Blogger Life – Page 8 – WordyNerdBird

What’s on your list?

I’d love to hear your ideas!

September 3, 2017 wordynerdbird2 Comments

Human Girl Person Silly Blond Making A Face Child

I just found that I have a follower on Twitter called “Buy Followers”.

Weird.

I haven’t bought that one, or any other.

Which leads me to wonder… why would someone even bother?

In a world full of things I *would* buy if I had the cash, followers on social media isn’t going to be among them.

The top three things on my permanent list of things I’d like to buy are:

1. Another, longer trip to Canada.

2. Books. More books.

3. Another Labrador puppy.

What’s on your list?

I’d love to hear your ideas!

The Importance Of Minding One’s Manners On Social Media.

The choice between being either the low point or a bright spot in someone’s day isn’t so complicated.

April 20, 2017 wordynerdbird4 Comments

I was motivated to write this post by an experience I had a few weeks ago.

I posted a question on a blog post by someone who presents himself as a successful and popular author. He probably is, but his response to my question was quite scathing. When I explained why I hadn’t read every blog post he had posted, he was so rude that I took screen shots. Of course, he had no idea that I took screenshots, but it made me feel better because I had evidence to support my increasing dislike for him and his condescending attitude. Who did he think he was, anyway?

ScreenHunter_410 Mar Asshat Identity Concealed 2

(I’ve concealed his identity here because I don’t feel like getting sued or anything like that.)

At this point, I made a decision to never buy his books, nor to help promote or encourage him in any way. I suspect several others probably made the same decision. When a friend went to read the exchange between us, he had deleted the whole thing, so I am sure he realised it wasn’t a good look for him. I highly doubt that it might occur to him to apologise for his rudeness, but I will never know, because I had promptly unfollowed his blog, deleted him from my twitter feed and blocked him on all social media.

Sure, my question might not have been the brightest or best he’s ever read. Even so, his response was condescending and made me feel really low. Who needs that kind of negativity in their life? I certainly don’t.

As an author who uses social media to build a following and hopefully sell my books, I can confidently state this is the least desirable outcome from interacting with others.

There is a valuable lesson that, whatever our profession might be, we can all take from this: never, ever, be an asshat to someone on social media. It’s far too easy to damage a reputation or a brand that you’re trying to establish and promote.

The choice between being either the low point or a bright spot in someone’s day isn’t so complicated. If people ask a question about your book, your blog, or your dog’s hind leg, simply be thankful they are interested enough to ask. Engage with them. Being friendly doesn’t cost anything, nor does it mean you have to pledge eternal friendship.

You will walk away with your integrity and your potential readership intact, if not a little more loyal towards you. As a writer, you can’t put a price tag on that.

*My original working title for this post was, in fact, “Why One Should Never Be An Asshat On Social Media”. I tidied it up a little. You’re most welcome.

The Basics: Why Spelling and Punctuation Matter.

Make sure you’re sending the message you actually want to send to your audience, every time.

April 18, 2017May 31, 2018 wordynerdbird5 Comments

For the first time in a long time, I’ve recently abandoned reading a book. I’m usually fairly persistent, but I couldn’t get past the second chapter. It’s so full of basic errors, I’d be giving any of my students who wrote it a D. That book – any book – has no business being for sale on any platform, Indie or otherwise, until it has been properly edited and corrected.

The same goes for what authors – and any other professional writers – put on social media.

If I had a dollar for every time I have face-palmed over glaring errors of spelling, word choice or punctuation in someone else’s social media posts, I would be considerably richer than I am today.

As people who promote ourselves as writers, it’s crucial that we don’t make those mistakes.

I’m not talking about the occasional typo, and I’m not talking about the type of formatting error that can happen to absolutely anyone when converting a book to eBook format. I’m talking about really basic errors – missing punctuation, terrible sentence structure, shocking spelling. Of course, not differentiating correctly between “your” and “you’re” is always going to frustrate people. There will always be people who put apostrophes where they don’t belong and omit them where they are needed. The same is true for commas.

It boils down to the issue of credibility. If I cannot correctly construct a sentence to encourage people to buy my book, what is going to make people believe I could possibly write a whole book? A writer should be able to communicate their ideas and messages clearly and effectively, without frustrating the reader or making their eyes bleed.

