Rattlesnakes, Twitter, and You: An Amateur’s Guide to Social Media
In early spring of 2013, I headed to the Rattlesnake and Wildlife Festival in Claxton, Georgia with a hazy plan to write something about the event and an even hazier notion to live-tweet my experience. Never mind that I’d only joined Twitter and Instagram a few days before. How hard could it be? I thought. Pretty hard, turns out, since I had no cell reception in rural Georgia.
Despite failing completely at half of my plan (I did eventually write something about the festival), I decided to keep both of my new social media accounts. For starters, I liked Instagram immediately. There’s no pressure to be witty. There are loads of kittens and trees. I am by no stretch of the imagination a social media marvel, but I’ve learned some tricks during the past few years that I thought other writers might appreciate. If you’re intimidated by these platforms, maybe I can help. We all know the major don’t of social media — don’t self-promote more than, say, 10% of the time unless you want your relatives to get their eyes stuck while rolling them — but what are some ways to connect with readers?
1) If Facebook is for lovers, Twitter is for strangers. Sure, I have a few friends in real life who I follow on this platform, but I mostly interact with people I’ve never met. This takes some getting used to, and I’m still shy about jumping into conversations. If seeing news from writers (or gardeners or astrologers) you don’t know sounds boring, that’s okay. Each social media arena has a unique personality, and you can use the ones that work best to you. In fact, spreading yourself too thin will probably lead to weariness, and although social media feels like part of a writer’s job these days, it’s supposed to be fun, right?
2) If there’s a trick to gaining followers, it’s consistency. Posting regularly about a limited number of topics is the best way to gain followers. It’s okay to share the occasional personal anecdote — especially if you’re funny — but in general, stick to one or two topics that excite you.
3) I’ve heard jokes about Twitter being the place where people talk about what they’ve had for lunch, but I assume those bon mots are from people who have never used this platform. Twitter is about sharing content. Found a great article about the impressive memory of crows? Include a brief introduction, tag the author, and share the link.
4) Make the link as small as possible by using a program such as ow.ly. No sense in wasting characters; plus your tweet will be prettier.
5) Use hashtags like salt. I really like salt, so maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Basically, you don’t want to overdo it with hashtags, which function as keywords, a way for strangers to find your posts. Even though Twitter invented hashtags (I think?), the users I like the most don’t really include them very often and don’t include more than one per post. I’m taking a blind guess as to why, but I suspect it’s because they’re kind of ugly and waste characters. If you want to join a public conversation such as the recent filibuster, use the going hashtag or hashtags. (The filibuster had a few, including the Game of Thrones pun #holdthefloor.)
6) My advice for all social media platforms is to make rules about who you follow or follow back. Otherwise, it’s exhausting to decide every time whether you want to respond. More or less, I follow back writers and people who interact with me in a positive way.
7) Blocking is your friend. Someone’s comment gives you the heebie-jeebies? Block. You’re not sure if an account is real or spam? Block. Trolls? Block, block, block.
8) Don’t schedule posts. A lot of accounts I admire do this, but sooner or later, there’s going to be a tragedy of some sort, and you don’t want your tweet about waffles to go out in the middle of the apocalypse.
1) Wade into the wonderful world of #bookstagram. I actually have two Instagram accounts, a personal one and a book review one I started a few months ago. The personal one is for my own enjoyment. I very rarely follow anyone I don’t know in real life. With that one, I don’t have any experience with trying to grow an audience because I frankly haven’t tried. On the other hand, I want folks to see my book review feed because I want to promote other writers. This is where #bookstagram comes in handy.
2) Use the hashtag #bookstagram when posting anything related to books. From what I can tell, there’s no hashtag stigma on this platform. Tag away! #bookstagram #instabooks #booklove #bookworm #books This is also how you find accounts to follow, and be prepared to see some gorgeous photos. This community loves books, and they love to make them look fabulous. You’ll learn some staging tricks fast enough, but…
3) …good lighting goes a long way. Use sunlight if possible. Try different angles. Experiment with the standard filters or upgrade with an app like Snapseed.
