Frances Caballo's Blog: 10 Twitter Tips Writers Need to Know - Posts Tagged "facebook"

These Amazon and social media marketing tips have two sources: my own experience and Penny Sansevieri. I hope you learn from them too.

There is a never-ending climb on the social media learning curve. Just when we understand everything – or at least think we understand everything – Facebook changes, Twitter adds a twist, or a new network suddenly surfaces and becomes the darling of the day. Isn’t this what happened when Pinterest jumped onto the scene? We were comfortable with Facebook’s new Timeline and starting to use Google+ when suddenly there was another social media site that we needed to conquer.

Some people find the never-ending treadmill of learning about social media exhausting if not exasperating. I don’t. It’s the reason I don’t get involved in other forms of marketing because, quite frankly, they bore me. Social media is exciting.

It’s not unusual for writers to become exasperated with the whole bucket of likes, tweets, hashtags, and connections. Timeline on Twitter is not the same thing as a Timeline on Facebook. And yes, you can now use hashtags on Facebook but I doubt they will ever gain the importance or prominence of Twitter hashtags.

Have I lost you?

Don’t worry. I’m devoting this post to some tips I’ve recently learned and I want to share them with you. Here we go!

Twitter logo break-throughTwitter Tips

I recently wrote a post (10 Twitter Tips Writers Need to Know) that listed the results of Dan Zarrella’s research on the most “retweetable” words. I followed his tips and guess what? Traffic to my website doubled the day that post was published. If you’d like to attract more traffic to your website, I recommend you read this post or even better, purchase his book, The Science of Marketing: When to Tweet, What to Post, How to Blog, and Other Proven Strategies. His strategies, based on a scientific study, do work. Really!

Facebook Tips

I’ve made some mistakes on my Facebook page recently. It all started when I boosted a post about a blog I’d written. As soon as I wrote the post, I “boosted” it with $30 of advertising money and traffic to my website doubled. (I didn’t do this for the post mentioned above.) Another time, I decided to boost a post a couple of days after my Facebook status update was published. Guess what? I was too late. Nothing happened!

If you’re not familiar with a boosted post on Facebook, let me explain. Unlike the ads you see along the right ribbon of your Facebook profile or page, posts that are boosted with advertising dollars appear in your news feeds and look like a regular status update. This type of content is called branded content.

Due to Facebook’s notorious news feed algorithm, posts from your author page only reach about 10% of your fans’ news feeds. Boosted posts penetrate those news feeds and promise to widen the group of people who will see what you’ve written. Think of boosted posts as ads made to look like a regular status update. According to Facebook, boosted posts appear higher in the news feed so that there’s a better chance they’ll be seen and read and that the Facebook user will click the link to your website.

The lesson for me is that I need to boost a post as soon as I finish writing it.

Lessons from Penny Sansevieri aka @bookgal

I’m a member of the Bay Area Independent Publishes Association (BAIPA), which meets monthly in San Rafael in California. If you live near the Bay Area, I highly recommend that you attend these meetings. (I’m not on the board of directors so I can plug the organization freely.)

amazonAmazon was one of her topics that day. Here are some interesting tidbits she shared with the packed room of eager Indie authors:

There are now 1 billion eBooks on Amazon.
Short is the new long. In other words, short eBooks sell better so let people know that your books are quick to read.

You will increase exposure for your books if you cross-promote them and if have you’ve written several books. There was a post on the blogosphere recently that debunked this theory but Penny still adheres to it.
The more books you sell, the higher Kindle will push your books up to the front of the store. I found this to be true recently. I offered a Cyber Monday special on my eBook Social Media Just for Writers. I sold so many copies that day that my book jumped to the #1 spot among social media guides on the next day. In addition, I sold twice as many copies the day the price of the book returned to $7.99.

Keywords are everything on Amazon. Include them in your book descriptions. Also, you can change your keywords as often as you’d like as you experiment with the keywords that help you to sell more books.
Did you know that you’re allowed up to 280 words in your book description? Penny suggests using every word available and to use html code to create bullets and to highlight text.

