Social media is a must for writers who want to make a living with their work. Want to grow your influence fast? Lauriane Durand has done it. I spoke with her recently to discover her secrets to Twitter success.
You got 10k Twitter followers in 4 months. How many hours a week did that take, and what were the keys to your success?
As of today, it takes me about 30 minutes a day, but when I first started, I did not have the proper tool or understanding of how Twitter worked. I would spend an hour or two each day trying to figure it out and ended up reading a few books on the topic because it was eating up time I desperately needed.
Social media is great to grow your author platform and build your readership, but you need to be interested in connecting with like-minded people, and this is why it is time-consuming. To succeed, it’s important to start with the right tools. Social media should never consume all your time because, at the end of the day, you’re still a writer and need to write.
To succeed, you need to be consistent and post at least 3 times throughout the day. If you can’t commit to this, it’ll be hard for you to grow. The sad reality is that when you stop tweeting, the Twitter world will stop thinking of you. I had to take a long break at the beginning of the year, and I did not grow at all during that time.
One way to ensure consistency is to use a scheduler, an app that will allow you to schedule your tweets, like Hootsuite or Buffer. I personally prefer Hootsuite; the free version is enough for me. I schedule a couple of posts throughout the day and check 2 or 3 times a day to answer anyone, but that only takes a minute. Why only a couple? Because you can’t automate interactions. It has to be genuine. If you work, you can’t go online to post, so that’s why scheduling is helpful, but you can go in the morning or at night to engage in discussions. Once or twice a week, spend more time engaging. It can only be rewarding if not by the number of followers, it will by the knowledge you’ll gain from other writers.
How do you stand out on Twitter when there are 6,000 new tweets every second?
To be effective, you should always tweet about the topic you want to be associated with. Very often, you’ll gravitate around the same hashtags. What will make you stand out is a combination of having a great content, a stunning visual, and the right people to spread the word. There are no secret formulas as long as you tweet about something that interests your audience.
I noticed that what tends to spread faster are quotes, memes with appropriate and related text, or great posts. You never really know what will work or not, but you can always look under Twitter analytics what your top tweets are. It will give you an idea of what your audience wants from you. Impressions will tell you how many people saw your tweet, and engagement will show you how many people interacted with it. It’s crucial to build the right audience for what you have to say. There is a fine line between what you want to tweet and what’s good for your audience – they need to be aligned.
To be effective, you should always tweet about the topic you want to be associated with. Click To Tweet
Do you relate to people on Twitter the same way you would face to face? Why – or why not?
Absolutely! I have online writers I speak with on a regular basis. They are wonderful people going through the same process as I am. I don’t have many writers around me, so it’s nice to meet like-minded people to talk to and who go through the same things as me, whether it’s about struggles, getting ideas, finding support, or sharing successes.
If you’re open to the possibility, you can find a reliable support system with other writers, but you have to be willing to make an effort.
I love Step 4 in your eBook – get to know your audience on a more personal level. What are some of the most memorable interactions you’ve had?
I’ve had quite a few memorable interactions, but I would say the most rewarding is when you see the people you connected with grow. I know a writer who is releasing her first novel this month, and I had the opportunity to receive an advanced reader copy. I met her back in November, I believe, and her insights help me prepare for what comes next. Another writer decided to revise his goals and it seems to be generating more traffic. Hard work pays off eventually, and it’s nice to see that.
I meet writers at different levels, whether they think about writing, just completed their first draft, a 5th round of edits, or have already published several books. I met some of them last year when I started and I get to witness their evolution. It’s fascinating.
But, it’s also nice to help each other. I was interviewed twice recently and it helped me. It was tough for me at first to get out there and claim to be a writer (especially because English isn’t my mother tongue), but I firmly believe we can do about anything if we give ourselves a chance.
Social media is going to be what you’re willing to make out of it. You don’t need to tell everyone everything about your personal life to be personal. In a matter of facts, you don’t need to say much about you. You only need to talk about what you love, and for me, it’s writing and reading. Social media is about how we can help each other become better writers. In the end, you only have to be you.
Social media is going to be what you’re willing to make out of it. Click To Tweet
You say we should always use hashtags. Why should we, and how do we find the right ones?
Yes. You will notice a major difference if you post without hashtags and if you include a few. For Twitter, you should always use two hashtags as a rule. This is the most effective way to reach out to the maximum people. If you use more, the impact will be negative as you can come across as spammy, but again, you should always use hashtags.
After a while on Twitter, you’ll know which one to use, but until then, you can go to hashtags.org. This site will show you trending and popular hashtags to include in your tweets.
What is the easiest way to make sure you follow the right people?
There are two ways to do this. You can either use the suggestion feature within Twitter or an app.
I personally use Crowdfire. It allows me to unfollow people who follow then unfollow me after I followed back. They only look to increase their number of followers to look good. This isn’t the spirit of sharing I’m looking for, so I remove them. This is a personal choice. I don’t think the number matters if you don’t get any interactions out of it. What’s the point in having 100,000 followers if you don’t get anything out of it? As far as I’m concerned, I will follow a certain amount of the right people each day. I unfollow if the shares are irrelevant to the community I’m building, they don’t seem interested in connecting with me, or the nature of the content is not one I want to see.
I always select the people I choose to follow, so I know I have the right people. The app will still offer suggestions if you’re not sure what to do, but some suggestions aren’t great. It’s up to you to follow the right people, but careful selection also takes time, and I’m willing to do that now.
I firmly believe we can do about anything if we give ourselves a chance. Click To Tweet
When should you use direct messages?
The answer is easy – when what you need to ask/say to a person is something you could say if the person was in front of you. Unfortunately, I receive a ton of DMs all day long that I don’t even read.
Why? Because they ask for something without even trying to know you. I hate it. I would never walk to you on the street and ask you to follow me on Facebook if I don’t know you (even if I did, it’d be weird). The same rule applies. There are other ways to do this that won’t come across as spammy.
People will connect with you if they can relate to you, but not before.
What do people consider spam on Twitter and how can you avoid it?
Social media is 10% (20% max) about you and 90% about helping others and building meaningful relationships. If you don’t embrace this, you will find yourself with no one to talk to.
You will come across as spammy if you only talk about your book or product, ask for favors when you don’t know the person, rant easily in a non-respectful manner, or even never try to engage in discussions around your passion. A simple look at your feed can tell me this.
Ask yourself who you want to connect with – the people who only post about their books, the people who only have retweets and nothing personal, or the people who participate actively in conversation and comments on your tweets. If the latter is your answer, remember that the person on the other side will think the same thing. So be genuine and participate, I found amazing people doing so and will never regret the time I put in it because of these amazing writers.
Connect With Lauriane
L.M. Durand is a YA Fantasy writer and blogger who resides near Los Angeles, CA. After over a decade working in a corporate environment, she decided to embrace her passion and dedicate her time to work on her first novel.
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