Social Media and Writing

What is Social Media Writing?

Is there such a thing as social media writing? No, I mean both of them. Not the combo.

Social media and writing go together.

Kind of.

I read a Chuck Wendig post on the two and I want to comment on it.

Basic Info That Can Help Anyone (Really!)

Let us start with the basics.

Social media will not save a bad book

Unfortunately, it is oh, so true. We have all seen the Twilight tropes, e. g. “still a better love story than Twilight”. My apologies to Stephenie Meyer, and to the people who enjoy her work.

She caught fire because she hit a particular market extremely well. Social media did not fuel her success, at least not in the beginning. Although it probably did later, as people shared their joy on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Rather, her work did well, at least in part, because it hit the teen/tween girl market like a bull’s eye. Ever wonder why Bella Swan is so undeveloped with such a bare bones description? It is so any young girl can dream of being her. Any girl of any race or height or weight or hobbies.

Her publisher, Hachette Book Group, also marketed the Twilight novels very well. At the time the fourth one came out, I received it (it is called Breaking Dawn) as a bonus because I was working for Hachette in their IT department.

Some people get Thanksgiving turkeys. Some people get …

Er, sorry, Ms. Meyer. I do not want to turn this into a bash session.

Rather, the point I am dancing around is: what if Ms. Meyer had blasted everything on Twitter and Facebook? What if she did not had a good marketing department behind her? Then she probably would not have gotten so far.

Social media did not improve her works. It did not worsen them, either. Her success arose, for the most part, outside the realm of social media. And it did not save critics from savaging her work.

Converting from one platform to another is exceptionally difficult

You may be fantastic on LinkedIn but stink on X. You may be killin’ it on Wattpad but limping along on YouTube. Or you may even have tons of Facebook friends but few followers on your Facebook page.

True story. I read a lot (duh!). It’s all sorts of stuff. I read fanfiction, I read original writing, I read free stuff, I read NaNoWriMo novels. And I read the classics.

What often interests me is seeing works which are highly rated on GoodReads with so few sales on Amazon that they do not get recommendations. But with enough sales, your book gets mentioned in those, “If you like __, you might enjoy ___” kinds of notifications.

I see people who are Wattpad gods and goddesses, cranking out tons of super-appreciated chapters and adored by hundreds of thousands of (presumably) screaming fans.

Then they try to monetize their work, and it falls flat. New York Times bestselling authors, for real, only sell a few tens of thousands of works in any given week and they make the cut.

So why don’t these Wattpad writers with phenomenal read counts to an order of magnitude ten higher than that end up on bestseller lists?

Social media is a daily tsunami

Part of the reason? This right here. We are all inundated, every single day. Users upload over twenty million YouTube videos every single day. They have over one billion users. Facebook has over 3 billion monthly users. It skews younger and more male, too. I did not expect that.

Half of all adult Facebook users have over 200 friends. In contrast, X only has about 99 million American users these days.

Given all of these big numbers, you cannot blame organic reach decline on a platform trying to hide posts so you will pay for the privilege of advertising (although that is certainly a part of it). It is also a sheer numbers game.

If you have 200 friends on Facebook and it is your sole platform, you still can never keep up with it all.

If you go on Facebook for 200 minutes (that is, almost three and a half hours), that will not even be one minute per friend, as you will inevitably read a headline, take a survey or quiz, like a comment, post a picture, or watch a video.

Social Media Writing – Takeaways

How does this apply to you, the indie author? Does social media writing matter? Stay tuned. I will keep covering it, I swear.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other articles about navigating our social media obsessed world.

Working with Social Media

† Four Important Social Media Stats
• Social Networking/Social Media Tips
† The Best Lengths for Social Media Posts and More
• The Power of Social Media (Neurotic Writers’ Edition)
† Are You Promoting Your Writing With Social Media?

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