Do you sometimes wonder whether your book is in the right category? Penny recommends selecting a narrow niche within two broad categories. For example, let’s say that you wrote a romance novel. That would be your broad category. Your selections for narrow categories might include western romance, zombie romance, or paranormal romance. Distinguish your book by selecting the most narrow subcategory possible.

When was the last time you thanked a reviewer? Confession: I never have because I didn’t know that I could or should. Now I do. So the next time someone leaves you an unsolicited review, thank that person.
How do you end your eBooks? Penny strongly suggests that the last words in your eBooks should include a call to action with a link to Amazon’s review web page so that the reader can write a review. Don’t forget to include your contact information too.
Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your BooksFrances Caballo
Here’s a final tip. Don’t forget to include a video or two on your Author Central profile. Videos are popular.
What have you learned recently about Twitter, Facebook or Amazon? I’d love to know!

I haven’t ever written a blog post that was merely a list of terms even though I find these types of posts useful. So I thought it would be helpful to create this list of 56 commonly used social media terms that you can copy and keep on hand whenever you run into a term that you don’t recognize. Feel free to share this post with others.

Twitter

@Reply – Use this symbol followed by a Twitter user’s handle (username) to send the user a tweet. The tweet will appear on your and the other user’s profiles.

.@Reply - When a period is added before another user’s handle, the tweet will appear on both the sender (the person sending the tweet) and the recipient’s profiles.

Blocking – You can block users whose tweets you find offensive, whose tweets are purely spam, or whose tweets are bothersome. When you block another user on Twitter, that user can no longer follow you and you can’t follow that user.

Direct Message, aka “DM” – A message that Twitter users can send each other that aren’t visible on your timelines. Too often, direct messages are used to spam another user (“See my website/blog.” “Download my short stories.”), which is why they are seldom read.

Favorite – This is a feature on Twitter that allows you to mark a tweet as one you like. Once a tweet is identified as a “Fave,” Twitter will automatically pin the message to your account for reference later.

Follow – To agree to receive tweets from another Twitter user.

Follower – This term is used for users who receive your tweets.

Handle – On Twitter, this is another word for username. It’s best to keep your handle to fewer than twelve characters.

Mention/Retweet or RT – On Twitter, repeating information in another user’s tweet and crediting the original author.

Timeline, Twitter – The feed of incoming tweets from people you follow.

Tweeps – This term is used to describe friends or followers with whom you are in frequent contact.

Tweet – A post that a Twitter user writes that adheres to the 140-character limit.

Twitter Chat – An active discussion occurring on Twitter at a specific time. As long as you know the hashtag and time of the Twitter chat, you can join one.

Twitterati – Similar to glitterati, the Twitterati are the stars of Twitter. Users who are in this category include @GuyKawasaki, @mashable and @smexaminer.

Twitterer/Tweeter – Someone who uses Twitter.

Twittosphere – This term refers to a collective group of people who tweet.

Twoosh – A tweet that is exactly 140 characters.

Unfollow – You have the option to unfollow—no longer receive—tweets your followers send you.

Username – An identifier, such as a user’s first name, so the user can access computers and programs

(when used in combination with a password).

Via – This term has gained a lot of traction. Use it in place of RT (retweet).


Facebook

Facebook Lists – Categories of Facebook friends and pages that can be used to target messaging on Facebook profiles or keep track of pages you follow.

Facebook Tabs – Specially designed Web pages often used with a call to action. Facebook tabs have their own URLs.

Insights – A free application for Facebook fan pages that provides metrics, trends, user growth, and demographics on fan engagement.

Timeline, Facebook –The timeline is where users post their status updates. You can allow others to post on your timeline or you can adjust your privacy settings so that other uses aren’t allowed to add posts and images directly on your timeline.


LinkedIn

Connection – Connections on LinkedIn are similar to Twitter users who mutually follow each other; when you accept a connection, you agree to accept their updates in your news feed, which is located on the Home page.

Group – Groups on LinkedIn provide opportunities to further your education – and to share your expertise – in writing and publishing.

LinkedIn First-Degree Connections – LinkedIn users with whom you’ve worked or shared information with in one of LinkedIn’s groups, or colleagues whose email addresses you have.

