Social Media for Writers Presentation to Dorset Writers Network 10 th January 2015

What are Social Media?  “Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, wiki or video hosting site”  Capilano University

The BIG 4  Twitter – chatty, immediate  Facebook – friendly, informative  LinkedIn – professional, networking  Blogging – in-depth, observational

Should we be joining in?  YES!  Raise awareness of you and your writing  Customers / fans  Big commitment  Different profiles

The Facts In the last year:  Twitter – 1,736% increase, 175m users worldwide, average 460,000 new accounts per day  Facebook – 700m users worldwide (30m in UK), over 50% log in every day, 48% over 35 & well educated, greatest growth in over 50’s, 96% increase in women over 65 *courtesy of Clicky Media *

Why you should use Twitter  Keep readers / fans updated  Raise awareness of new projects  Comment on other writers / events  Check out the competition!  Research  Reinforce your ‘brand’

 Business or personal?  Follow appropriately  Use hashtags #  Use links to Website & Facebook

The Facts  Google sites handle about 100 billion searches each month (SEL)  YouTube hosts nearly 14 billion videos (comScore)  Facebook is now over 1.1 billion users (Facebook)  Google+ has over 500 million users (Google)  Twitter has over 550 million accounts (Statistics Brain)  LinkedIn is at 225 million users (LinkedIn)  Pinterest has more than 70 million users (The Next Web) Courtesy of of

The reach of social media Retweeted 2.4 million times by 2 a.m. Monday and had 32.8 million total views Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Tweeting The ideal Twitter profile should consist of about:  30%  30% retweets  40% interesting broadcast tweets, hopefully with an opinion or link, of which only about 25% (10% of total tweets) are self-promotional Courtesy of marketingwizdom

Facebook  More space for information  Photos, video (YouTube) & audio  Competitions  Forums  Fans

Facebook facts  Page not profile  Separate contacts  Check your stats  Target your adverts

Facebook tips  ‘Like’ other people / organisations  Comment and people will see your profile picture  Vary your content  Don’t be afraid to share content  Safe vs controversial?

Website  People need to find you  Your shop window  Keep it simple  Landing Page  Links to social media accounts

Basic requirements  Home Page  Who are you  Publications  Testimonials  Contact page

LinkedIn  Professional profile  Networking  Join conversations  Share expertise

Blogs  Great place to showcase your writing  More scope for opinion  Monitor what people are saying about you  Join in conversations

Blogging  Have a plan!  Establish blog goals  Define blog’s purpose  Decide frequency

Blogging tips  Encourage shares by adding button  Make the blog title eye-catching  Check out other blogs  Use Google Trends to tie in content  Use keywords effectively  Use images

Any Questions? Liz Gordon Tel: