social media gaffes – Jeffe Kennedy Blog

How Not to Promote Your Book

Jeffe Kennedy / April 4, 2017 / Blog

We’re having a lovely April snowstorm today, which means the quail are here in force, and looking for food. They kick up the snow and gravel with their claws, to get at the dropped seed below the feeder. I took this photo from my office window. They scratch for seed while I scratch for words. It feels very companionable.

So, I realize my title probably brought about ten thousand suggestions to the tip of your tongue. It’s a large, fraught topic. And it’s complicated by the fact that most authors don’t really love self-promotion in the first place. We like tippy-tapping on our keyboards while the peaceful quail peck around outside. Some authors are really good at marketing, but others aren’t so much. Unfortunately this awkwardness can lead to creating the opposite effect of what they’re hoping for.

They end up driving people away instead of attracting them.

I’m going to focus on one aspect of this syndrome today: the impetuous social media insertion.

This is what happens:

Author joins Social Media site (this can be any of them)
Author posts intro post saying
1. Hi!
2. I’m new here
3. I don’t know what I’m doing
4. Normally I don’t have time for this sort of thing
5. But it’s hit me that my book is coming out so I’m trying to do things like this!
6. So, any ideas to help me?
[Fill in likely response]

You guys have all seen this before, right? I see it all the time. I saw one like it just this morning, which is what got me brewing on this.

Let’s break down why I find this problematic.

I’ve said this before, but apparently it bears revisiting. Social Media is social. You join one, it’s like walking into the cafeteria at a new school, carrying your lunch tray and a hopeful smile. Sure you have a right to be there, just like anyone, but that doesn’t guarantee you a seat at any of the tables. Don’t expect the room to stand up and applaud your presence. It’s gonna take a little while to make friends.
Intro posts are never easy. Twitter likes to show us our first tweets and they’re invariably something like, “This is my first tweet. I have no idea what I’m doing.” We’re all in that same boat. It’s awkward when the teacher asks us to stand up and say where we moved from, our hobbies, and how we spent the summer vacation. (Packing and moving, then unpacking. Duh!)
1. All I can suggest is, keep it to an intro post. Say hi and gracefully retreat from the field. Your next step is making friends, so let that happen naturally.
2. Well, yes, but that’s fine to say as much. Honesty is good.
3. Okay, authenticity is good, too. But maybe don’t dwell on this. The old hands probably already figured this out. Nobody expects you to know where your classroom is. Just ask for directions. Don’t keep apologizing.
4. Whoa! So, right off the bat you’re telling me that your time is more valuable than mine. Because you’re talking to a vast room full of people who’ve decided this thing IS worth their time. Because we all understand that it’s not about how much time you have, it’s about how you choose to devote your time. WE ALL HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME. Nobody gets extra portions of time for good behavior. We can only control how we portion out that time. By saying this, an author is essentially saying, “this thing that you do was never important enough to me before, but now it is and I’m asking you to give me your time and attention.”
5. Aha! And now we know your motivation. It’s not really that this social thing we do is suddenly interesting to you. Essentially you’ve told me that you’re interested in being my friend ONLY because you think I might be helpful in selling your book. Can you imagine doing this in real life? Picture sitting down at the lunch table with nothing but your books on your tray and saying, “Hi! Normally I have better ways to spend my time than eating lunch like you people, but today I thought I’d come sit with you, be all friendly, and see if you’ll buy or help me sell my books.” I don’t think that would go over well.
6. And now you want me to offer ideas for you? Well, yes, social networking is a great place to get this kind of help – I advocate for that all the time. But you don’t get to just walk up to the food co-op and help yourself, right? You have to put in the time and effort. By suggesting that people should jump to offer you ideas and support, having done nothing for them before, you come across as a special snowflake. This is especially true when you’re talking to a bunch of other authors. People who are also invested in selling their books.
7. [Fill in likely response]
My likely response in this scenario? It’s super easy to delete, ignore, scroll past, unfollow, unfriend, you name it. MUCH easier than devoting my time and energy. There will be some people, ones who are undoubtedly kinder, more patient, and more generous than I, who will offer help. But – wow – when it’s so simple to delete, forget, and move on? That’s gonna happen a lot.

The book gets forgotten before it’s found in these scenarios. Social media takes an investment of time and good will. Even then it can go wrong. But at least we can try to put our best foot forward.

And, yes – you can always come sit at my lunch table, but not if you only want to talk about your books, okay?

Getting More Facebook Likes

Jeffe Kennedy / October 13, 2015 / Blog

This pic didn’t come out as well as I would have wished, because Jackson was moving so fast. But he’s perched on the back of a chair next to my treadmill desk, methodically swiping things to the floor so I’ll pay attention to him. Funny cat.

Before I forget, I’m teaching an online writing workshop starting next week, on October 18: Defying Gravity: Writing Cross-Genre and Succeeding Anyway. This is for my longtime online home chapter, the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Special Interest Chapter of RWA (FFP).

Genre definitions have a profound influence on writers’ careers. From the first queries where we must specify the book’s genre to long-term decisions about pursuing or giving up on a “dead” genre, dealing with what feels like a false construct is a necessary skill. However, following our hearts and inspiration often means tossing aside these considerations.

Or chopping them to pieces in a murderous rage.

But shedding conventions can be what sets a book apart. That’s what takes a writer’s career from midlist to break-out. So… how do you know? More—how do we find the courage to embrace a bold move?

In Wicked, the heroine Elphaba is faced with that crucial decision, of whether to choose the safe path or to risk flying on her own. This workshop will explore genre definitions and how Jeffe Kennedy went from being a “Crack Ho” – being told that her work fell in the cracks between genres – to receiving a nomination for Book of the Year and an RT Seal of Excellence for the one title each month that stands out from all the rest by an innovative twist on a familiar story or pushing genre boundaries. Participants will discuss their experiences with genre—both coloring inside the lines and stepping across them—and will leave inspired to take risks and follow their hearts.

Everyone deserves a chance to fly!

I’m teaching this by special request, so it should be big fun. 🙂

While that workshop is about breaking away from market considerations, I want to talk a bit about promoting books on social media. This is something authors are forced to think about, whether they want to or not. Accordingly, there’s tons of advice out there on the topic, Rule #1 of which tends to be along the lines of “Get More Followers!”

Recently one of my published author email loops went bananas with people offering to trade Facebook likes – as in, you like my page and I’ll like yours. They did the same with following on Twitter.

I think this is a really bad idea.

Sure, the numbers go up, which apparently satisfies Rule #1. But it’s not real. Worse, it creates a false idea of your social media reach.

Let me caveat before I go on that I’m friends with and following/followed by LOTS of authors. Hell, I’m writing this blog post for authors. Nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, networking with other authors can be important for building community and career opportunities.

However – creating a trade system with other authors to like one another’s pages does three things: It skews our lists to the wrong people, possibly diminishes our reach to real readers and skews our own perceptions.

Skewing our lists to the wrong people

We all know Facebook is a mystical bog of smoke and mirrors. They really want us to pay money to get followers to see our posts, so they mess with our reach. We try to game the system. They game it right back. It’s an eternal battle to be seen, on top of the usual discoverability battle. This may be growing more true of Twitter also. The only thing we can be sure of is that only a portion of our followers will see a given post. If all of our followers are people who are there because they’re interested in our books, at least that portion who sees a post will be them! If a portion of our followers are from reciprocal author trades … guess what?

Diminishing our reach to real readers

Yes, yes, yes – people will always argue that writers are readers, too. Of course we are! And, sure, I’ll like the pages of authors I want to keep track of. But that’s entirely because I want to, not through a trade. A trade isn’t organic. See above. We want people to follow and like us because they are ACTUALLY INTERESTED in our books. This might be more difficult, but they’ll be real followers. See below.

