Using Social Media - From One Writer to Another

Opportunities abound for writers looking to connect with readers and promote their work. Social media sites have the ability to reach large audiences, and those who follow a writer are more likely to share interesting news with their friends if it is in an electronic format. Social media also gives the writers more control over how they present their professional selves to their public; they no longer have to fit the image their publisher wants. They can choose to share as much, or as little, of their personal life as they want. A writer’s platform would be incomplete without some kind of social media presence.

Maintaining that presence on social media can be done by the author or by an assistant. Janet Evanovich, who writes the best-selling Stephanie Plum series, maintains both an active Facebook account and a Twitter account. It is pretty evident that someone else is posting on her behalf, though. There are no first-person entries on either site. The majority of the posts on Facebook are quotes from the nineteen published Plum books, notifications of merchandise and contests, pictures of reader’s pets and announcements for new books. Evanovich is co-writing a new book with Lee Goldberg that will be released on June 18. Her Facebook is also promoting an e-book release that is prequel to The Heist. Almost every post directs the reader back to Evanovich’s own website for more content. She violates the first best practice for social networking, Be Social, by not responding to reader comments. I’d like to believe it’s because she is not the primary user and not because of lack of interest.

The second best practice of social networking is to Be Natural. Evanovich succeeds here by default. She presents herself as the writer of best sellers, but without any interaction with her readers, she is withholding the most intriguing aspect of social media; a personal connection between the writer and their audience. In contrast to Evanovich, Gena Showalter’s Facebook page is full of first-person accounts of revisions and consultations for cover art. Showalter even includes her “Typo of the Day” posts to show that even writers are plagued by fat finger syndrome.

Be Consistent is one best practice that Evanovich excels at through both Twitter and Facebook. Posts are done every day with special features such as the Reader’s Pets being updated once a week. Most of the posts are quotes from the Plum books, or information about new merchandise and contests, yet it is in the content that Evanovich fails at the last best practice, Be Diverse. There is no diversity in her social media. She only promotes her own work. There are no links to other writers’ pages or blogs. It is all Evanovich, all the time. With over five-hundred sixty-thousand likes on Evanovich’s page, compared to just thirty-nine thousand for Showalter, Evanovich’s readers don’t seem to mind.

Social media is an ever-changing medium without a clearly written rule book. It falls to each writer to find what works best for them and to keep their presence alive. If the writer pursues an audience via Facebook, Twitter or any of the other networking sites, keeping these best practices in mind will definitely help. Janet Evanovich maintains her social network through consistency and by being herself, but there is a lot of room for improvement. If she chose one day a week to respond to commenters on one particular post, she would go along way towards creating a more dynamic social presence.