LinkedIn Second-Degree Connection – LinkedIn users who are connected to your first-degree connections but aren’t directly connected to you yet.

LinkedIn Third-Degree Connection – People who are connected to your second-degree connections. You will be unable to connect with this category of user on your own; you’ll need to ask another connection to introduce you to third-degree connections.


Google+

+1 – Google’s +1 button is similar to Facebook’s Like. When you like a blog post or photo and click on Google’s +1 icon, your status box on Google+ will appear so that you can share the post or photo you liked, write a comment, and share your comments on Google+. You can learn more about the +1 and find the html code to include on your website here: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/+1/

Center Stage – This is the main video window during a Hangout that shows which person is currently speaking.

Chat – Similar to Facebook’s chat feature, you can send short, instant messages to other Google+ users.

Circle – The Circle is equivalent to a Facebook list. Use this feature to target your messaging to your readers, editors, designers, and critique group members, and to maintain privacy on the very wide open Web.

Hangout – This is a group video chat feature used to lead a Web-based discussion on Google+.

Home – Your home page is your news feed where you see updates from people you follow.

Notifications – These are the short updates Gmail users receive about their Google+ profiles. They occur whenever a user has a new connection or shares a comment. They will fly into your Gmail inbox, which makes replies convenient, efficient, and easy.

Profile – This is where you can see all of your updates and edit your information.

Share – On Facebook, you click on the blue and white Post button to send your Status Update onto your friends’ homepages. On Google+, you click on the green and white Share button to activate an update.

Stream – This is the term used for the display of posts by your connections on Google+.


Pinterest

Pinboard – On Pinterest, a collection of related images.

Pin – Navigate to this page to add the Pin It Button to your browser so that you can add pins to your pinboard directly from your website on elsewhere on the Web. You can add the Pin It Button from here: http://help.pinterest.com/en/articles...

Repin – This Pinterest term signifies adding images to a pinboard, especially images uploaded by other users.


Miscellaneous

Channels – This is an interchangeable word for network, as in social media network or social media channel.

Google Adwords – A free tool from Google that helps users determine the best keywords for their blogs, websites, and other platforms.

Google Analytics – A free tool from Google that helps users analyze traffic to their website or blog.

Gravatar – A Gravatar is an abbreviation for globally recognized avatar. Once you register your email address at http://en.gravatar.com, whenever you leave a comment on someone’s blog and enter your email address, your image will appear next to your remarks. If you register your Gmail email, your image will load whenever you send a message.

Hashtags – Words with the number sign (#) in front of them used on Twitter to enhance search results and track buzz. Hashtags are also used on Google+ and Facebook.

Keywords – A component of search engine optimization. Simply put, keywords are the terms someone would type into a Google (or Firefox or Safari) search bar to find your book, services they want, or a restaurant in a new town.

Lists – On Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, lists are used to group certain connections together. On Google+, lists are referred to as circles.

QR Codes – First developed in 1994 by a Japanese automotive company, Quick Response codes are square-shaped matrix barcodes that can be scanned with a smart phone and take a potential buyer directly from a product on the shelf to a website (or event on a flyer) and information. There are numerous QR Code generators, including this one: http://www.qr-code-generator.com

RSS – This is an abbreviation for Rich Site Summary, but it’s better known as Really Simple Syndication. Once you elect to receive updated posts from a blog using an RSS feed, posts will automatically update and you won’t need to revisit the original website.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization is a combination of actions to bring your book to Page One of a search engine’s first page of results.

Social Media Dashboard – An application, such as Hootsuite, that enables users to read in one spot incoming updates, tweets, and posts from their social media networks. Dashboards can also be used to schedule tweets and updates.

Tag – Tags occur in Google+ whenever you type + before a user’s name, similar to the @ that precedes a Twitter handle or username.

Vanity URL – A Web address that the users create to include their names or book titles.

About the Author: Frances Caballo is a social media manager for writers and author of Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write, Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Presently, she is the Social Media Manager for the Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter, the San Francisco Writers Conference, and the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.