Engage in Social Networking the Twitter Way by Donna McDine

It is my pleasure to once again welcome Donna McDine to the blog.  Donna will be posting a monthly entry here.  Everything you wanted to know about marketing your material and more, will be found in her guest posts.  Donna, welcome! 

To be an effective social networker/marketer, setting up your profile is the first step, but it goes far beyond the setup. The saying from the Field of Dreams movie… “Build it and they will come” will not work in this instance. You must continually develop online relationships and share relevant information from your expertise. Like your website and blog, social networking is a constant work-in-progress. Don’t let your shoulders sag. Engagement does not need to take you endless hours every day.

Today I will focus on….

How to strengthen your Twitter participation:

To be an effective member of the Twitter community, you need to tweet on a consistent basis. Note tweets are limited to 140 characters including spaces and the URL you are directing the reader to. Your tweets can be just about anything, such as your latest book, your newsletter, book reviews, author interviews, and information you find interesting to the freelance writing career, etc. My rule of thumb is to tweet at least 4-5 times per day, Monday through Friday. I give myself time off on weekends for good behavior.

Use www.tinyurl.com to shorten the length of the URL you are providing in your tweet, so you save valuable characters for your message.

Don’t just tweet about yourself. Avoid the “it’s all about me attitude." Become a master communicator with tweeting a combination of your own tweets with those of colleagues.

Take out ten to fifteen minutes per day and visit Twitter and retweet (RT) posts of interest for those you are following. You’ll be amazed how appreciative tweeters are for RT. It is a terrific way to broaden the contact base for all those participating.

Scheduling Your Tweets Ahead of Time: Save valuable time and plan your tweets ahead of time (at least weekly). Create your tweets in Word and double check the character length by highlighting your tweet, clicking Review in the toolbar and to the right of Translate on the far left click the ABC/123 symbol. A pop-up screen will appear providing full statistics and make note of the Characters (with spaces) number. To set-up and schedule your tweets, I recommend www.dynamictweets.com. Once you register an account you will be able to schedule a one-time tweet or tweets you’d like to repeat throughout a specific time frame. The template/site is simple to use. 

Tweeting Lingo and What It Means for Your Tweeting Experience:

# - hashtag – by searching for a keyword with the # (hashtag) before it will pull you up a list of the latest tweets regarding the topic. This is a great way to get in specific conversations and tweeter parties.

@ - symbol before username – by searching for a particular username the results provides their tweets and mentions by fellow tweeters.

Direct Messages – by clicking on the “head” image the pull down menu will appear. Click on direct messages, here you will find a listing of all messages sent to you by fellow tweeters.

For more lingo details visit: https://support.twitter.com/articles/166337-the-twitter-glossary

Remember, tackle your social networking campaign with baby steps every day for each step will develop into a quantum leap.

Next month I will discuss the social networking platform LinkedIn.

If you require further guidance or have additional questions, please free to contact me at donna@donnamcdine.com. As a PR Publicist I offer an array of services to help you free up your valuable writing time, visit www.authorprservices.com for details.

Thank you for joining me today, it’s been a pleasure. 

Where Does One Begin in Creating a Media Kit?

Today, my friend and colleague, Donna McDine, does a guest post here on the necessity for an author's media kit. She has much experience in this area and owns her own firm, Author PR Services.  Donna is also the author of the award winning children's book, The Golden Pathway. We are delighted to welcome her to the blog!

Media Kit? Why would I need a media kit, I’m not even published yet? To be quite honest with you it’s never too soon to start. To begin now will make it much simpler to add to as you move forward in your writing career. The essential components in creating your media kit are:

About the Author or Writer (Bio):This one pager consists of your current bio, education, current work-in-progress, and contact information (email, blog and website addresses). After you become published update your bio to reflect each success.

Appearances: Appearances may include volunteer reader at your local library and/or school visits and later on as you become published you will be known as the local children’s author, which then will open up doors to school visits.

Interviews (online and in-person):Before I became published - myself and fellow aspiring writers interviewed each other for our blogs to get our names out there. It’s fun and simple. Contact a fellow writer and exchange questions and there you have your first finished interview.

Awards and Publishing Credits: This may be blank for now, but create the page with this heading and you can fill in your information as you go along. Your publishing credits include no-pay, low-pay, and paying markets both online and print.

Media Releases: Even without publishing credits you can create a media release about upcoming interviews and book reviews on your blog and of course tying in with interviews make sure you write up a media release about your personal interviews. It’s important you send out your media release to your network and post on free media release sites such as www.prlog.com. For a detailed list of the services I utilize visit: http://www.authorprservices.com/p/services.html.

Book Reviews: Yes, even if you don’t have a book published yet do not forget this important part for when you do so you can place excerpts of book reviews for easy reference.

Some of your pages will be blank for now, but you will be surprised how quickly they will fill up. All of my pages started out blank and are now filling up. My book review page is still blank and I’m eagerly awaiting reviews to fill in below the title. The saying from the movie The Field of Dreams… “Build it and they will come” is true for your media kit too. The intention and creation of blank titled pages will bring it to fruition. Oh and yes, working at your writing craft is essential too.

If you have any questions I’d be happy to help. Feel free to email me privately at donna@donnamcdine.com. You may also view my media kit at http://donnamcdine.com/mediakit.html.

BIO:

Donna McDine is an award-winning children's author, Honorable Mention in the 77th and two Honorable Mentions in the 78^th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competitions, Preditors & Editors Readers Poll 2010 Top Ten Children’s Books, Global eBook Awards Finalist Children’s Picture Book Fiction, and Literary Classics Silver Award & Seal of Approval Recipient Picture Book Early Reader ~ The Golden Pathway.

Her stories, articles, and book reviews have been published in over 100 print and online publications. Her interest in American History resulted in writing and publishing The Golden Pathway. Donna has three more books under contract with Guardian Angel Publishing, Hockey Agony, Powder Monkey, and A Sandy Grave. She writes, moms and is the Editor-in-Chief for Guardian Angel Kids, Publicist for the Working Writer’s Club, and owner of Author PR Services from her home in the historical hamlet Tappan, NY. McDine is a member of the SCBWI.