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Month: August 2021

Demystifying Twitter

It’s About Time to Start Demystifying Twitter, er, X

What can Twitter (I refuse to call it X) do for you, the independent writer? Let’s look at demystifying Twitter in all its glory.

Demystifying Twitter: What’s the Big Deal About 140 280 Characters?

Twitter is essentially a microblogging service. You broadcast your thoughts to the ether. Some of those thoughts, to be sure, are more interesting than others.

Many of us know someone who tweets about everything in their lives. It’s dull, it’s dumb, and you want to throttle them half the time. Their cheesecake is not fascinating. Their slow bus to downtown is not riveting. You don’t much care why they didn’t buy a particular pair of sneakers.

We may also know someone who’s a lot more fascinating. I’m not talking about celebrities, who have other sources for their cachet. Instead, I am talking about people who just seem to be more interesting, or at least their tweets are. Or at least they are funny or relevant.

Guess which one you want to be like?

Two Lives

On much of social media, when you are an independent author, you lead two lives. There is your personal life where you have friends and family, but there is also your professional or semi-professional life. Even if you never sell (or never want to) a syllable of your work, if you want to improve, you’re at least in the realm of semi-professional.

Demystifying Twitter: Two Twitter Accounts?

That might not be such a bad idea. One for yourself, for your political opinions, your questions about the universe, your tweets to customer service when something goes wrong …

The other? For writing. This can be for talking about what you’re doing, and even teasing it a bit. For reporting your NaNoWriMo progress, if you like, to your cheering section. Also, for the hashtags #amwriting and #amediting, too.

Demystifying Twitter: A Little More About Hashtags

Engagement is the name of the game on a microblogging social media platform like Twitter. You want to, you know, actually tweet with people. Soooo…. what do you do? Well, if you start following hashtags you like, then you will start to see the content that you like.

And that means your stream will be more fun, more inspiring, and more of what you want. Pretty cool, huh?

There is more, of course. I’ll get to it soon. So stay tuned!

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Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism

What is the Connection Between Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism?

Professionalism? This post riffs on Be careful who you hire to manage your business’ Twitter account, a post on Social Media Today. Since the original post is from 2011, it’s not 100% relevant anymore. But I still think the ideas are of value.

In addition, in the original article, the author talks about, essentially, how to tell whether a Twitter feed is being handled professionally, or not. Hence following are their “5 Points to consider before hiring a service to manage your Twitter account.”

Professionalism: Check Their Twitter Stream

1. First of all, before you even look at the different tools for measuring a Twitter user’s level of influence (which can be misleading and in some cases manipulated) you firstly need to check the individual’s own Twitter stream.

  • What type of language do they use? – agreed. Because branding involves, among other things, speaking the language of your customers. Are you a hip hop record label? A travel agency catering to retirees? A diamond jeweler? All of these businesses have different customer demographics. Hence there is no “one size fits all” here. However, this does not mean people cannot adapt to communicate properly with everyone they do business with (after all, you need not hire a child to market to children), but the Social Media Specialist needs to get the message across so that the target readership is receptive.

Lazy Tweets

  • Do they spam their own followers by sending lazy Tweets for example? #FF @Tweeter1 @Tweeter2 etc. – I’m not so sure I call this spamming. I think, at times, it’s useful to do this. But overdoing it (and you’ll know it’s overkill if tweets like this – or quickie retweets – dominate the stream) is definitely not a good way to do business.
  • How do they use their own account? Is it professional or sloppy? Do they Tweet late into the night and have no professional boundaries. Do they over mix professional with personal Tweets. – agreed. And with useful tools such as HootSuite, you can schedule tweets. There’s no excuse for late night tweeting, and no need for it. If the stream is meant to engage internationally, it might be a good idea to split it up into more than one account, so that one stream is for North America and another for Asia.

