waste time on social media
Big confession: I waste time on social media too. I drop in on LinkedIn or Twitter “for five minutes” and half an hour later, I realize that I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
I’m not saying that you need to be all business, all the time. Social media is social, after all. But you do need a plan.
Create a plan for your social media time
Start by working out how much time you have for social media. If you say you have “no time”, I won’t sympathize.
No writer has time for social media. We do it anyway. Kevan Lee at Buffer shares some time-management tips for social media. Consider this if you really don’t have time:
"Put in more time (or use it better)."
Next, create a little plan. Your plan will depend on how well-acqainted you are with the network you’ve chosen.
Which networks? Choose any two. Currently, I’m recommending Twitter, and LinkedIn for writers. I’ve pretty much ignored LinkedIn for years. Here’s what changed my mind: blogging on LinkedIn, or LinkedIn Publisher.
In this article, Debbie Hemley suggests that:
"LinkedIn Publisher offers an important new venue for sharing content. Publish a few articles on LinkedIn to test whether you receive higher visibility than on your own blog."
Back to creating a plan.
Let’s say you’re writing a novel. As you know, if you’ve read my insights into self-publishing, and my advice to blog your book, you need to start marketing as soon as you get the glimmer of an idea. Self-publishing isn’t as easy as it once was, and it’s going to get tougher.
You’re writing a novel, so your plan is simple: "get attention for my book BEFORE publication day." So, you combine blogging and social media. (Get Kindle Magic, it will help.) And you create a mailing list, so that you make sales of your new book on the day you publish it. This helps — Amazon will give you a boost. Once your book starts appearing on Amazon’s lists, you’ve got a chance of selling copies of your book going forward.
Big, big tip: please don’t say things like — “buy my book” endlessly on social media. There’s no need for that, and you’ll just annoy people.
So in summary:
- No writer “has time” for social media. Be there anyway;
- Create a plan for the social media time you’ve set aside.
We’re privileged to be writers. It’s an honor to be asked to help people and companies achieve their goals when we write for them. It’s also an honor to have people reading our writing. Social media helps. So make time. :-)
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Our Happy Holidays Package this year is HUGE. It helps you to write, and to sell, and will help you to develop the right mindset to conquer social media too.
