My Life in Social Media

This post could also be called “Why I Haven’t Written Anything Lately,”  “My Day on Social Media,” or “My Marketing Plan.”

“Why I Haven’t Written Anything Lately”: By that, I mean books. I keep writing blog posts! I have a first draft of a dating memoir that I wrote for NaNoWriMo  (National Novel Writing Month) last November. But I am preparing to move across the country sometime in the next couple of months, so I have had too much on my mind to work on that book. I do hope to have it done this calendar year. And next year I hope to write and publish my business writing book.

“My Day on Social Media”: Being a Virgo, I am very scheduled, and I do the exact same thing every morning. That is when I get my social media “work” done. I suppose it is really a mixture of work and not-work, but I consider any social media done by a business person as work. So, this post is actually about my social media routine every morning, which is pretty much….

“My Marketing Plan”: Marketing is a tricky thing. There is so much you can do, it can overwhelm a writer so that we do nothing at all. But there is, of course, a happy medium. And when I read anything about the marketing tasks a writer should do, I am either doing it now or have done it in the past. Right now, my marketing plan consists of Amazon advertising (which seems to be working pretty well) and social media. By social media, I don’t mean posting pictures of my book covers and begging you to buy them. In fact, I do very little of that at all, mostly because I don’t think of it. I do share my blog posts every week, but I don’t push my books very often except when I have a new one. I think of social media as more of a way to get my name and what I do out there. So I connect with as many people as I can on social media for that reason — on both business and personal sites.

If you are a writer — or any other type of business person — or if you are just curious, here is my morning routine. I have to admit, I check my e-mail, my book sales, and Facebook at other times during the day, depending on how busy I am, but I always do this particular routine in the morning. I don’t use all social media (who can?), and I don’t even know most of the new ones — or how to best use the ones I do use. I am sure I could be using them better, but I am a creature of habit and tend to just keep doing the same thing rather than taking time out for a learning curve.

And I have been called — this very week — a Facebook Rockstar!

I am up and at my computer at 7:30. But I wake up much earlier. I have been trying to meditate lately, and I do that at 5:30, so I am done in time to stream my favorite comedy/political show on my phone at 6:00. I watch and drink coffee from 6 to 7:30 when I take the phone (to keep watching) and the coffee to my computer.

First and foremost, I check my book sales: Amazon and Ingram, where most of my book sales, but not all, occur. I track those on a calendar two or three times a day. Then I go to Amazon advertising to see how it is going: the ratio of what I am spending to what I am selling. I have been advertising my top three selling books on Amazon steadily for the past several months.

Then I check my bank balances, both personal (I like to keep my checkbook balanced) and business. If I have business expenditures or if anyone has deposited sales into the account, I note that in my “books,” which because I am technologically-limited, consists of a Word Doc with In and Out lists. Hey, it works for me, but does turn out to be quite a bit of work at tax time!

That done, I check the e-mail that is linked to my website; that is where any blog post comments will come in. Generally, there isn’t much there that can’t be immediately deleted, although you know I always answer the blog post comments.

I then go to Twitter. I really do wish I knew how to use Twitter better! On Twitter, I write my Word of the Day, or Tip or the Day, or whatever I am doing that month. This month it is Comma Rule of the Day; last month it was Commonly Misspelled Words. After I write it and share it on Twitter, I copy it and share it on LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Facebook (both personal and business pages). I used to put it on Google+, but that is now gone. While I am on the Facebook personal page, I check the birthdays and wish friends I actually know a happy birthday. While I am on my business page, I check the previous day’s postings to see the likes and comments. Here, you can find out who has liked a comment but hasn’t yet liked your page. You can then invite them to like your page with just a click.

Now I go back to Twitter to find interesting things to post on my Facebook pages — either business or personal, depending on the post. Most of these posts are memes or photos that I save and then put on Facebook for my friends’ and followers’ amusement. I also “like” and Retweet some of the posts I find. I look at my general Twitter feed, and then I search for “grammar,” “books,” “reading,” and “coffee.” Those are my topics of choice.

Next I go to my regular e-mail, of which I have two addresses. One used to be personal and the other business, but they are now kind of mixed together. Most of the e-mails I delete (I am sure you can relate); some I save for later. Later never seems to come, and the list of e-mails gets longer (and things get lost and deleted). I tell myself that soon I will take a few hours to go through them. I rarely do. It is too confusing to know which to keep and why to keep them and file them in yet another folder. 

After the e-mail is taken care of, I go to Facebook, my social media “home.” I post those Twitter things I saved, some of them on my personal page and others on my business page. Then I look at my personal page timeline

to see what’s new. I share things, a lot of them political. I am always happy when people share grammar-type things with me and post them on my timeline. 

Almost done, but not quite. I then take the memes and pictures from Twitter and save them to my photos on the computer (which links to my phone photos). In the evening, while I am on my exercise bike (but this is a whole other “routine”), I share those to Instagram and go through Instagram liking things.

Then I rest.

Now you know why I am not writing much lately, what my marketing plan is, and what I do on social media — every day.

Next week: Back to grammar!