How To Be An Online Social Media Guru
How To Be An Online Social Media Guru
Having a large twitter following or a huge amount of Facebook friends is an invaluable tool for authors. Readers can get to know you as a person. I am at least ten times more likely to buy a book from an author I’ve talked to in person or chatted with on the internet. The world is changing and the internet is a powerful marketing tool, one that shouldn’t be ignored or abused.
That said, I’ve seen more authors go down in flames and ruin their reputation online that I’ve ever heard about through news media or by word of mouth. Twitter and Facebook have changed how the public judges you. A quick complaint or a long rant about life’s stress sticks you in people’s minds in a negative way. It’s like a car wreck and believe me, everyone stares and remembers.
The Top Ways to Lose Twitter Followers
1. Never-ever direct message me or anyone else about buying your book because we won’t. If you want to slap your twitter stream in the face twenty times a day, go ahead. Most of the people will unfollow you but that would be your prerogative.
2. Don’t curse in your tweets. A lot of us have children. If you’re a writer you should know another way to express yourself.
3. Unless I know you well enough to correspond with you, or ask for a link, don’t direct message me with one. I’ll think your account is hacked.
4. I don’t want to see you naked. Period. Not ever.
5. Also, I absolutely, positively, do not want to know what goes on in your bedroom. If you have a trapeze in there or leather things, don’t tell me. I’m a writer, I’ll have nightmares.
6. Don’t tweet your Facebook conversations with an app. It’s irritating. We can only see your end and you look like a crazy person.
7. Don’t retweet all of your #FollowFridays and #WriterWednesdays. It is also NOT OKAY to retweet offensive things. If I want politics and religion and porn all mixed together I’ll watch cable.
8. I know some of you use the RT button to announce that you agree with someone, just tweet them and tell them so. Have a normal conversation. We all don’t agree on some issues and you will lose people who you might actually like.
9. If you’re selling something, for goodness sake, have a contest and get people to your blog or website. Offer a coupon or a code, something. Otherwise quit telling me where to spend my money.
10. Drunk tweeting is funny for about two seconds, and then it’s sad.
11. Don’t use a service to tweet the same thing day after day after day. Engage with your followers. Even the most hopeful quote gets old when you see it twenty times. Try actually talking or asking a question.
The Top Ways to Keep Twitter followers
1. Be yourself
2. Tell us happy things sometimes. (We especially like cake and pie.)
3. We also love good news but not “I am sooooooooooo excited and I can’t tell you!” This makes us mad.
4. Anything that makes us laugh is great. There’s not enough happiness in the world for anyone.
5. Checking your charities and missing children tweets before you send them makes you a good person. We like people who can Google.
6. If you actually read a book and liked it, we love recommendations.
7. If you can spell YOU instead of using U, we like it lots. Also, we are fond of punctuation as well as correct spelling.
8. Jump in on our conversations so we can get to know you.
9. Cute kids and animal pictures make everyone go Awwww.
10. We like people who ask questions and there are no dumb ones, ever.
Facebook works the same as Twitter except more people will see it for longer periods. On twitter, people seldom retweet a rant. On Facebook, it’s almost a guarantee. Viciousness will gather a huge audience, like buttons will be clicked, and your venting will stay at the top of every Facebook feed that’s marked to show popular posts first.
I know you type fast. Try not to type faster than you think. There are people on your Facebook feed you might not want to see what you wrote, maybe your boss or a future editor? We’ve all heard how venting online can get you fired. It can also keep you from getting hired.
Unless you have the most private and exclusive Facebook feed ever in the history of mankind, you can go from “Oh, I like her,” to “Oh, I hate her ever-loving guts,” in about thirty seconds.
The Top Ways to Lose Facebook Friends
1. Post naked people. For goodness sake, if you want to show the world other people doing it on a kitchen counter, start a group, or go nasty up your own countertops.
2. Don’t tell me to buy your book. If you want to advertise, buy an ad and target it to your audience.
3. Add me to a group without my permission? Maybe I don’t want to be in your group. I certainly do not like to be categorized as something that I am not, or do not support. There is a message function on Facebook. Ask first.
4. Don’t use Facebook to try and convert people to your own agenda-whether it’s politics, religion, or save the whales. Limit yourself to one post. More is nagging and no one loves a nag.
5. Quit sending hearts and flowers and all of the other things Facebook applications give you to send. Those apps gather your friend’s information as well as your own. Use your words. A simple, “Hi, how are you?” is more personal, and welcomed.
6. We don’t care where you are on foursquare. Stop it. Not only is it irritating to your friends, it gives your location to any weirdo who wants to stalk you.
7. Never, ever, ever post or repost “LIKE THIS IF YOU AGREE” Seriously people? These updates make friends want to tear their hair out.
8. Set your games to not automatically post on your feed. (I need to do this one) They post more than just the help you’re asking for. Use the extra click to only send the things you want to send.
9. Quit asking me to share posts in memory of people who’ve had cancer or some other disease. Posting in the memory of someone who is gone doesn’t bring them back. Honestly, do you think that person wants their memory to be commercialized?
10. “I can’t stand it anymore!” Is not a valid update. Quit with the passive/ aggressive claptrap. If you can’t stand something, at least explain what it is. If you then feel like a dork for whining in public, delete the post.
The Top Ways to keep and gather Facebook Friends
1. Think before you post. We all have problems in our lives, too. Will this post fix anything that’s wrong? The answer is probably no. Don’t rant about everything horrible that happened today.
2. Your profile picture should be of you, not your unborn child, or your puppy. We aren’t so petty as to judge you on your looks and we like to know who we’re talking with.
3. Be real. We all love to jump into someone’s life and get a peek. It’s like a mini vacation.
4. If you made your own poster, share it. If you have an adorable picture you took. We want to see.
5. I have to admit that birthday wishes are lovely. Personally, the phone chiming all day made me feel like a super-star.
6. We do love people who Google a cause before they click share. Also the ones who check the missing person reports before they send them. Most are a hoax. Seriously people, I will unfriend anyone who participates in activity with the intent to steal my money. (Even if they themselves have been duped.) Check your sources.
7. Everyone has religious and political beliefs. We especially love people who live them rather than trying to cram them down our throats.
8. Be selective with what you post. More isn’t better. We love to see you but not for our entire feed.
9. It’s really great to get comments or likes on our posts.
10. Be selective with the news stories you share. We don’t want to have to click or join or allow that media to have access to our account. (Also some people are really, really weird.)
11. I love when my friends make a fan page or product page for their work-related posts. Especially the authors who should know better than to spam me with their book reviews and sales pitches.
12. Most importantly, talk. We’ll take an honest compliment over computer generated greatness any day of the week. Some days you might be a bit crabby, other days, over the moon with happiness. As long as it’s you-we’re fine.
I would like to thank all of my Twitter followers and Facebook friends for their valuable input for this article.
Written By Julie Butcher-Fedynich
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