In The Demon's Head: Promotional Techniques- Social Media

In The Demon's Head #44: Promotional Techniques- Social Media

July 27, 2012

Hey everyone we're on Day 3 of our Promotional Techniques Blogging series and so far I feel that I've been able to share quite a bit of information that will hopefully give you an edge as you start promoting yourself and your work. So Far we had our introduction and talked about blogging, and yesterday we covered Advertising. Today we're looking at one of the two biggest pieces of today's promotions puzzle, Social Media.

Now I'm willing to bet that almost everyone who is reading this has an account in at least one type of social media website. If you don't then your WAY behind the times because this is a trend that I don't think is going anywhere for a while. The question here today is how do I use Social Media to promote myself?

I'll explain using the 3 biggest social media sites (Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter) I will explain what you need on each of these to get your name out there.

Facebook

Facebook has two tools that are great for promoting yourself and your writing, you have pages and groups. Experience has told me that in regards to yourself and your writing promoting using a Facebook Page might be a better bet for you then a group simply because on pages, while people who “like” it are notified of your updates they are not delivered dozens of notifications every time someone says something or comments on something on your page whereas with a group notifications fly around all the time, it tends to get annoying. Setting up a Facebook page is just like setting up an account, you find the create page button and you follow on screen directions. It ends up looking like your Facebook Page is an extension of your personal Facebook timeline. Something to remember as well when using Facebook pages, keep your professional and personal profiles apart, I have a Kyle Robinson (Author) page and then my personal Facebook account, unless the personal event has to do with my writing it is not included on the Author Page.

Twitter/Google Plus

I only include these two together because in all reality they are almost one in the same. Twitter is the 140 micro thought sharing website with trends and Google Plus is like a hybrid between Facebook and Twitter, with possibly lengthy status updates and it's own trending list. When setting up these accounts make sure that you do so with your writing in mind and make the usernames reflect your writing and what your out to achieve.

The other difference is that Twitter has followers (people who are reading what you say) and people you follow (People whose stuff your reading) and Google Has circles.

I suggest setting up a profile on all of these three websites because believe it or not some people have abandoned one website for one reason or another and you could possibly find them on another site. The registration process for these doesn't take that long and it could lead to a massive payoff down the road.

Also remember that when setting up these accounts you want to keep them active and update them every day or so, you can attract more fans and followers if your active and showing that your out there to have yourself heard.

In Conclusion...

Social Media is something that isn't going away and something that your going to have to learn to work with if your expecting to amount to a career in writing via the self publishing route, and even in some cases having a social media presence is required for traditional publishers to want to take a look at you. Do yourself a favor now and go set up all these Social Media Sites with your accounts if you haven't done so already.

Have you been on the fence about some social Media Site, got a story to share about social media? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tomorrow we're going to take a look at the last piece to the promotional puzzle, building a website, then on Sunday I will wrap it all together and give you one final breakdown of the promotional puzzle. You can learn more about me and my writing by visiting my website and until the next time you want to take a trip through the gates of hell and into the demon's head, I'm Kyle Robinson wishing you a safe trip back to the surface.