Quite honestly, if someone’s social media posts are full of errors, I’m not going to be buying their book. I’m not even going to put my hand up for a free copy. And it’s not going to change my mind if people laugh it off and say, “It’s just Facebook… relax!”

I may be called judgemental or overly critical. That’s okay.
As a reader and a frequent buyer of books, I’m entitled to be.
As a writer, nothing less should be expected.

If we want people to believe that Indie books are just as good as traditionally published books, we have to make sure they are. We must edit, and have them edited, as professional authors. We must promote both ourselves and our books as engaging, intelligent, and literate. The example we set on social media is part of that, because that’s where we hope to find readers.

Please, folks, for credibility’s sake – in the interests of your own integrity – proof-read all your posts. Make sure you’re sending the message you actually want to send to your audience, every time.

Great Hashtags for Indie Authors

Following my previous post about how to use hashtags effectively, I thought it might be helpful to provide you with a list of hashtags that work well for Indie authors.

April 15, 2017April 12, 2017 wordynerdbird1 Comment

My aim in this post is not to give you every hashtag that writers use, but to provide you with a functional list of the most common, and therefore the most valuable.

Hashtags for connecting with other authors:

#AmWriting
#AmEditing
#WordCount
#WriterWednesday (or #WW)
#WritersLife
#PoetTues
#IndieAuthors
#NaNoWriMo
#WritingPrompt
#Creativity
#WIP (work in progress)
#WritersBlock
#WritingTips
#WriteTip
#WritersTellMe
IndieAuthorsBeSeen

Hashtags for identifying and connecting with other bloggers:

#blog
#blogger
#blogging
#bloggerswanted
#bloggersrequired

Hashtags for connecting by genre:

#Romance
#SciFi
#KidLit
#PNR (Paranormal Romance)
#MGLit (Middle Grade Lit)
#MemoirChat
#FlashFic
#Romance
#Horror
#FanFic
#YA
#History
#Poetry

Hashtags for connecting with publishing colleagues:

#GetPublished
#BookMarket
#BookMarketing
#PromoTip
#SelfPublishing
#SelfPub
#Publishing
#AskAgent
#AskAuthor
#AskEditor
#EBooks
#IndiePub (or #IndiePublishing)
#BookMarketing
#PubTip

Hashtags for connecting with readers:

#books
#bookworm
#FridayReads
#BookGiveaway
#MustRead
#ReadingList
#WorthReading
WhatToRead
#StoryFriday
#TeaserTues
#BookGiveaway
#free
#kindle
#nook
#iBooks
bookslover
bookspecials
bookpost
IndieBooks
IndieBooksBeSeen

Hashtags for Instagram only:

#writersofinstagram
#readersofinstagram
#poetsofinstagram
writerscommunity
#readers

Your own hashtag:

In addition to these, you can also make a hashtag for your own book or brand.

However, if you’re going to do this, make sure it’s unique to you or your book so that you don’t get lost in a haze of brand confusion.

You can see here that #jvlpo was good, but not good enough.

However, #jvlpoet was completely unique to me. I did this same search on both Twitter and Google when deciding on my domain name, jvlpoet.com.

How To Avoid Hashtag Hell.

April 13, 2017April 11, 2017 wordynerdbirdLeave a comment

Many people still wonder how to use #hashtags effectively.

Hashtags can be enormously helpful in getting your message or product seen by more people on social media.

However, if not used the right way, they can easily turn into a millstone around your social media neck.

Today I’m offering a few tips that I’ve picked up along the way, in the hope of clarifying when and how to use hashtags to your advantage.

ON TWITTER

Keep it simple.
Use up to four key hashtags per tweet.
This way, your message is not overwhelmed by hashtags, and your tweet will look clean and uncluttered.
Keep it relevant.
Occasionally I might add another specific hashtag if my tweet is relevant to a specific event that is going on.

For example, during Women’s History Month in March, I added either #CelebratingWomen or #WomensHistoryMonth to my tweets that were relevant – but not to all of them.

Adding those tags to a post about spelling or writer’s block simply wouldn’t be appropriate, and would definitely look opportunistic rather than professional.

