5 Ways to Promote Your Writing on Social Media

by Marie Barnes

Promoting your writing on social media has become so much easier now that we have plenty of tools and opportunities to do that. However, you need to realize that some social media platforms are more suitable for written material, some are less. In any case, with a smart approach and clear goalsetting, you will be able to get the most out of any social media channel. So, take a look at these 5 social media platforms and ways that you could use them for your writing’s promotion.

Twitter

This social media platform has been around for a while and still remains to be popular with people, and, what is even more important, relevant for writers and their promotional needs. Twitter is great for sharing links to your materials, for example. It provides great integration opportunities for WordPress users, allowing them to share even scheduled posts.

Twitter is an active platform where it is super convenient for authors to announce their new projects, talk to their fans, and create a supportive community. For those who are only starting with their writings, it is best to use popular hashtags, such as #writerslife, which allow you to find your target audience. 

Keep in mind that you should follow some rules to get noticed on Twitter:

●      Fill in you bio

●      Put a link to your personal website

●      Provide your real name or pseudonym you are known for as a writer

●      Avoid buying followers

●      Put up a real and clear photo of you

●      Be active and not too ‘promotional’

Instagram

While on Twitter, you have to focus on the written message mainly, Instagram is all about providing a nice picture. This is the first thing that a person will notice about your post. In order to make your image eye-catching, you can use Photza portrait retouching service. If the image is appealing enough, the person will move on to the text. The appealing text leads to a ‘follow’ and so on. 

When it comes to promoting your writings on Instagram, you should apply the same rule that has been discussed previously - provide as much information about you as possible. Your bio should clearly show who you are and what you do. Always put a link to your website or a platform where you publish your materials. Do not forget about Instagram’s‘ stories’ feature, while traditional posts might sometimes get lost in the feed, stories can still attract new people.

Another great idea you could use is to show people what stands behind your writings, show them what inspires you in pictures.

Goodreads

Unlike the previous two platforms, this one has been created specifically for writers and their needs. New users can sign up to it either as an author or a reader. The first option, however, is excellent for those who want to promote their writings. Goodreads has quite a few fantastic features, such as targeted ads, promo campaigns, and the option to arrange personalized sales.

This platform also provides its users to leave a ranking to any author they want, therefore, making it possible for authors to get more sales on Amazon, as Goodreads is one of Amazon’s many projects.

Being an author on Goodreads, you still can leave reviews for other authors’ books, expanding your reach, and making more people learn about your work. Obviously, for people to start following you, an organized and informative page is a must.

Finally, you could use Goodreads as your blog and tell stories about yourself or your works, making people know you not only as an author but also as a person.

Facebook

Currently, Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms that is a wonderful place to reach your target audience by, promote yourself and the thing you do. Considering how many people are actually its users, ‘no matter what you write about - you will definitely be able to reach your target audience’ - says Ann, one of the writers from The Adsy. 

There are three ways that you could promote your writings on Facebook. The first one would be to do that using your personal page, for example, you could share links to your works on your feed or post your writings directly into the feed if the size is appropriate. 

The next way is to create an official author’s page. This option will give you more control over the marketing side of your brand’s promotion, and you will avoid the common mistake of getting your business and personal life mixed. 

Finally, the third option is to create an author’s group or join the already existing one. It is a great way to communicate with your target audience personally and attract new fans.

Pinterest

Despite what many people may think of Pinterest, it is a great promotion platform for writers. However, keep in mind that it is a bit different from the ones that we have discussed previously. You see, when you post something viral on Facebook, you will get a huge increase in traffic right away, but in a couple of days, those numbers will eventually decrease. With Pinterest, it is different. Posting a pin will ensure you small but steady traffic, which you will be able to accumulate with increasing the number of your pins. You might even notice that your exposure on Pinterest has outgrown the one on Facebook or Instagram over time.

How could you present yourself as an author on Pinterest? First of all, you can use the function of ‘pinned products’ and actively sell on Pinterest. Or turn it into your own visual library so that newcomers will be able to see hardcovers of your books - the choice is yours.

Final Thoughts

As you see, each of these platforms can be in some way adjusted to the needs of a writer looking for self-promotion. Knowing each platform’s weak and strong sides, it is possible to build a strong marketing strategy around them and give your writings a significant boost on social media, attracting new followers and fans.

Regardless of which platform you will choose, the key moment here is to be genuine and consistent with your posts. 

Marie Barnes is a writer for Bestforacar. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs. She shares her insights through blogging. Follow her on Medium.

How Writing It Down Can Be the Secret To Success

by Lewis Robinson

Writing is a secret weapon which is often ignored. Making out time to write about your ideas, goals, experiences, and strategies can help organize your time and bring realism into perspective. Researchers across the world claim that taking notes, whether on paper or a mobile device, can be a good way to fall back on. Some of us are comfortable jotting down on paper; others find it easier to note things using tech.

Writing to reflect on your progress is a good way to measure your accomplishments and highlight areas where you could not give your 100 percent. Whether you are a student or a business professional, keeping track of your performance and setting targets by documenting them can lead to higher goal clarity. It gives you a sense of achievement. With this comes an added advantage of thought clarity, quintessential for personal development.

Writing to think of new ideas and solving problems can lead to quick and more structured resolutions. It is easier to brainstorm on an idea which is written down somewhere rather than having it float in your thoughts. Writing down your problems can help you meditate on a multitude of possible solutions.

