Social Sheila Video: get your head around hashtags

By Sheila Averbuch 

If you're new to Twitter, hashtags (the # symbols) can be one of the most off-putting idiosyncracies. But once you understand that the symbols merely flag up an important concept in the tweet, you'll realise how helpful they can be in building your network and deepening your understanding of the industry.



Twitter, of course, only gives you a brief sentence or two to express yourself. Hashtags mark a certain word in your sentence as the key topic, to make it easier for other Twitter users to find and read tweets on a common subject. It's interesting to note that it was the people using Twitter, not the company itself, who first started to use the # symbol.

"Hashtags mark a certain word in your sentence as the key topic"

These days, you'll see hashtags appearing everywhere from the opening credits of television shows to websites promoting conferences. In this how-to video (click the bullseye icon in the video frame to watch it full-screen), I'll show you how to search Twitter for relevant hashtags, and how to go a step further and track down the most influential Twitter users chatting on hot topics, using Hootsuite.

"I recommend you limit yourself to a single hashtag per tweet"

If you want to start using relevant hashtags such as #kidlit, I recommend you limit yourself to a single hashtag per tweet; otherwise your tweets may drift into the realm of illegibility. For those of you who already use hashtags regularly, we love it if you could share useful search terms in the comments section below.



If you would like to see other how-to videos, email me at sheila@spacekidsbooks.com

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@spacekidsbooks

Sheila Averbuch lives in East Lothian in Scotland and is currently working on SPACE KIDS AND THE SPY FROM PLANET 12, a sci-fi adventure for 9-11's. She holds an MA in journalism from Stanford University and a BA from Harvard University in American History & Literature. Sheila is managing director of the content services and social media training agency ENNclick and blogs at www.spacekidsbooks.com


 

Social Sheila Video: how to let people follow you on Facebook without becoming friends

Curious about the new "following" function on Facebook? This new and handy feature means you can let people listen to your public status updates on Facebook, even if they're not friends with you.




I like the idea of "following", because it allows authors to enhance their social media platform, and hopefully their overall public profile.

Writers like Candy Gourlay and Jane Friedman have implemented the function: go check out them out and click "follow" to see how they use this feature. If you're already convinced, jump down to the Facebook Following how-to video below, where I'll show you how to get started.

"I like the idea of "following", because it allows authors to enhance their social media platform," 

Why not just set up a Facebook Page instead?

Good question! By "Page," I mean a Facebook brand presence, sometimes known as a "Fan" Page. Facebook explains the difference between a Facebook "Page" and Facebook "following" better than I can: (https://www.facebook.com/about/follow). Pages have value, and your agent/publisher will probably insist you have one (and, helpfully, publishers can manage the Page alongside you or on your behalf). But in my experience, here are the three areas where Facebook Pages fall down:

1. A Facebook "Page" is not a proper, personal Facebook identity with all the rights and privileges thereof 
That means, although you can click around Facebook "acting as Page", it's actually difficult to properly interact with, comment on, or tag people in your posts. And if you are trying to use the Facebook mobile app, forget it – it's almost impossible to interact properly with fans of your Page through the app. Professionally speaking, you are on Facebook to draw attention to your children's books, but it's difficult to do that acting purely as a Page.

2. Status updates you post as a Page may be hidden from your fans
To keep its users from being overwhelmed with irrelevant posts, Facebook filters out the majority of a Page's status updates from the news feed of your Page's fans. You heard that right: people who "like' your author Page may not see status updates from your Page in their newsfeed, unless Facebook's algorithm calculates that your Page updates are very interesting, relevant and popular. This is the Facebook Edgerank algorithm, and it's the bane of your existence if you've already spent time building up a Facebook Page.

3. It's all too easy to neglect a Facebook Page
You may not feel a visceral, personal connection to your Facebook Page, so you may forget to update it for a while. This neglect will get you on the wrong side of Edgerank, making it decreasingly likely that fans of your Page will see any of your status updates.

Are there any downsides to 'Following'?

Yes: "follow" connects you with people who aren't really your friends. That means you've got to go and hide anything you've already posted that you don't wish to share publicly on Facebook, and the video below shows you how to do that. Going forward, you'll also need to start clicking the globe icon every time you post a Facebook status update, to control whether that update gets seen by the public, or just by friends and family.

Mail me if you have ideas for a video you'd like to see here: sheila@spacekidsbooks.com

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Sheila Averbuch lives in East Lothian in Scotland and is currently working on SPACE KIDS AND THE SPY FROM PLANET 12, a sci-fi adventure for 9-11's. She holds an MA in journalism from Stanford University and a BA from Harvard University in American History & Literature. Sheila is managing director of the content services and social media training agency ENNclick and blogs at www.spacekidsbooks.com

 

Sheila's Videos - How to Find People to Follow on Twitter

This first post in our series of social media how-to videos, brought to you by Sheila Averbuch, focuses on how to find the right people to follow on Twitter

Twitter is free to join, and allows you to listen to the tweets of any other member -- unlike Facebook, you don't have to be "friends" with somebody to hear what they're saying. That gives you a great opportunity to eavesdrop on what agents, publishers, literary magazines, and fellow writers and illustrators are tweeting about, from interesting upcoming events and competitions to promising new talent.

Even if you're an old hand at Twitter, I hope you'll find something of use in this video, which is aimed at helping you make better use of your limited time and ensure that this social network doesn't become a time sink.

If you have suggestions for more social media videos, leave a comment here, or visit spacekidsbooks.com, where I'll post other social media videos on a monthly basis.



Sheila Averbuch lives in East Lothian in Scotland and is currently working on SPACE KIDS AND THE SPY FROM PLANET 12, a sci-fi adventure for 9-11's. She holds an MA in journalism from Stanford University and a BA from Harvard University in American History & Literature. Sheila is managing director of the content services and social media training agency ENNclick and blogs at www.spacekidsbooks.com. Picture: Smashing Magazine