Similarly, given that April is #NationalPoetryMonth, I’ve added that to my tweets inviting people to read my poetry on my blog, but not to the ones where I’m offering advice to authors learning to use social media.
Keep it useful.
Using hashtags that nobody is looking for is a waste of time and effort.

Using the search bar near your profile menu and Tweet button, you can type in key words to see which hashtags are the most popular.

The hashtags that come up will change as you keep typing – see from the illustration here the difference between typing ‘book’ and ‘bookw’.

This is a handy way to see what is most popular among the relevant terms that you could choose from.

ON INSTAGRAM AND TUMBLR

Keep it organised.
Comment on your image or video, give your website or link, then use hashtags. It keeps things tidy, easy to read, and attractive to the eye.

It also means that even when the feed condenses your post, people see the most important things first – your content, your message, and your website.
Keep it useful.
You can use more hashtags on Instagram or Tumblr, as this helps new people find your content. You can use up to ten, but no more. Nobody wants half their feed taken up by dozens of hashtags that look as though they were chosen by a rabid squirrel who just couldn’t stop.

As you are typing on Instagram, using a hash symbol # will cause tags to come up in a list as you type. Instagram is handy in that it gives you feedback on how many times that tag has been used. Here, #poems is good, but #poetry is way better so that’s the one I chose to use.
Keep it relevant.
Don’t use the most popular hashtag of the hour if it’s not related to the content of your post. Use the tags that will find the best audience for your content: those most likely to be interested.

Once again, Instagram’s numbers on how many times a tag has been used are really helpful here. It can help you choose between terms like “writer” and “writersofinstagram” to get greater reach for your post.
What seems convenient isn’t always best.
It can be really tempting to send your post from Instagram to all your other social media accounts. However, that’s not always the best thing to do.

Don’t share directly from Instagram to Twitter unless you’re under that 140 character limit.
A longer message will get cut off, leaving your tweet looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. Nobody wants that.

Don’t share directly from Instagram to Facebook if you want your post to look professional. A bunch of hashtags look completely out of place on Facebook. They’re not really needed there at all.

The Value Of Commenting On A Blog.

Something many people don’t understand is the value of leaving a comment on a blog.

April 10, 2017July 16, 2019 wordynerdbird38 Comments

It’s easy to read a post and move on, and even easier to like a blog post without reading it.

But stop and think for a moment. How much more valuable to the writer, and other readers, if you actually bothered to respond. Isn’t that what you’d hope for when writing your next blog post? Nobody wants to invest time in writing something that people are just going to skim over.

Not only that, but you will gain more from the post and from the interaction with others than you realise.

You might gain new ideas or perspectives, or you might just end up feeling a little better about life.

It doesn’t have to be a long or complicated post. Even just saying “thank you” or “I liked this!” does the trick.

However, commenting on a blog post is more useful than just propping up the ego of some blogger who hopes to be discovered one day.

Leaving a comment on a blog post doesn’t have to take more than five seconds, but it can make a huge difference to the blogger by helping them, and whatever they have to say, to become more “discoverable”.

Leaving a comment on a blog directly affects the ranking and therefore the visibility of that blog on both the platform – such as WordPress or Blogger – and consequently on the web. Rankings and visibility affect which posts are chosen to be featured on the highlights pages of blogging platforms, such as the ‘Discover’ page on WordPress which pick up the posts that have had the most interaction and engagement, not just the ones with the most likes or views.

One of the author support groups on Facebook to which I belong has been conducting an experiment over the past few weeks. We’ve made a deliberate effort to read, like and comment on a selected blog post by each of the others.

Those posts have consistently attracted more viewers beyond that initial group. These new viewers also seem more willing to read, like, and comment. This boosts the visibility of the individual post and of the blog overall, and helps to attract even more viewers.

In short, it’s a highly valuable snowball effect in drawing attention to both the post and the blog.

Let’s face it. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do for someone.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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Hashtags for connecting with other authors:

Hashtags for identifying and connecting with other bloggers:

Hashtags for connecting by genre:

Hashtags for connecting with publishing colleagues:

Hashtags for connecting with readers:

Hashtags for Instagram only:

Your own hashtag:

Share this:

Many people still wonder how to use #hashtags effectively.

ON TWITTER

ON INSTAGRAM AND TUMBLR

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You might gain new ideas or perspectives, or you might just end up feeling a little better about life.

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