Why Writers Need a Social Media Plan

Want to grow your audience? You need a compelling brand message.

I approached Kerry Jones, a Social Media Strategist, to talk me through what a Social Media Strategy looks like. Follow her process and I’m sure you’ll find your social media interactions more enjoyable and beneficial.

I’m a writer who wants my social media engagements to be more effective. Where should I start?

The first step I always suggest is an audit of your current social media presence. Chances are you have some profiles set up already, whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. This means looking at things like:

• The number of followers and likes on each of your platforms.
• Branding: is it consistent across all the platforms?
• Is it obvious what you do?
• Your bio: does it work from a search perspective? If, for example, you only offer freelance writing services in a certain geographical location, you need to make sure that location is in your bio.
• Images: do they add personality?
• Content: are you adding value? Are you posting at the best time of day for your audience? Are you making people want to engage with you?
• Insights/analytics: are you reviewing these regularly? Many people forget to do this but it will reveal things like the most popular time of day that your audience engages with your posts.

OK, that sounds pretty in-depth but I can see how it would be helpful. So, once my profiles are consistent and clear, what’s the next step?

One of the exercises I walk customers through is developing a Social Media Strategy. It takes some time but it’s worth it if you want to increase your engagement with your audience.

1. Objectives

You need to be clear what you want to achieve online because this will impact how you use social media. Is it letting people know who you are (brand), engaging with your audience (loyalty), or driving traffic to your site to sell them something, like your book?

2. Customers

Here is where I get really detailed. We explore who the client wants to reach and we take time writing four different personas for typical customers. I’ll describe who the potential customer is, what job they do, what their interests are, what their challenges are and how they access and use social media. This is a really helpful step in understanding how to reach your target audience, and where.

3. Platforms

If the client hasn’t already conducted an audit of their social media activity, this is where I would do one. Then we look at the main platforms to understand the pros and cons, how to use them and which one(s) might be best to reach their audience. You want to ask yourself: Where are my target readers? How do they use social media?

For writers, Twitter and LinkedIn (and sometimes Facebook) are normally the most useful platforms.

Tip: Remember that social media is about being social! Engage with other people and get the right balance between curated and created content. Curated is where you share content from someone else, by sharing, retweeting, reposting etc. Created is original content you come up with. On Facebook and Twitter you want to make sure your content is roughly 20% created and 80% curated. In other words, don’t just tell everyone what you do. LinkedIn is the opposite; you can share 80% created and 20% curated content.

Twitter: this is where you’ll find businesses and communities.  It’s a good platform for developing awareness and loyalty but not necessarily for selling. It’s also the most time-intensive platform; you need to post at least four times a day for people to see your posts. This is because the algorithm is time based. Your tweet appears in your follower’s feed when you post it so they’ll only see it if you’re online at the same time. You can’t just pop in when you like with Twitter. With Instagram, in contrast, your posts will appear chronologically in your follower’s feed, so they can scroll down to find you.

LinkedIn: this platform is more about expertise and thought leadership and is great if you offer writing or editing services. It’s less intensive to maintain. You need to comment daily on other people’s posts but you only need to upload original content once every two days.

Facebook: is the largest platform and has a good range of users across the age ranges. However, it’s hard to get organic reach (meaning likes and engagements where you haven’t paid for advertisements). Their algorithm means your posts are sent to people in your network, for example, people who have liked/followed your page. However, if they don’t engage (like, comment, or share your post) with you for a while, you may drop off their feed. You need to post once or twice a day to get traction. Also, think about whether paid advertising would be beneficial to get you in front of ‘cold’ audiences.

Want to grow your audience? You need a compelling brand message.