Skewing our own perceptions

As nice as it may be to look at our profiles and see hundreds or thousands of followers, as lovely an ego stroke as that may be, if a whole bunch of those are from author reciprocal trades, then it means nothing. Worse, it allows us to kid ourselves that we’re doing well in expanding our reach when we’re not. It’s a pleasant little fantasy and there’s no room for that in running a business. On the other hand, gaining *real* followers is a good measure of success – and one to be proud of.

Let’s get those real followers, people! Oh, and my Facebook author page is here.

What??? I *had* to give that a go. 😉

10 Rules for Followingback on Twitter

Jeffe Kennedy / July 28, 2015 / Blog

This is me and bestie/CP Carolyn Crane at the Rita Awards ceremony in New York City. So fun to get shined up and celebrate her final!

The whole week of the RWA National Conference is a major whirlwind of activity. I try to post stuff online via my phone, but it’s really hard to keep up with replies. All those real-life people interfere with the online conversations! I also try to post nuggets of wisdom I hear in workshops and panels, mostly to Twitter. People really seem to love those and often begin following me on Twitter as a result. Which is lovely, of course, but it creates this backlog of follows for me to retrace and then decide whether to followback.

I know some people pay no attention to the follow notifications. Others automatically follow everyone back. I pick and choose via a shifting system that’s pretty subjective, but does follow a few rules. I thought I’d share them here.

1) How many followers vs. people they follow?

As of this writing, I have 3,958 followers and I follow 2,630. No way I keep track of everyone I follow. I use lists in Tweetdeck to see what I can, which the last statistics I saw indicated is around 200 people on average. Apparently that’s about as many as a human can really keep up with. So, when somebody follows upwards of 10,000 people? I’m dubious. If they follow just a few hundred more people than follow them, I’m HIGHLY suspicious. If they have huge numbers of followers and follow very few, I know they only want to collect my follow and will unfollow as soon as possible so they can broadcast to me. No. Just no.

2) Hashtags in the Profile

Easy decision. Makes me think they’re only in it to market. An instant decision for me there.

3) No profile.

Either lazy, a scammer or just wanting to lurk and view. No need to followback.

4) A plea to followback in the profile or the #teamfollowback hashtag.

No.

5) Lots of book titles in the profile.

This is a maybe. Lots of authors follow me and plenty do this. It’s not an instant no, but it’s a flag. I want to follow and support people, not be bombarded with pleas to buy their books. I don’t KNOW that they’ll do this, which is why it’s only a flag, but it increases the likelihood in my mind.

At this point, if I’m still a maybe – and a nicely done profile without follower/followee imbalances would already be a yes – I look at the timeline.

6) Is it full of thanks to people for following back?

Depending on how much, this is a no as I’m inclined to think they’re simply collecting followers.

7) Is it full of promo for something or other?

No no no.

8) Is it all output and no replies or conversations?

No. I’m not interested in reading a billboard.

9) Is it all retweets or inspirational quotes?

Eh. Nothing against that, but also nothing to interest me. No.

10) Did you unfollow me?

This comes much later. I get a weekly report from Tweepsmap that tells me how many followed that week, how many unfollowed and other metrics. For the most part I don’t look at it. Some of the maps are fun. I don’t look at who followed, because I already do that via notifications. I do usually look at who unfollowed, just to see if I still follow them. The majority – and I seem to get 15-20/week – are ones I did not followback, which is fine. They were either in it to get me to follow and quit me when I didn’t (or planned to do so on a certain schedule anyway), or didn’t like following me, which is also fine. But I don’t need to follow them. That isn’t to say that I don’t follow people who don’t follow me back – there are plenty of those. This is only people who followed me first and never gave any value back.

All of this said, I occasionally miss new followers – like when I’m crazy at a conference! – and the surest way to entice me to followback is to talk to me. Say something! When people reply to me I always look to see if I’m following and remedy that, if not.

Of course, there was that one guy who kept replying to me with annoying mansplaining, then would chide me for not following back, declaring his intent to give me EVEN BETTER content so I *would* followback. Yuck. He eventually went away.

So, what about all you Twitter people – any rules of thumb you use on deciding followbacks that I missed? Or maybe mine that you don’t agree with?