4) When someone from the bookstagram community likes one of your photos, click on their followers link. You’ll probably find some other cool accounts. Follow or “like” photos to show your appreciation. I’ll admit that I find this relaxing, scrolling through photos of books, clicking that heart button again and again.
5) Compliments! Let people know when you appreciate their images. Some of these photographers put tons of efforts into getting just the right shot. Let them know that you noticed.
1) Choose your own adventure. I’m betting you already have a Facebook account, so I’ll keep my advice brief here. Basically, you can create an experience that works for you by making rules. Mine are pretty simple: I don’t friend people I haven’t met in real life unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. For example, they edit a magazine I like, or they’ve sent me a message that seems genuine. Especially during a campaign season, you don’t want to invite crazies into your life. If you do not friend someone back, they probably won’t notice since they’re added to your followers anyway. They can still see your public posts.
2) Speaking of which, use the Public versus Friends tool. You can decide who sees your posts. When I post a poem from Guernica (where I’m the poetry editor), I always make it public. I want to reach as many people as possible. When I post a photo of my cat, friends.
3) Unfollow people you don’t want to see in your timeline. Unfollowing is not the same as unfriending, so they’ll never know. No guilt necessary.
4) Don’t use hashtags unless for humor. Yes, Facebook does have this capability now, but it’s late to the game. Facebook isn’t hip, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m not hip either, but I still like to dance. The advantage to this platform is that it’s a little slower than the others, a little more relaxed (especially if you unfollow anyone you don’t really know or who gets under your skin).
5) Do use images. They grab people’s attention as they scroll through their feeds. If you’re linking to an article, an image will usually load, but if you want to make an announcement, look to your own photos or ones in the public domain.
6) There’s some conflicting advice on this topic, but I vote to avoid author pages. Facebook’s algorithms don’t play nice with them.
Goodreads
1) Does this one cause the most anxiety for writers? Probably. I really liked using it before I published my first novel. Now I can see whenever there’s a new review, and I have to force myself not to look. Oh yeah, my advice: Don’t look at your books’ reviews. You can’t do anything about them, and I bet your very favorite novel — the one you think is darn near perfect, the one you re-read every year — has one-star reviews from some yahoos. What’s that, SkyReader101? You think Jane Eyre is boring? Bite me.
2) Do write reviews. On the other hand, we all know that reviews on Goodreads and Amazon really help writers. When you add a book to your list, when you rate it or review it, your followers see those actions. What’s nice about this platform is that you don’t have to craft a profound essay. Just let folks know what you liked or didn’t.
3) Again with the rules. Yes, I advise setting rules for yourself. Totally cool with the possibility that authors you might know in the future will see your pans? Throw those ratings out willy-nilly! I prefer to only rate books that are, for me, four- or five stars. I sometimes mark the other ones as “read” if I want to remember. This practice has been described as cheerleading, but since my high school didn’t have a cheer squad, this is my time to shine. Go team! (I’m also not one to finish books I don’t like, so maybe I’d feel differently then.)
4) Consider a giveaway. This platform runs giveaways really well. They basically promote themselves. Write an attention-grabbing description of your title, offer a few (2–5), then watch readers add your book to their to-be-read piles. After the contest ends, Goodreads will tell you where to send the books. I recommend including a personal note.
5) I’ve heard other users advise making sure you have an author profile and have the “ask me a question” feature on. Nobody has actually asked me a question, though, which is a shame because I sorely love giving advice (obviously). Which brings me to the comments section below.
Please share your own tips, especially if you are savvy with LinkedIn, Tumblr, SnapChat, Pinterest, or some hot new app that launched last night. And let me know if you have any questions about using the social media platforms I’ve included here. I’ll give your conundrums my best amateur swing.
Erica Wright’s latest novel is The Granite Moth (Pegasus Books, 2015), a sequel to The Red Chameleon (Pegasus Books, 2014). She is also the author of two poetry collections, Instructions for Killing the Jackal (Black Lawrence Press, 2011) and the forthcoming All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). She is the poetry editor and a senior editor at Guernica Magazine as well as an editorial board member for Alice James Books. She uses Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Instagram.
Find out about working with Erica as your novel writing coach. >>