Writing down your goals is a more realistic approach to the goal setting process. It helps you associate the resources you will need, the efforts that you need to aggregate and makes it easier to fathom the outcome. You could draw a mind map to specify your goals, organize them in bullet points or use software applications like Trello or Taskworld to get from bigger picture to minute details. A Harvard Business School study claims that students who had their goals written earned ten times more than their peers.

Writing helps you think big because it makes you explore a plethora of possibilities. From businesses to classrooms, encouraging people to write can help them innovate and utilize resources optimally. For example, documenting accounts of your business is vital. It gives you an idea of where the money is going. Depending on your preference, you can maintain a spreadsheet or a ledger sheet for your accounts or manually post them to ledgers and journals. While most big businesses hire accountants and bookkeepers to do this job, mid-sized and small businesses are at a significant disadvantage. They can either keep a record of their revenue and expenditure on their own or outsource this task to virtual bookkeeping services. With the advent of Web 2.0, ease of access to online resources, increased connectivity with others and availability of easier ways of noting things down, has made services like bookkeeping widely available to small businesses across the world. Several online and remote bookkeeping services like QuickBooks provide users with cost effective solutions.

Writing to process your emotions can be immensely useful for regulating feelings. Psychologist Matthew Lieberman at the University of California at Los Angeles, says that keeping a diary, writing poetry or penning down lyrics of a song can help you come to terms with your emotions. Writing helps you sort inner conflicts thus accentuating belief in self and enhancing your self-knowledge.

Researchers have always stated that writing down things improves communication with others and more importantly with the self. Often people have difficulty in articulating their thoughts properly or are too shy to express themselves freely. Penning down your thoughts raises your emotional intelligence quotient and instills self-confidence. Irrespective of your occupation or the business you own, writing can be a fruitful exercise. It is imperative to retreat before you can charge ahead. Organize what you've learned by writing it down in a diary or a journal which can provide you with full retrospect. You can see how you have grown, emotionally and intellectually over time. It is a utilitarian tool which helps you grow in personal as well as professional space. Make sure you get the best of it.

Lewis Robinson is a business consultant specializing in CRM and sales. He's begun multiple corporations and currently freelances as a writer and personal consultant.

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Characters

by Molly Crockett

Whatever kind of story you are writing, creating good characters is essential. Try to avoid these common mistakes writers make when it comes to character creation:

2-Dimensional Characters

The first mistake writers make is creating cardboard cut-out characters – to avoid this, try to give them life and make them seem like a real person. Humanize them and surround them with evidence of their lives, personality, and past to create believable characters with which readers can identify.

You also need to build strong and meaningful relationships for these characters – the relationships, whether romantic or not, do not have to be a major plot point but they should contribute to the characters. This could be in building a better sense of who they are and how the interact with the world, or by showing their humanity through their connections to other people.

Characters Without Roles

Perhaps a character is very well developed, fully rounded-out, and 3-dimensional – but if they have no role in the story, they really aren’t necessary or worth the time and space they take up.

This also means that each character needs their own arc of development – just as you build a full story arc for your main character, consider each side character as if they are on a journey of their own. When developing their story arcs, treat them like they are the main character of their own story. And don’t forget to include them – even in the background – when the story is focusing on the main character or plot. Don’t make the mistake of not mentioning a side character for a few chapters simply because they aren’t necessary for the plot at that time: you still need to include them in the periphery or at the very least explain or justify their absence.

Overcrowding

Kendra Brandon, a novelist at Revieweal and Bestbritishessays, explains: “Don’t waste prime time/space on minor characters – overcrowding the story will become confusing and distracting for the reader. Instead, focus on making your core group of characters memorable and distinct.”

It can be tempting to create as many fun, interesting, clever characters as your imagination can dream up, but at the end of the day it really is about quality over quantity. This may mean you have to combine a few people into one character, but ultimately this will help you create more in-depth personalities and make it much easier for your readers to follow your writing.

Overwriting

It can be easy to get swept up when you are describing a character’s actions, thoughts, dialogue, or motivations. Good creative writing is not about being overly descriptive and figurative and using as many words and ways to describe things as possible. Good creative writing is about conveying such rich descriptions in as few words as possible – being precise, effective, and clear. Less is more.

Thoughts Over Actions

Try not to spend too much time in your characters’ heads. Get away from describing their every thought and find ways to show these feelings and motivations through action. This is part of humanizing them and making them seem like real people readers can identify with. This doesn’t just mean following through from a character’s thoughts with actions, as this will seem repetitive and suggests you are not confident and competent enough to simply do what needs to be done. Readers will quickly lose interest if you describe what a character is feeling, what they think they should do about it, reviewing this course of action, and then finally doing it, and maybe even thinking about it afterwards. Get straight to the point. If the character is well-written enough, their feelings will show through their actions.

No Setting

Finally, you need to provide context for your characters and your plot. This means big picture settings like general surroundings and locations, which help provide a canvas for your plot, but more importantly when it comes to characters is the small-scale setting details. Put your characters in real life situations, vary their surroundings and circumstances, give them a chance to develop life and individuality through how they act in these situations. Francie Holt, a lifestyle writer at Uktopwriters and Bestaustralianwriters, says: “Use their senses to describe the setting and let their responses/reactions give more dimension to their character.”

Molly Crockett is a successful lifestyle writer for Bigassignments and Eliteassignmenthelp, where shares her inspiration and lifestyle tips with her audience. In her spare time, Molly enjoys teaching arts and writing skills for Stateofwriting.