3 Tools I Use for Social Media

(And the Unorthodox Way I Use Them)

So you want to be a writer.

I mean, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, right?

Of course not!

And that’s great! Being a writer allows you to explore a world beyond the one you inhabit. It allows you to build a special bond with the reader, and share something sacred and intimate.

Writing is hard. It’s a difficult job, full of long hours researching, organizing, and planning, and that’s before you’ve even written a word. To make things worse, it’s incredibly difficult to get anything published unless you have a strong social media presence. Now, if you’re like me, this might run against everything in your nature. I’m an extreme introvert, and hate putting myself out there the way social media requires you to. But it’s a necessary evil. For those of you who enjoy being on social media, rock on! I envy you. I wish it came easily to me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Social media is a must for any writer who wants to increase the odds of getting their work published, and can be a huge help to any serious writer by building a network of fans and peers.

Getting started on social media was difficult for me. However, I came up with a few strategies that I have found extremely useful. They might be a little unorthodox, but that’s part of the fun of writing — coloring outside the lines.

For this post, I’ll focus on Twitter, and how I organize my twitter content to streamline everything.

(Author’s note: I’m not a social media expert, and I still struggle with consistently putting up content. However, I recently found a way that works well for me, and I hope that it can help others out there to make this process less of a struggle!)

Twitter is a unique social media platform. Limited characters and the short lifespan of your tweets can make it a difficult platform to get the hang of, especially since it requires constant attention.

To combat this, I’ve developed a fairly simple system for my Twitter feed using three programs that I was already using for my other work: Canva, Scrivener, and Crowdfire.

CANVA

Canva is an online design platform that allows you to generate beautiful graphics and artwork for anything you might need — blog graphics, Twitter headers, Pinterest pins, etc. It even lets you make great PDF content and letterheads. It’s an all-in-one graphic design platform and super simple to use. If you’re not already using it for your blog and social media, you’re missing out!

One thing that I’ve recently started doing is generating a Twitter-content calendar. I have a monthly calendar, a weekly calendar, and a general weekly template.

Weekly Twitter Theme Calendar A simple template I use to keep track of daily themes and the tweets I want to post.

As you can see, each day has a theme. Let’s say I want to post at least two tweets a day. I’ll pick two subtopics (such as a quote, or an article, or something I’m working on) that correspond to the theme.

October Weekday Count This tells me the number of each weekday in the month, helping me track how many tweets I need for each corresponding theme.

I also have a monthly day-counter. When I’m organizing my material, I like to know how many of each day of the week there are in the month (I.e. October 2018 has five Mondays). This helps me know how much of a certain tweet I’ll need. For example, if I use a quote from an author every Thursday, I’ll need 4 quotes in October. Pretty simple, right?

That brings us to my next tool — Scrivener.

SCRIVENER

Scrivener is an amazing word processing program for anyone serious about writing. It allows you to compile everything you need into one document, link documents to source material for easy cross reference, and about a million other things that used to be time consuming and complicated. Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to use and will simplify your life.

Many writers and bloggers already use Scrivener, and I use it for this blog.

But I’ve also started using it to organize my Twitter content, making social media management a breeze.

Scrivener Twitter Template A simple template for keeping my Twitter content organized in Scrivener.

Each month gets a folder. Each folder gets a document for each week in the month, as well as an overview page. The overview page uses that day-counter from earlier to keep track of my content — how much I need of what type of content. I update it as I go. If you look at the menu on the left, you’ll see a research folder. Each of them has a document in this folder, and it’s where I store and accumulate notes, quotes, ideas, etc. When I need something for a tweet, I just go into the research folder, copy and paste, and voila!

Weekly Scrivener Template Short, sweet, and simple. A copy of the weekly template up top keeps the themes fresh in my mind.

Like I said, nice and easy, right?

Writing is hard. It’s a difficult job, full of long hours researching, organizing, and planning, and that’s before you’ve even written a word. To make things worse, it’s incredibly difficult to get anything published unless you have a strong social media presence.

CROWDFIRE

Now that I have a little archive of tweets stored up, I can go into one of my other favorite apps and schedule some tweets.

Crowdfire is a lifesaver for anyone who is not into social media. In the free version, you can schedule up to 14 tweets at a time. Upgrading gets you more, and is definitely worth it.

Crowdfire Scheduling Just compose your tweet like normal. Crowdfire does the rest!

Crowdfire also keeps track of your trends, and can schedule your posts for the best time based on activity on your Twitter, ensuring maximum exposure. It’s like the cheesy old informercials — you just set it and forget it.

Scheduled Tweet Page Note that Crowdfire automatically scheduled for the time — no guesswork necessary.

Crowdfire has several other useful features, and it’s not limited to only Twitter. It can schedule Facebook, Pinterest, and others. I’ll get into that in another post in the future.

Being a writer allows you to explore a world beyond the one you inhabit. It allows you to build a special bond with the reader, and share something sacred and intimate.

Social media is a must for any writer who wants to increase the odds of getting their work published, and can be a huge help to any serious writer by building a network of fans and peers. As I mentioned earlier, I’m still learning and still building up my platform, but I hope some of these tips for organizing your social media can help others like me who dread the thought of working on their social networks.

Thoughts, comments, concerns? Let us know in the comments. Please share with anyone you think needs some advice for social media, and don’t forget to follow us!

Sign up for you account at Canva today if you don’t already have one.

Interested in Scrivener? Check out their website, and be sure to check out their forums for some great tips, advice, and an overall great community.

Check out Crowdfire here — it will make your life so much simpler.

For more articles like this one or to learn about writing literary true crime, visit us at Crime: Executed online.