Recently I gave a workshop at Write on the River, a writers’ conference for North Central Washington. My presentation was entitled Blogging and Social Media: What Every Writer Should Know. I spent a lot of time preparing and had lots of great information for the talk, but one of my favorite parts was getting to show the power of social media directly to attendees.
A few days before the conference I had tweeted some of the most helpful and influential people who tweet about blogging and social media for writers. My basic question to all of them was this, “I’m giving a workshop for writers about blogging and social media – could you give your 140 char. of advice about them?” I received replies from everyone I tweeted, and all within 24 hours.
Thus one of the most powerful aspects of social media is displayed. When else in the history could I get on such easy, instant, direct contact with someone who gets the respect and following of tens of thousands of people?
So without further ado, here is advice from the pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media:
Ronnie Smith
Ronnie runs writersrelief.com, a great website with lots of tips, hints, and hot leads for submitting and publishing your books, poems, and stories.
@WritersRelief >10,000 followers
Advice? Proofread. Be consistent. Smile. :-) Sounds like a great workshop.
Dana Lynn Smith
Book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides at www.SavvyBookMarketer.com.
@bookmarketer > 3,000 followers
Blogging: Combine author blog & website; plan on paper first; keyword optimize; blog 3x/week http://bit.ly/BloggingResources
Social Media: Choose right networks; build effective profile; budget time; write effective updates http://bit.ly/SocialResources
Joanna Penn
Is the author of thecreativepenn.com, offering TONS of advice on writing, blogging, social media and how to get published. Tweets lots of links to great content for writers across the web.
@thecreativepenn >12,000 followers
get a distinctive blog, add great content regularly, be useful, use multimedia, stay in niche, focus hard on 1 social network
Alexandra Levit
Business/workplace author and speaker with 5 pubbed books and 2 syndicated columns. Featured in New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, ABC News, Fox News, CNBC, the Associated Press, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Fortune.
@alevit > 34,000 followers
Set aside an hour a day for blogging and social media. Otherwise they will eat up time surreptitiously.
Leo Babauta
Started ZenHabits.net, one of the best blogs ever (in my opinion) and WriteToDone.com, a blog to help writers improve their craft and their art. He’s a true poster-child for noname-to-stardom blogging. With his great content he got over 100,000 readers of his blog in less than 2 years. He’s also published multiple books from his blog.
@zen_habits > 42,000 followers
Writing advice: Say less, choose carefully, clear distractions. And it’s all distractions, if it’s not writing.
Have more advice for writers using blogging and social media? Give it below in the comments and be sure to leave your social media links.
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Can You Write it Out?
I’m not a big proponent of meetings. In a few cases I think they can help brainstorm good ideas, make decisions quickly, and make big changes decisively. But, for the most part I think the time could be spent better (either doing more productive work or enjoying relationships with those we love).
One big reason I think people like to have meetings is so that they can process their ideas outloud. But, why take up someone else’s time while you process something? Instead I like to use email or comments on my project management system, Basecamp to get feedback. And I don’t think I’m being a jerk about it. My reasoning is that using these tools forces you to write out your thoughts. And I believe you don’t have a firm grasp on your thoughts until you are able to write them out.
Writing out your thoughts and opinions on something compels you to really assess what’s going on in your head. Until someone else can understand it, there’s a good chance you don’t understand it either. You see my point? I’ve had the idea for this blog post for months now, but it just stays a floating mess of thoughts until I capture it and put it down in words. Then I’ve constrained my thoughts into something concrete that can be understood and assessed by others.
Writing it out goes for more than just getting your opinions and thoughts out. It also works for showing you can synthesize information into knowledge. It’s why we all had to write book reports in school instead of just telling the teacher we read the book. It’s one reason why writing a blog can help show that you are an expert in your field. Putting your knowledge down for everyone else to read proves you’re not just a smooth talker. You’re going on record to show you know what you’re talking about, and it can be proven.
So, make sure you know what you’re thinking and prove it to others – write it out.