By now you’ve got a web site, email, business cards and social media. What’s next? Let’s build up your online activity. This will make you look alive and contributing. As you meet more people, this will increase their confidence and interest in you. There’s a lot to cover so without further ado, let’s break it down by the platform:

UPDATE from the Future in 2025

I wrote this article before the a lot of evil things became obvious with certain social media services. I've edited this article to chop those services out. Personally, I've abandoned using those products because I object to the evil their owners have endorsed, and the bigotries supported on their platforms.

Social Media Systems Change Over Time

Never base your entire business on a single social media system, such that if it shuts down or turns Nazi, that you feel trapped. Find another platform. Accept that you will have to move and rebuild every five to ten years.

What will help keep you mobile is to always have a website. Your social media should always point to your website and lead your audience there. Social Media is a means to ends, and if you've made good contacts, they'll also be on other social media. Readers should know about your website (because your posts tell them).

Do Actual Research Before Joining

Find out about the moderation tendencies of the platform you're considering. Avoid ones that claim to absolute free speech. Search for name of platform + racism, and see what comes up. Sites that claim absolute free speech cater to racists. They become havens, which means you're about to step into a Nazi bar.

A well run platform does not tolerate intolerance. Racist, bigoted posts should be deleted and violators banned. It is the only way to have a respectful environment. History has shown us this is how it works.

Reconsider Following/Friending

Newer social media platforms like Bluesky changed the paradigm. You do not need to follow every person who follows you. You can follow lists or hashtags for topics like writing to see their posts.

Given how that works better now, reserving Follows for people you interact with regularly or specific people you want to see their posts.

Do Not Expect a Followback

In the old days, your social media goal was to get a high follower count. This may still feel like a requirement. But it's not a great way to use social media as a human being. Which you are.

You will notice famous people with huge follower counts, and they're only following a few people. This is literally what I mean. They follow who they actually know/want to read. So can you. You're just not famous. Don't sweat it.

Don't Follow Bots

If the user doesn't have a profile picture, and a bio. Or their bio doesn't sound human and interesting, skip them. Folks who claim to be marketers, interested in self improvement, are probably selling something. And you're the fish. Actual interesting humans will list off their actual interesting that normal people have like sour dough bread making and light saber fighting.

Use the Right Tags

If you’re posting about writing, incluce #amwriting and #writingcommunity. Use no more than three hastagd or it will look cluttered. Use the link below for keeping up with trending hashtags:

Post More than once a week, several times a day

Twitter mostly works by your post appearing on somebody else’s screen within a short time. If they have to scroll, they will not notice it. Also, don’t repeat the same thing you said. That’s a hard thing to keep up with, but it’s good practice to finding many ways to say the same thing.

Reply, Like and Boost Others

If you see somebody’s post you like, Like it. If it’s good, Boost it. Getting exposure for others is the currency of Twitter. Reply with encouragement, answers or questions. Interaction builds trust and followers.

Blogging

I have covered little of this, but I put a blog on my website. If I hadn’t I’d use WordPress or Tumblr and put a widget on my site to display the blog. Getting people to seek your content out is the goal, so all my internet things lead to my site.

About Writing

Having blog articles on writing enables me to post links in writers groups to help. That builds my credibility and interest in my projects. I’m not a writing expert. So I don’t blog about how to do things fancy writing advice experts write about. So what can I contribute? I wrote the world’s first Writers FAQ, by googling up every question, stupid or not. The steps for proofing a draft before handing it out to others. Links for writers tools (like one to find adverbs). And, I wrote this series on Author Platform building, because while I don’t know how to write a best selling novel, my twenty plus years as a business technologist has given me the skills to do it and explain it to others.

If you’re aim is to be a fiction writer, don’t get into the writing advice business, other people have that covered. But do write a few articles on something you know how to do.

Post Links on social media

Every week, I write an article on one of four topics. When I do, I post a link on all my social media platforms. This gets me more views, and because it’s relevant, isn’t spam.

Planned Posting

I’m not the only one who’s come up with this, but for my writers guild, we wanted daily prompts and topics to encourage activity. So I built a spreadsheet that lists the date and what to post. Topics rotate, we have Sharing is Caring Monday, Tiny Prompt Tuesday, Haiku Wednesday and Thinky Thursday. To aid in filling that out, the first sheet is completely calculated, showing be the date and what to post. The other sheets hold the header/footers for each day of week theme, and the last page is seven columns of lists of content. The Wednesday column is just random words for the haiku theme, for example. This lets the spreadsheet assemble the content based on the date turning into day of week column and week number. If you’re handy with a spreadsheet, this is easy. If not, just fill it in the hard way. When you’re done, you’ve now got a ton of content to keep activity up and engage your following.

General Warnings on Posting/Replying

Here’s tips that apply to everything you do:

Check your spelling/grammar as best you can.

You’re a writer and error riddled writing does not leave a good impression. Do NOT criticize somebody else’s grammar. It’s not a double-standard, they both look bad.

Do NOT post chapters or snippets of content you intend to sell to a publisher

This can invalidate that content as they want First Rights. I write fiction specifically to give away, separate from the stuff I intend to sell

A Word About Questions

We’ve all heard the saying “there’s no such thing as a stupid question.” That’s nice for the classroom, but in the real world, some kinds of questions show you didn’t do your research or are lazy. When you’re online long enough, you’ll see repeated questions in rapid succession, showing the poster isn’t paying attention to anybody else. You’ll see requests for creative ideas asking you to do their work for them. You don’t want to be one of those people.

When you see a question on social media, before you answer it, make sure you’re correct, but also make sure you can answer it with kindness. It can get tiresome explaining that paying a publisher is a scam (Vanity Press), so if you can’t do it with patience, don’t. Somebody else can handle it.

Falling Tree in the Woods

I’ve been blogging and doing social media for ten years. For a long time, nobody knew I was doing it. That’s okay, because I built a backlog of content. Now, as I gain traction, when somebody checks out my profile and site, they see a steady volume of work. They know this is not a dead end or stale content. I’m still not famous. I still don’t have my book done. But the pieces are in place and there are people who know I exist and will help spread the word, because I worked on contributing to writers groups and fan groups.

Catch up on the rest of my Author Platform series at https://www.klforslund.com/authorplatform

#socialmedia