A Writer's Media Roadmap

The Howard County Chapter of the Maryland Writer's Association had its first meeting of 2018 on January 18.  We were treated to an excellent presentation entitled "Creating Your Social Media Roadmap" by Tiffany Carter.  More than just an introduction to creating a media platform, Tiffany gave us some insight into how to make it really work for us. 

Here is just a bit of what she shared, starting with her approach of:  Platform - Schedule - Automate - Connect.

Platform - She listed six platforms as high priority for writers and authors: a personal blog, Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Goodreads, and Instagram.  The advice was to pick two of these and maintain them well, rather than try to do them all at a shallow level.  She suggested the two most powerful platforms were: (1) having a website "home" with a personal blog and (2) an active presence on Goodreads.  

Schedule - But the emphasis regardless of platform was on consistency.  Pick the platforms you can engage with the most robustly.  Her advice was to create a schedule for posts/tweets/content and stick to it.  This ensures that followers and fans know when and where to find your content.  When is somewhat flexible, although she had recommendations (like posting once a day if doing Facebook or Linked In) she said the key was making sure followers were getting the content when they had come to expect it.

Automate - Of course staying consistent with media is always a challenge.  Tiffany gave us some tips for automation, like connecting blog posts to Goodreads and Linked In, and using tools like Buffer.  I know I've used HootSuite in the past with some success to automate tweets.  She said that once set up, a writer could spend as little as an hour and have the rest of the week's media scheduled and automated to post.  I'd love to reach that point ... I'm certainly not that efficient now with posting.

Connect - Connecting with fans and followers is obviously the point of all of this.  Writers want to meet people and forge connections that lead to authentic interaction.  Being efficient about posting means that time can be spent in the kinds of interactions that are rewarding for both writers and their followers.  Tiffany said that a good foundation of quality content, delivered on schedule, including guest blogging, blog tours, and even pod casting would support more 'rapid' forms of exposure like live video/audio, book promotions, and giveaways.

Finally, she emphasized that we are of course all readers.  She reminded us that we already know what our fans want, because we are readers, too.  We know what works with us - how we get engaged, how we have fun, and what we are looking for from books and authors.  We just need to put those ideas into motion for ourselves as writers.

I thought her presentation was really valuable, and certainly the rest of the room received it enthusiastically.  I hope she comes back to the group and shows us more advanced techniques for making the most of our time online.

Image Credits:  Publicity image of Tiffany Carter from MWA HoCo flyer.  Image of Tiffany Carter from her workshop taken by myself and posted with permission.

Guest Post and Blog Swap with Author Lynn Mann

Mr. Smith's Errand
by Lynn Mann

And now for something completely different ...

I've long been wanting to have more guest posts and interviews here on the blog. So I'm happy I have the honor today of presenting a "Guest Post" of Maryland author Lynn Mann. She and I agreed to answer the same six questions about ourselves, and then post the responses on each others' blogs. You can find the pair to this post with my responses on her blog at http://lynnmannauthor.com/

To try to present something other than the same old interview, we agreed to each provide three fun-and-different questions for the other writer (for a total of six). Here are Lynn Mann's responses to the questions. Her bio follows, with more details on her publishing and awards.

1. Which of the seven wonders of the ancient world would you have wanted to see at its most glorious?

"I want to see the pyramids, clad in their coats of shining white limestone, topped by pure gold at their apex. I want to see the sun rising over the desert, its rays striking the gold, turning it into a blinding beacon daily demonstrating the king’s power and wealth. I want to see the grand processions, taking a recently deceased courtier or noble to his final rest in a mastaba near his king’s pyramid, with all the chanting and wailing (professional mourners were de rigueur). I want to see the grave goods piled high, the ceremonious sealing of the tomb and, as soon as night fell, the tomb robbers (usually the same people who built and decorated the tombs) coming out to pillage them."

2. You can have any superpower / magical ability / force - what is it and why?

"I want to power of silence. I want to be able to flip an internal switch and make all the chattering idiots be quiet. I want to make all the negative voices in my head to shut up long enough for me to do whatever it was they said I couldn’t. I’d also like to make that annoying woodpecker in the woods behind my house stop tapping."

3. Do you have houseplants? Are they in good condition?

"When people hear that I grow orchids they think it’s something special, a talent that only extremely green-thumbed people have. I’m living proof that this theory doesn’t hold up. I grow phalaenopsis - those orchids with the long arching stem full of gloriously colored flowers you often see at various big box hardware stores and grocery stores. If you truly want to learn to grow orchids, please find a professional grower to buy from. The ones in grocery stores, or any other place that doesn’t specialize in orchids, are typically culls that the pros refused to buy. The plants will bloom for a few weeks and then, because you don’t really know how to take care of them, they will die, convincing you that orchids are hard to grow. They really aren’t but just as you wouldn’t go to a plumber to set a broken bone, you shouldn’t buy orchids from people whose expertise is selling hinges and lawn mowers. Phals make excellent houseplants and start blooming right around Thanksgiving, when my outside garden is dying. Phals will bloom for 6 months or more, and they each have their own cycle. At any given moment 4 or 5 will be looming at once, which fills my bedroom with glorious, jewel-like colors and gets me through the winter doldrums. A few years ago I installed a rain barrel on my back deck. The orchids have thrived since I started using rain water and not the chlorinated stuff out of the tap. I have found that a regimen of benign neglect seems to work best with them."

4. Which performer would you like to meet backstage and what would you say to sound cool even though you're totally star-struck?

"I would love to meet Paul Simon, although I can’t think of a single non-geeky thing to say to him. What question hasn’t he already been asked? I always wonder whether performers stop enjoying hearing how much you love their music, that their music has meant so much to you, etc., etc. I think just seeing the show from backstage, to see the inner-workings, would be magic. I guess the short answer is there isn’t anything I could say to Paul Simon that wouldn’t make me sound like star-struck to my bones."

5. Three world heritage sites you want to visit before you die.

"I’m having too much trouble with this question. The Great Barrier Reef, Petra and Angor Wat are the 3 that leap to mind. I visited the World Heritage website http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ and was overwhelmed with the number of sites listed and how endangered most of them are. I’m going to cheat and add one more: Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord in Norway. Guess it’s time to get out the calendar and start planning 2013’s trips..."

6. If you see a clothing tag sticking out of a friend's shirt, what do you do? What if it's someone you only know casually, not a real friend?

"I hate having the tags sticking out of my shirts and always appreciate being told when they are. I assume most women (and some men) are like me and will always tell a friend (of either gender) or even reach over and fix it for them. Someone I know but am not friends with I’ll still tell and a total stranger depends... I guess it mainly depends on the vibe I get from them. I love that so many manufacturers are now printing the tag rather than sewing it on."

Bio: Lynn Mann resides in Columbia, MD with two rescue cats and a supportive husband. Her writing reflects her eclectic reading, unusual education and far-flung travels. Several of Lynn’s stories have been published on-line and in small magazines, and her short story collection, Mr. Smith’s Errand on is available on Amazon (Mr. Smiths Errand). Her awards include 1st Prize in the 2011 Maryland Writers Assoc. New Novel Contest (Do You Do Murders) and 3rd Prize in the Windmill Women’s Writers annual Short Story Contest. Lynn’s story “Taking Care of Business” will be published by Rhino Press in Uncommon Assassins, due out in Sept. 2012. Along with her full time job she writes, raises orchids and sails on the Chesapeake Bay whenever possible. For further information or to contact her please visit http://lynnmannauthor.com/

Hope you enjoyed the blog swap! We'd love it if you visited both blogs and left us some comments to ponder - say, how would you answer these questions, anyway?

Pax, all