How to Avoid Wasting Precious Writing Time on Social Media ...

If you?re a writer, then you?ve probably heard about using social media to attract readers. The attention around it has been pretty difficult to ignore. However, some say social media is all hype and that the effort an author spends there doesn?t do much for book sales. Over the past few months, some have questioned whether it?s valuable at all for writers and authors to spend their time marketing books on social media.

With social media marketing experts recommending a writer spend 80 percent of their time building a platform on social media and a mere 20 percent writing, as some of those skeptics claim, I can see why. That doesn?t leave much time for writing, which is the only thing that can make you a more successful writer.

I have always struggled with how not to feel like I?m wasting my time on social media. And while I?m sure it?s no magic ticket to literary stardom, I do recognize the value of being in a place and sharing what I do where so many people are congregating and communicating. For that reason, I continue to plug away at my social media marketing. But I try to be strategic and realistic about it.

Make a Social Media Plan

Part of being strategic is having a plan. When I came across this tutorial on making a social media marketing plan, I thought I would share it with you. Basically, your social media plan is like the rails that your social media train runs on. Without the rails, a train could still move quickly. But it would undoubtedly run off the track and away from the direction you want it to go. The same goes for social media.

You can spend a lot of time on social media without actually getting much done. You can even repel people by spending too much time promoting yourself on social media. On the flip side, with a strong social media plan, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with people and finding new readers.

So what should you include in your social media plan?

Core Goals and Metrics to Track

To start with, you should have your core goals and your core metrics figured out right at the very beginning.

Begin with your goals. What do you want to use social media for? Are you trying to connect with potential readers? Are you trying to land speaking engagements? Are you trying to expose your writing to more people? Are you trying to build up your follower count? Are you trying to drive traffic to your site and get actual book buyers? In all likelihood, you?re after a combination of those things.

The metrics you?d track stem directly from your goals. For example, if you?re trying to build up your follower count, you can keep track of the number of new followers you gain per day and how many people share your updates. On the other hand, if you?re trying to make book sales, visitors to your website might be your most important metric.

You can?t have a good social media plan without clear goals. Start your planning by figuring out what your goals are, then pick your core metrics to track.

What Social Media Sites You Plan to Cover

Your plan should cover exactly which social networks you plan to be on. The networks you use depend mostly on who you?re trying to reach.

Let?s say you?re trying to land more speaking gigs. In this case, being on Facebook might not be the best way to reach your target audience. Instead, getting on LinkedIn is probably your best avenue, followed by Twitter.

Don?t neglect smaller social networks either. For reaching an early adopter crowd, Google+ could be a very viable option. Smaller communities might have their own social networks setup on Ning (as shown below).

The long and short of it is this: Go where your audience is.

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Breakdown of How to Spend Your Time

Your plan should have a detailed outline of how you plan to spend your time. For example, your plan might look something like this:

Monday: 30 Minutes Scheduling Facebook Posts, 30 Minutes Scheduling Twitter Tweets
Tuesday: 30 Minutes Replying to Messages, 30 Minutes Posting on LinkedIn Q&A
Wednesday: 60 Minutes Post on Forums, Comment on Blogs
Thursday: Repeat Monday
Friday: Repeat Tuesday

Try to segment your activities into different ?buckets.? When your time in one bucket runs out, move on. Don?t let yourself get sucked into one thing for too long. Also, don?t rely too heavily on automated updating. It starts to feel like spam after a while.

List of Essential Social Media Actions

What are the most important things you have to get done every week?

If you?re trying to land speaking gigs, then an essential action should be to respond to any conference organizer within three business hours. It doesn?t matter what else you?re doing, this takes precedence.

If you want to foster connections (and in social media, you should), then maybe you commit to reaching out to and interacting with ten people per day.

If you?re trying to build a social media following, your essential action might be not missing a post. You have a schedule and you stick to it rigidly. If something might detract you from hitting your posting deadline, those things have to wait.

Having a list of your essential actions can help you prioritize tasks when you?re busy trying to write.

A Plan for Outreach and Connection Building

Two things you should have as part of your plan are building your audience and deepening your connection with your community.

Your outreach strategy should be, again, tailored to your goals. If you?re trying to reach people high-profile book reviewers or people with the power to influence many others, you might comment on their blogs for several weeks before shooting them a direct Twitter message. If you?re trying to build a Facebook audience, your strategy might involve putting out innovative content every month.

As for building connections, the most important thing to realize on social media is the value of a single person. It?s easy to get lost in the statistics and the crowd of a thousand likes. But often time?s your biggest breakthroughs?winning over a new reader, getting booked to speak, scoring a review in a high-profile publication, etc.?will come from the most unexpected places.

Whenever you can, reach out and get in touch with people one on one. Acknowledge your fans and build real connections.

Treat Your Social Media Plan as a Living Document

If you don?t want to waste your precious writing time doing things that aren?t really working for you, then don?t treat your social media marketing plan as something that?s set in stone. Let it grow and move organically. See what works for you and do more of that, and don?t waste time doing what doesn?t. Your plan should grow as you grow and as your audience grows.

Most importantly, don?t mistake social media marketing for a fast ticket to success. It should, probably for most authors and writers, be a piece of the larger marketing picture. Use it as a tool to keep yourself and your book marketing efforts on track as you head towards your goals. But keep in mind that social media works best when combined with other marketing and platform building methods, such as live speaking engagements, readings, blogging, and publications. And social media, or any other marketing tactic, will never make up for poor writing. The most important thing you can do to make yourself a more successful writer and author is to write!

Questions or comments?

Related posts:

1. Grow Your Following of Readers: Social Media Book Marketing Basics
2. Authors: Blog Your Way to Friends, Followers, and Readers
3. Build Your Author Platform by Getting Quoted in the Media
4. Twitter in 10 Minutes a Day
5. How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Writing a Nonfiction Book

Tagged as: social media book marketing, social media for writers

Source: http://writerssherpablog.com/book-marketing/how-to-avoid-wasting-precious-writing-time-on-social-media-marketing/

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