Writers need to know: “Which social media should I focus on?”
Let’s get you situated.
With apologies to Medium: Substack is more hot, thought is second-in-hot to Tik Tok. Also, Instagram is popular amongst The Youths, with its “Story” feature.
Which social media is hot changes all the time. What is important is that as writers, we have multiple platforms.
What? More work?
People who want specific information about you and your writing need to be able to find you, and they want to find you on their socials.
I take the perspective that writers need to work it on two or three of the major platforms. I add to that m’blog. (I know; the 90s are calling, wanting their social back. However, I have a steady readers. I don’t want to risk losing even one of them.)
Start with one platform:
- participate for an hour a day — or as much of that hour as your life allows
- respond to others’ posts
- ask them questions
- don’t go down the rabbit hole: keep it to one hour and focus on your purpose
It will become clear to others when you are good and involved. That’s when they begin to:
- recognize your name
- steadily respond to your posts
- click to your publications
- buy your books.
Once you have the time, get good and involved in a second/third community.
There is no need to create original content for each social’s article.
They are different readerships. I post the same here as on Substack and on said blog. However, when promoting the post, I only leave the link to the social I am at the time focused on building.
The socials I use to promote the social I am trying to build are:
- Facebook “writer’s page”
- 50–75 Facebook groups I am active in
- Threads
I’m not trying to conquer any particular social. I maintain an active if modest presence so potential readers on that platform who wants to find my writing can do so.
My promotion process takes 15–40 minutes, in addition to whatever time it takes to write, edit, format, and find a graphic for the post.
Oh! Totally forgot that I’m also on LinkedIn. That mind-fart will tell you how little I interact there. (Note to self: build community on LinkedIn.)
How I did what I did
Post the “blogging-no-longer-hot” phenom, I joined Facebook because Facebook was hot. I put up a good ol’ regular page rather than a writer’s page because writers pages don’t allow personal interaction, and personal interaction was what I wanted.
Personal interaction is hard to build.
- I joined a couple groups, established myself there, only subsequently to take on another few groups; then
- I volunteered to lead a group (Personal Essayists); then
- I founded one (Binders Seeking Literary Agents). Both are solely for woman-identifying humans.
- My personal page maxed out the 5.000 friends Mark Zuckerberg thinks any person should be allowed to have; then to put up a writer’s page.
- I just founded the group Reading and Writing Trauma. It is open to all genders. We do not re-traumatize each other.
Next, I came to Medium, and then went to Substack. On both, I post exactly the same pieces that I post on my blog. (Yes! The ol’ blog warrants another mention! Go, blog!)
Then I joined Twitter but never made it work for me. Then Twitter went coo-coo for Coco Puffs, so I switched to Threads. I am currently re-evaluating Threads. Somewhere in there, I started an Instagram account.
Does all this activity exhaust me? Kind of. Do I get bored, even angry at having to do it?
No; at least … not when I am between projects. Once I’m deep into a draft: sure, I’d rather be writing. However, if I do …
… my book sales disappear. So … yeah.