Messaging

  • Are their own Tweets all over the place so you are not able to pick up a clear message. – this is a good point, and not just when it comes to Twitter. A clear message is key – for a robotics company where I worked, the message centered around sales. Messages promoted education and/or robots. NASA, for example, was only mentioned in the context of robotics, not in the context of space launches. There’s a lot of information out there. Consider it to be a bit like a garden – usually it needs weeding and thinning, as opposed to fertilizing.
  • Furthermore, do they acknowledge where they take their material from or just duplicate what they see their competitors do? – ah, this is big. It’s why the original source for this article is listed. And it is a big part of how the ‘net works, or at least is supposed to. You post a blog entry. A competitor sees it. If they riff on it and post it and give you a link back, then that’s good for you. And you thank them and do the same in reverse and yeah, they’re still a competitor. But you’ve got common ground and in some areas you can cooperate. Or they don’t acknowledge you. And everybody digs their heels in and the world becomes a slightly more miserable place. Hey, you make the call, but I prefer cooperation pretty much every time, myself.

Too Much Self-Promotion?

  • Do their Tweets make any sense to you or are they just full of self promotion they hold no real value other than grooming their own ego. – true, but I think sometimes this can come from Social Media marketing folk not being properly trained. If the marketing manager is unsure of how much promotion should be mixed in with information, the marketer might be similarly confused.
  • How much negativity comes across in their stream – not everything is or should be positive, but I do get this. The idea is, well, are you promoting to people who want to buy your company’s organic brownie mix, or do you just sound petulant and whiny? However, you can sometimes be too perky. But I think if there are errors in this area, they should probably fall on the side of more, rather than less, perk.

Professionalism: Which Business Accounts Do They Manage?

2. Ask to be given the name of one of the business accounts they manage, and go through this with a fine tooth comb. Keep an active eye on the account and monitor how they manage the business’ online profile.

  • How many Tweets are there and what type do they send? – it’s a quantity and a quality game on Twitter. You need to get across some seven views before people start to consider buying. And consider Twitter’s international, 24/7 appeal – people may be checking at 4 AM your time. This, by the way, goes against an earlier statement about the marketer not tweeting into the wee hours. No, they shouldn’t – but unfortunately, sometimes, that’s when the readers are online. After all, if you’re tweeting for people playing World of Warcraft, they’ll be on at 4 AM. As for quality, that goes along with the above statements as well – are the tweets worthwhile, or are they dull self-promotion?

Engagement

  • How do they engage with the client’s audience? – some of this is in the form of retweeting. Retweeting and replying have a place, as it is a give and take type of engagement. Is there professionalism behind the engagement?
  • And how is the call-to-action placed and worded? – this is fairly self-explanatory. There is a difference between what looks like a hard sell, and what has more of a friendly “Hey, check this out” vibe. Does the marketer know the difference? And is the difference readily apparent in tweets?
  • In addition, do the articles relate to the client’s industry and audience? – this harkens back to my NASA example above. Content is necessary, of course, but irrelevant content is worse than no content at all. Because it’s better that the marketer pump out less content if it’s not relevant, yes?
  • Do they add any value? – the $64,000 question! Can you tell without having access to measurement tools?

Professionalism: References

3. Ask for a number of references and call them. This, of course, is excellent advice any time you’re hiring.

  • How has the business level of influence grown? For sure if they cannot achieve this for themselves, then they can’t do it for the client. – try objective measurements if you can get them, like Google rankings, bounce rate, etc.
  • What have been the benefits? – only your industry will have the specifics for this. Increased sales may or may not be the actual benefit. After all, sometimes social media is used for damage control. If that can happen more efficiently and inexpensively – that might be the benefit.
  • What difference has it made to your online brand? – again, this is a specific question.
  • How good is the level of communication? – hard to say what this means without context. After all, the car dealer and the online cancer support group will have different needs in this area.
  • What results has the business seen? – again, objective measurements are best, whatever you can get.

Professionalism: Metrics

4. Ask what Twitter measuring tools they use to provide their clients with monthly reports. Do they use anything else to measure how things are working (or not)?

  • While there are some good free tools around they do not come close to paid analytical tools for managing Twitter accounts. – agreed, but sometimes that’s how things go, particularly if the person you’re considering has worked for startups or nonprofits.
  • Ask what recommendations they have made to the client that have enabled the business to grow based on the findings. – these should be in whatever reports the person under consideration provides.

