As you may recall, I have a wee bit of a problem with social media. Remember my seven-minute rule on Facebook? Um…yeah. It’s worked pretty well, but honestly, there are so many times I have to be on Facebook, have to work that side of the writing business. And before I know it, my writing time side is quite sucked dry. And Twitter? I simply can’t do seven minutes on Twitter–so I end up not doing Twitter at all. There has to be a better way, right?
Enter Frances Caballo, author of Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time To Write. It’s a mouthful, I know, but that’s exactly what we as writers need. A way to maximize our social media marketing so that we can write. Serendipitously, Frances has a few Twitter tips to get us started:
Cut Through the Slush and Maximize Your Tweets
The biggest hindrances to being social are the streams of incoming messages in your news feeds. If you are following 2,000 Twitter users, it can be difficult to cut through the slush to find the gems that you’ll find worth retweeting.
One way you can cut through the plethora of messages is to find and join Twitter chats that focus on specific areas of interest. Nothing can replace the feeling of immediacy that interacting with a wide number of people on Twitter will provide. They are interesting, fun, and depending on the topic, very entertaining. Use these applications to find a Twitter chat you might enjoy:
With this application, you can create real-time chat rooms based on your selected Twitter hashtag. A Twitter hashtag might be #memoirchat, #poetchat, #suspensechat, or #marketingchat.
With this application, you can keep track of multiple keywords, including multiple Twitter chats. You can even join more than one chat, and the website will create grids with live updates within each stream. In essence, it creates real-time chat rooms based on the Twitter hashtags in use.
Applications to Help You Find Newsy Nuggets
People post about everything on social media. They show pictures of gluten-free lasagna, a son’s graduation, and trending videos on YouTube. If you would like to view and comment on these posts, then do so. But if you want to find the real news and join conversations with more substance, there are a variety of applications that can help you with that, too.
Nutshell Mail (www.nutshellmail.com)
You will determine whether you want to receive an update once or twice daily and at what time. On Twitter, it will keep track of new follows and un-follows, mentions, and tweets from your favorite lists in your Twitter summary. You can even tweet, reply, retweet, and send a direct message without even leaving your inbox.
Newsle will send you e-mail alerts when people you follow are mentioned in articles online. It’s always a friendly gesture to send the person an e-mail or tweet congratulating them on the mention or a great post they wrote. According to the application’s creators, “Newsle tracks real news. Every story in your Newsle news feed is a real news article from a newspaper, news website, or blog that mentions or quotes your friend.” To set it up, simply connect to Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. Review the settings to select how often you want to receive e-mail notification.
Do you have any tips for maximizing your tweets?
Well, Frances, I do now!
Frances Caballo is a social media manager for writers. Besides her book above, she’s also the author of Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers.
And here are a few more of the gems you’ll find in Avoid Social Media Time Suck:
- How to create and perfect your author platform.
- The importance of being social and applications that make this task easy and fun.
- Tools that enable you to track and measure your success so you can better understand the return on investment of your valuable time.
- Exercises for introverted writers to help you feel comfortable on the social web.
Now, I know you’re chomping at the bit to get this book in your hot little hands. So leave a comment and maybe I’ll draw your name! (Name will be drawn on Tuesday, April 29.) Or check out the giveaway on Goodreads (Through April). Or just zip right here and order it.
And really, considering all that time sucking away, hand’t you better hurry?
Cathy C. Hall Writes 
Me in a time suck? Why yes. Thanks for sharing this title with us.
You’re welcome, Stacy! And P.S. You are not alone. 🙂
What a fabulous and important post. I desperately need to work on my balance. Blogs, tweets and facebook groups are twisting my life into time warps and cutting into my writing creating time. It is good to know someone out there has the answer. 🙂 Thank you Cathy C. Hall and thank goodness Frances Caballo has the book we need.
Ah, balance, Cecilia. Why is it so darn hard to achieve??? (You’re very welcome, and good luck!)
Thank you so much, Cathy, for the shout out abut my newest book. If anyone reading this post has questions, please feel free to ask. Thanks!
Thank you, Frances and Cathy. Time on social media can take many minutes away from writing. I’d be interested in reading Frances’ book.
All this time, I thought I was just in a time warp. At first it only happened in bookstores; go in while it’s daylight, come out and it’s dusk. Then horrors, it started again with email, reading and responding. And now it’s facebook (I haven’t gotten sucked into Twitter much). Is there a support group or 12-step program for this problem??? LOL Thank you Frances, for giving us solutions to our addiction as any good therapist would. And Cath, you are an awesome sponsor to share this with us! Keeping fingers crossed my name is drawn.
Maybe it’s a support group made up of the people reading this book, Gail! 🙂 Good luck, Gail and Patricia!
Was just on FB, which I don’t get on often, but I just wasted like two hours doing nothing… ack. I’ll need to check out this book, thanks.
Pick me, pick me! You know where I linked to you from? You guessed it. Facebook. I think I need to pick either FB or Twitter and focus. As usual, I spread myself too thin and accomplish nothing.
I don’t do Facebook or Twitter, so perhaps I don’t need this book. However, I waste lots of time on blogs and Pinterest…
Now that I think about it, perhaps I DO need the book. 😉
I wish I could give away a book to all of y’all ’cause we’re all in the same boat! 🙂
Great post, Frances. My problem is that I tend to use Facebook as a virtual water cooler, since I work from home and am desperate for chit chat among friends/colleagues sometimes during the day. Anyone else relate to that? Thanks for hosting Frances on this tour, Cathy!
Thanks for the concrete links to apps that can help me navigate the social media waters!