Wednesday 25 March 2015

A Social Media Writer’s 101

When you finally decide that you want to start sharing your poetry or written piece (which is a heck of a milestone in itself) you need to make a decision about where it is that you want to showcase your work.

From my personal experience, I have found that it is easier to start by sharing your work on a social networking site that you are familiar with; this should be a site that you can navigate well. Posting your first few pieces for the world to see can be immensely nerve wracking; you don’t want to have to deal with any technical complications. The best way to get known for what you do quickly is by posting your work on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. It’s always a good idea to start a new account, on which you will mainly post your writing/poetry. The name of your account should be quirky, unique and personal to you, it should stand you out from the crowd, there are plentiful writers on social media and you don’t want to have a name that has been done. Your name should scream originality.

You have to think of it as your work being the ‘product’ that you are trying to sell to people, the more you see an advertisement of something, the more compelled you are to buy it. Similarly, you should share your work regularly. With a packed schedule, this may be hard to do every day, but a well presented piece a few times a week should suffice, the old school saying of quality over quantity should not go a miss either.

In regards to setting a clear theme to your page, that people remember as yours consistency is the key! Now I’m not suggesting that you should have a boring page with minimal colour (unless that’s your thing) but what I am saying is that you should have a particular feature that you keep the same with all your posts, whether that is the font style, the background colour or the way you sign your work is up to you.

Ok. So you have created a new account, decided on a theme and you have even uploaded your first post... a few days pass and you hardly have any likes. “I knew this was a bad idea” you say as you start to argue with yourself, and start contemplating on ditching the account. But wait! Hang in there; there are a few boxes you need to tick every time you post a piece. It may seem very time consuming at first, but as you get into the habit of doing so, the time it takes to mentally go through your check list is next to nothing.

These are:

- Use relevant hashtags that relate to your posts, so that other people can find your work e.g. #poem #writer

- The next thing that I personally like to do is also use hashtags based on what I have wrote my poem about e.g. if my poem is about the ocean or just mentions any aspect of the ocean, then I may use a hashtag like #ocean #blue #sea

- The most important part is writing an inviting caption, something that will engage your readers and will make them want to read your work

Things might seem slow at first, you must follow other accounts that you may share the same interests with, and make it clear on whether or not you are open to feedback. Ask your friends to follow and share your new account too and you should also share your account on various forms of social media that you may already be on. You want to have fun with what you’re doing, but gaining recognition for it too would be even better, so don’t forget to promote your work elsewhere.

Once you get into it, you are most likely to make fellow poet/writer friends, and your account will become a comfortable abode for your thoughts and words. Don’t forget to be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

3 comments:

  1. neither was pak :p
    btw loved every bit of detail

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hallo sist, thanks for sharing the tips^^ it'll be useful for me

    ReplyDelete