Professionalism: Time

5. Finally, ask how much time they intend to spend on your account over the week.

  • How will this time be managed with all their other projects? – this is a good question for any sort of a freelance or offsite working relationship.
  • What elements of account management does this breakdown in to? – again, this is not confined to social media; it’s a good question for any potential employee who’ll be working remotely, or not exclusively with you.
  • How will they keep you informed and up to date with relevant Tweets and conversations? – reports? Emails? What is manageable and relevant?

Professionalism: My Own Ideas

And now a few of my own when it comes to professionalism.

  • What do the tweets look like? Are they interesting? Relevant? Grammatically correct within the character limit? Or are they just slight variations on a theme?
  • Do all provided links work, or do they go to dead ends? And do the links have any sort of measurement behind them, even simple click metrics? Do they lead to generic pages, or to any custom pages for Twitter users?
  • What’s the follow/follower ratio? Does the person follow everyone, or are they, at least seemingly, a bit choosy in this area? We all know that junk follower accounts exist – does the prospective hiree even follow those or seem to use auto-follow?
  • So how often does the person tweet? Daily? Monthly? A monthly Twitter stream is barely this side of useful. Tweets need not come every five seconds, but it is a fluid, evolving medium and needs more attention than that.
  • And finally, and this is a question for the person (and you may not get an accurate answer, by the way), does the person under consideration actually like what he or she is doing? Do they have a passion for it? Or is it, like, Time to make the doughnuts? I’m not saying that we can (or should) always love what we do. But plenty of people love doing this. Why not hire someone who does?

Finally, you can get a passionate Social Media person, to handle your Twitter stream, do your blogging, manage your online community, promote your Facebook page and more. And they will do it with professionalism and aplomb.
We really exist.

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Blurbs, Queries, Teasers, and Elevator Pitches

Blurbs, Queries, Teasers, and Elevator pitches — oh my?

Among blurbs, queries, teasers, and elevator pitches – which is which?

Blurbs

Blurbs are short promotional pieces. They used to just stay on the backs of books, but now they can serve as the copy you read on an Amazon author or book page. They can even be the snippet pulled by search engines for a page.

The best blurbs are:

  • short
  • specific as to genre (don’t be coy; if it’s erotica, then say so!)
  • open about who the protagonist is
  • spoiler-free
  • not a rehash of the first chapter or the entire plot
  • neutral about the quality of your work (don’t say: this is an amazing book. ‘Cause then it probably isn’t. Sorry.)

In this fantasy tale, Alice is intrigued by a strange white rabbit. Even stranger, he’s wearing a waistcoat, checking a pocket watch, and complaining that he’s going to be late!

Queries

Furthermore, queries are cover letters accompanying your submissions to a publisher or agent. They vary in length, but Job One is always to do what the recipient wants. That is, if the recipient wants it as an attachment, send an attachment. Double-spaced? Do it. Times New Roman font? Why, that’s suddenly your favorite font, too!

Rather than giving you an example, it’s probably best to link to a successful modern query letter. Now imagine your work, showcased like that. Change the genre if necessary, the character names, etc., and you’ve got the bare bones of a query letter.

Suggestion: check several successful query letters, particularly those which are fairly recent and are in your genre. If they are the queries beloved by your actual target, then so much the better.

Teasers

In addition, teasers usually go a bit longer. You use them to generate excitement. Teasers often end with a question, but they don’t have to.

Alice is bored and sleepy on a lazy, sunny afternoon spent with her sister. But then she spots a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and checking a pocket watch. The rabbit says he’s going to be late! Should Alice follow him? What’s down that rabbit hole, anyway?

Elevator pitches

Finally, elevator pitches are, just like when you are looking for a job, the kinds of quick sales pitches done on the fly when someone turns to you and says, “You’re a writer. So, what’s your book about?”

Don’t just stand there! You’ve got to be ready.

Imagine if animals started talking, and they told you what to do in a topsy-turvy world.

