Writers and Social Media Tools — Are You Using Social Media to Further Your Writing Career?

By Dana Prince

Some writers use social bookmarking tools to follow the bloggers that they regularly read and to occasionally chat with other writer friends. Social networking can be a great way to take some of the isolation out of working from home alone. But if you’re not also using social media tools to your advantage to boost your writing business and to help you attract new clients, you may be leaving money on the table. Here are a few ways that social media has helped me with my writing career:

Bookmarking for Writer Self-Promotion and Earnings

When I write a blog post or article that promotes my writing business, my passive income efforts, or one of my niche blogs, I might take an opportunity to Stumble it, Tweet, or Yahoo Buzz it. I might also link to it on Facebook, Friendfeed, and Plurk as well as link to it from another blog post or article of mine, too. Those extra bookmark links can drive up the popularity of the post both from search engine optimisation perspectives as well as the fact that many of my online friends or followers will then give the link their own nod by voting it up, re-tweeting, etc. An article or blog post gone viral can be a very good thing.

Networking with Potential Customers

Over the years, I’ve had quite a few different queries from new clients who initially found me on social media sites instead of in the search engines. While I actively promote in places I believe clients go looking, it doesn’t just take someone looking for my services to decide I might be a good fit for a writing project. There are times when people randomly happen upon something I wrote and decide from there that maybe they’d like to hire me.

Tip: Because nearly everything you say and do online has the ability to be seen by others, particularly if you use your own name, it’s a really good idea to remember when socializing online that potential customers may read your words. Social search engines are increasing in popularity and so are background checks by potential employers. Some social sites are really fun and casual but I typically remind people to behave in a “business casual” manner, rather than as if it’s perpetually “casual Friday”.

Social Marketing as a Service

Because of the power of social media and all I’ve learned about it, I’ve also taken my knowledge and used it to my advantage by making it part of my solutions offerings. Some customers have me manage their own social media campaigns as well as pay me to post their links on certain accounts of mine. While there are times that I have to force myself to back slowly away from Facebook or pry myself off Twitter so I can be productive (they are fun as well as useful), social media tools typically do provide great results for me and I highly recommend that writers explore using them for self-promotional purposes.