Pages

Friday, October 10, 2014

1) Writer Networking: Twitter

An essential part to success as a writer (if you are aiming to make any profits off your work) is networking, and growing your "base". There are many ways to network with other people who share your writing and reading interests: blogs (like this one), twitter, facebook, google+, figment, etc. My post today will be focusing on one key tool for networking, if you read the title you probably can already guess, Twitter. With millions of users active every. single. day.

Twitter provides a way to connect and grow your social network. By having a larger network, you improve the number of people who will see you talking about your work, be able to offer insight on writing, as well as insight on other activities you may enjoy.

The essential part to Tweeting is to keep your tweets relevant. If you are making a twitter to promote writing, make all of your tweets about writing. There are exceptions to this, you can always say "happy birthday" if you know it's someone's birthday. Or "Merry Christmas" around Christmas time, but you want to try and stick to your purpose for the "Twitter Machine" as much as possible. Oh, and follow EVERYONE. the more people you follow, the more followers you will get. Most people stick to a code of "follow for follow." Which is exactly how it sounds, you follow me? I follow you!

Now you may be wondering, "Matt, how do I get people I don't know to see these tweets?!", that is where the infamous 'hashtag' (#) comes into play!

There are a series of hashtags the writing community has developed to connect with other writers and readers. I have compiled a list of common ones for writing. You can simply add it to the tail end of one of your tweets. ie: "Tweet tweet tweet other bird noises tweet tweet, #1k1h #amwriting" -yes, it is that easy. If I can do it, you can too!

Here is the list:
#1K1H (write one thousand words in one hour)
#AmWriting
#AmEditing
#AmRevising
#CopyWriting
#EditGoal
#Editing
#IndieAuthor
#MyWANA (writer’s community created by Kirsten Lamb)
#NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month is held every November)
#RomanceWriter
#ScriptChat
#WIP
#WordCount
#WriteChat
#WriteGoal
#WriteMotivation
#WritersLIfe
#WriterWednesday
#Writing
#WritingBlitz
#WritingPrompt
#WritersBlock
#WroteToday
#WW

By following this simple piece of advice, you will be able to help grow your network and "base" easily, as long as you stick to it. Don't just do one tweet a month, try and stick to a schedule, like one or more every other day, or better yet everyday. This is really all I have to say about this! I am still learning new things everyday, and will be happy to spread the advice to all of you when it comes to my attention!

If you found this helpful, share it! Link it to your Facebook, blog, random forum, moms fridge, and your Twitter.

Add Derek and I while you're at it! I promise, we will follow back!
@MattTaylor1776
@derekdyer_WF

If you have any questions or your own insights to share, feel free to comment below!

Now go forth, and forge your story!

-Matt

P.S. I'm going to propose we start our own hashtag! just for the Wordsmith Foundry community! #Wordsmithing

No comments:

Post a Comment