My book is about Alice; she’s a young girl, a little bored on a sunny afternoon, when she spots a white rabbit. The odd thing about this rabbit is, he’s wearing clothes and talking. She follows him down a rabbit hole, but then she can’t get out.

That’s less than 70 words, and the person asking has the basic plot, the name of the heroine, and a reason to want to know more.

Back to you.

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… And Facebook for All — Company Pages

Liberty, Justice (?), … And Facebook for All – Company Pages

Company pages have become spots you put together on Facebook to support a business (not the same as a fan page).

However, like everything else on Facebook, these pages and their settings do evolve, and they’ve gotten simpler these days. Currently, the following features are available:

  • Change Background Image/Avatar
  • Edit Page
  • Promote with an Ad
  • Add to my Page’s Favorites
  • Suggest to Friends
  • Information
  • Insights
  • Friends Who Like the Page
  • People Who Like the Page
  • Favorite Pages
  • Photos
  • Links
  • Events
  • Wall
  • Info
  • Photos
  • This Week
  • Notes
  • Videos
  • Post Scheduling
  • Various Apps

Company Pages and Details: Change Background Image/Avatar

This one is rather self-explanatory. Furthermore, a good, bright background image is good, as it shows up when you share the page. In addition, you might want to change these on occasion as that generates an update.

Edit Page

Manage permissions, add an address or business hours, etc. here.

Promote with an Ad

This is fairly self-explanatory. Note that Buffer has said that Facebook ads are a mixed bag.

Add to my Page’s Favorites

So here’s where another company you can link your page to your event pages.

Suggest to Friends

Fairly self-explanatory.

Information

This is basic information such as the company’s location.

Insights

First of all, this provides basic click information, including the number of Likes and Views. In addition, you can also see information on age and gender demographics and, most importantly, when people are online.

Friends Who Like the Page

Fairly self-explanatory.

People Who Like the Page

Fairly self-explanatory, except this includes people you are not, personally, friends with.

Favorite Pages

This goes back to adding a page as a favorite. And it shows which company pages your company has favorited.

Photos

Fairly self-explanatory.

Links

Fairly self-explanatory.

Events

I’ve found adding events to be hit or miss. First of all, not everyone RSVPs, and not everyone shows up even if they’ve said yes. However, it provides more exposure and it will bring your page up to people as the event date rolls around. Because even people who are clicking “No” are still looking, at least a little bit. So use with discretion and don’t overdo this. Because not every activity is an event, and not everyone should be invited to everything. Since that’s just plain annoying.

Wall

Fairly self-explanatory. In addition, you can control who can add to your wall. However, keep in mind that if you are free and easy with this, you’ll get more posts but you might also get spam. Although if you shut this down, you end up with Posts to Page. And it’s easy to miss these!

Company Pages Info

Here you add more detailed information. Hence this includes the company’s address and its business hours.

Photos

Fairly self-explanatory. Posts with images nearly always do better than those without, so upload an image if the link you’re sharing doesn’t have one. Make sure you have permission to use the image!

Notes

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence add notes like you would on your own personal page. E. g. these are almost discussions. However, the responses are relegated to subordinate comments versus the kind of back and forth that comes from the wall or the discussions page. And this is, admittedly, a nitpicky distinction without much of a real difference. I would, though, suggest that you not use the Notes section for blogging. Instead, get a blog through WordPress (yay!) or the like and do it that way. Because the Notes section ends up a rather poor substitute for that.

Videos

Fairly self-explanatory. Hence if you’ve got videos uploaded, they can show up here. However, this is not the same as linking to a video hosted online elsewhere.

Company Pages: Post Scheduling

Fairly self-explanatory. So just post to your wall but pull down on the post button and select Schedule Post. In addition, if you’ve been looking at your Insights, you should know when people are online. And of course you want to try to post when people will see your posts.

Various Apps

Finally, go to Edit Profile and there is an option for Applications. However, these days, the only ones are Notes and Events.


Want More About Facebook?

If this article resonates with you, then check out my other articles about the largest social media platform on the planet.

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