Consistency: The key to social media dominance
Remember that your P3 Short Assignment 3: Promo Plan is due before 11:59 pm FRIDAY, November 22
Don't Forget! Conferences next week! If you haven't signed up, do so NOW!
Now you are ready to embark on tackling the task of using social media to drive readers to your narrative. The key to making sure that others are reading your work is consistency.
Love her or hate her, Kim is consistent about her social media presence.
Composers who use social media to promote their creations are constantly talking about what they are doing, projects they are working on, and reminding their followers of their many, many compositions. They don't tweet 10 times a week, they tweet 100 times a week. These social media icons are consistently present for fan interaction.
That being said, they don't just talk about their compositions.
Consider social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Tic Tock, You Tube, etc and their many subgenres.
Subgenres might include
The Celeb - like any of the Kardashians
The Chef - like Gordon Ramsay
The Lifestyle Guru - like Lavendaire
Each of these subgenres have genre conventions. You have expectations when you go to these individuals social media accounts. When they subvert those expectations, you might speculate about what's really going on.
You are a student who is also a writer. What types of social media posts would a student writer post. Probably posts about their life as a student and their writing process. You should tell your readers that you wrote a story and how they might find it, but really, what people want to know is more about you.
Chrissy Teigen wrote a cookbook in 2016 called Cravings, she also just released a new cookbook called Hungry for More. A recipe book is a curation of recipe compositions because she loves to cook. However, if you visit her Twitter account, she is not only talking about her cookbook. She talks about her husband, her child, what she is cooking, where she is hanging, what she's thinking. When someone sends her a tweet showing how they read her book and tried one of her recipes, Teigan immediately retweets it. She is letting her fans promote her work for her, and a retweet from Teigan makes her fans feel like they are part of that celebrity's world. The retweet is like a thank you, but also a promotional tool.
She manages multiple accounts on different platforms, but that doesn't means she is creating three different messages. Often she repeats the same messages on Twitter as she does on Instagram.
Because of the need to manage multiple platforms, services like Hootsuite are available for free which will allow you to post on up to two different social media accounts at the same time. I've been using Hootsuite for the past several months and I am pleased with how it lets me schedule posts in advance. The problem is it won't automatically post to Instagram. If you don't want to download another app to your phone, use your Twitter drafts to write posts in advance, and then copy and paste those posts into your other social media platforms.
The best way to know how to promote a narrative is to study who is using social media to promote their brand, and take what you can use for your own narrative.
Once you have your Wix account built and ready for public consumption, go to your social media accounts and create a base of posts.
DO NOT NAME YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT THE NAME OF YOUR STORY. Use your name. You are the author. Check out these other author social media accounts include: Stephen King, Megan Abbott, Hanif Abdurraqib, Attica Locke, Jasmine Guillory
Use the same (or very similar) profile photo for each social media account: Readers will follow you on all of their social media if they know you are the right person.
Post your Narrative's Wix link in your profile info: Make it as easy as possible for readers to access your narrative.
Build a base of 25 posts first: People on social media are reluctant to follow accounts which are too new. You need to show you have quality content before you start building your followers. Also, don't just post facts and statistics or just retweet a bunch of random things. Be a human, not a robot. Talk about yourself, your brand as a student, inspirations for the story, and more. I am offering 20 extra credit points for anyone who gets their first 25 posts up before November 24.
Repost and retweet but only as needed: Accounts which are only full of retweets make readers suspicious and reluctant to click on your links because many "robot" accounts are only retweets. Also, they are not interesting to follow because they are not thoughtful.
Your followers might not read your narrative right away: People need to see something at least three times before they act on it. So be sure to remind your followers that your narrative is available to read. That being said, do not bombard them with only tweets or posts about your narrative.
Don't use art or images from existing properties: some companies (like Disney) do not like it when other people use their properties to promote their own compositions. If you recall the lecture from Media Industries, Disney owns nearly every franchise, and they have no problem asking for accounts to be taken down to protect their property. This has been an issue in the past when a student tried to sample a Kanye West song for a podcast. It resulted in him being banned from SoundCloud.
After you have a solid base of posts, you are responsible for finding followers. Who is the audience for your narrative and how do you encourage them to follow your accounts? Often social media works on a follow for a follow philosophy. However, social media users will get followed by business thirsty for that follow back and they ignore it.
When someone you do not know follows you, what makes you want to follow them back?
Is the page fun?
Do their posts relate to a topic which interests you?
Does having this person's words and images in your feed make your day better?
Usually people avoid accounts which are blatantly trying to sell them something, push them into acting on something, or generally trying to bring them down.
Students who have been most successful on this aspect of the project turn this part into a game. Some of them have been kicked off of Twitter under suspicion of being a robot because they followed so many people. Other students have found success by tapping into their niche audience.
For your Social Media accounts, here are the REQUIRED MINIMUMS for a successful account. I want screen-shot evidence of these posts on your P3 Wix page with your narrative and your final report.
Twitter: A minimum of 80 Tweets. Tweets should be interesting and give the reader a reason to continue following your account. This is in addition to your class tweets.
Instagram Account: minimum of 40 posts before 12/1. This is a visual mode, so each image should be visually stimulating or interesting.
Pinterest account: Minimum of 10 boards with 30 pins per board which are relevant and relate to your campaign. Accessible before 12/1.
Snapchat: Because Snapchat stories disappear, you must download these every day in order to show that you promoted there. 10 photos per day before 12/1.
Facebook: minimum of 40 photos before 12/1. Posts should be a mix of visually stimulating and text-based posts. (I'll be honest, no students in the past have reported a good following from Facebook. Not one.)
** As you may have already realized, I check time stamps. When I say these need to be posted BEFORE December 1, I mean it. **
How to turn your narrative viral?
Make it an event: Writers and creators are known for hosting live samples of their work. These do not need to be big stadium sized events, but a gathering of friends and you presenting your work can also be a social media tool. Promote the event to local followers (host it on Landis or something free and open to the public), ask someone to video your reading (a friend who has the best social media skills), post the video on your social media as a sample of your work and access to the link to absorb the whole story.
Make it personal: film one-on-one videos of you explaining your creation process and why the story was important to write and post it on your social media accounts, linking your viewers to the story (link's in the bio, folks)
Ask friends for blurbs, retweets, and testimonials. Ask one of your friends to be a hype-person for your story.
Live tweet, Snapchat or Instastory your inspiration: If your original fiction inspiration was a television series which airs live weekly or is accessible on Netflix, plan a viewing party and live tweet the episode. Invite friends over and tweet together or go solo. If you are watching something which is airing live (such as Grey's Anatomy) be sure to check out who is also tweeting during the commercial breaks and retweet, comment back, and discuss theories. These could become new followers.
Don't Forget:
Promotional Plan is due FRIDAY November 22
Narrative Draft 2 is due SUNDAY November 24
Two advertisements are due SUNDAY November 24
