To Tweet, or Not to Tweet

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogs, Newsletters…what social media do you use and how do you use it? What don’t you use, and why not? Any advice for those in a quandary?

by Paul D. Marks

I use a variety of social media, but not just to market my books. It’s also to keep in touch with people. And it’s my “watercooler,” since I work at home and don’t have a real watercooler to gather round with fellow employees or writers to shoot the breeze.

Facebook is the social media outlet I use the most. Initially, I didn’t want to go on it. I thought all it was was people showing what they had for lunch and there was some of that and still is – and sometimes those lunches look so good while I’m having my protein drink. And when I first landed there I didn’t know what to do, how to use it. Eventually, I found my place, found my niche, posting pictures of Los Angeles and film noir alerts, as well as other things. And I started making friends. People would friend me or I would friend them. So now I look forward to hitting FB every day, seeing what’s up with people, their good news and sometimes their not-so-good news. And I do promote my books there, but that’s probably less than 10% of what I post or more like about 3%. But I do think it’s helped get my name out there – and that’s a good thing.

I actually have two Facebook pages, a personal page and an author page. I use the personal page much more frequently but usually put announcements about blogs posts or books on the author page. But cute pix of my dogs, noir pix and posts, my La La Land posts, and other things mostly end up only on my personal page.

My personal Facebook page

Twitter’s another ballgame altogether. A ballgame where it’s impossible to see the ball and more impossible to know the rules. Like: Don’t use more than three hashtags. Fine. Uh, now what the hell is a hashtag? And where do I find the hashtags that apply to what I’m posting? Can I make up my own hashtags? Would you like some ketchup with your hashtags?

Twitter, to me, was a mess that I just couldn’t follow or understand when I first signed up. Tweets would fly by faster than a speeding bullet. I couldn’t figure out how to use it. How do I make – uh, get – friends? I mean followers. Who do I follow and how? How do I participate in a conversation? And HOW THE HELL do I say anything in 140 characters? And DOUBLE HOW THE HELL do I say anything at all when I’m retweeting and only have 3 characters left to add my own comment to? It’s enough to make you batty, though they have doubled the number of characters now and that’s a good thing.

And then I heard the bugle. The cavalry was on the way led by Captain Tweetdeck and Colonel Hootsuite. Oh no, more things to worry about. But no, these were good things. And the light shined down.

Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are “social media management systems” – say that five times with a mouth full of cereal. They help you organize Twitter, the tweets, the followers, everything. So I signed up for both and magically Twitter became manageable. And I began to use it.

In both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, you can create lists and put different people or groups (like magazines, writers, friends, publishers, etc.) on different lists and then put them in different columns. These columns allow you to see things more clearly and at a more manageable pace. And it makes all the difference in the world (at least to me) in terms of being able to use Twitter (though you can manage other programs on these systems as well).

Hootsuite dashboard

I find that Tweetdeck is good for some things and Hootsuite for others. So I use both. But it’s too much of a “lesson” to go into here and explain the intricacies of each. Suffice to say, they both make Twitter much more user-friendly and once you get the hang of them you’ll be able to use Twitter to much better advantage. But like with FB or any social media, you shouldn’t use it only to promote your books. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do some promotion. Just have fun with it.

Other social media: There’s about 33 million different social media. I’m also on Instagram, Tumblr, Google+ and Pinterest, and use them to varying degrees. For a while I had been doing a fair amount on Tumblr, but nothing there lately. It’s not that I don’t like it, it just comes down to the time spent and it adds up. I really want to make more use of Instagram and I’m working on trying to figure out how to do that. Some other social media that I signed up for I really never did much with. There’s just so many to choose from. But you have to pick two or three, maybe a couple more. Because you just can’t focus on all these things. It’s too hard to follow people and too hard to keep up with your own accounts and you’ll never have time to write.

My Pinterest page

My Instagram Page

Blogs and Newsletters: Well, yes, I blog. See 7 Criminal Minds every other Friday – I’m blogging here now 😊 . I also blog at SleuthSayers.org. It’s a lot of work to do 2-5 blog posts a month, but I enjoy it. I also do a newsletter that comes out a handful of times a year. I’d like to build up my mailing list of a few hundred to a few thousand, but you gotta start somewhere. So check it out at the link below, please.

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Have FB and Twitter, etc., made me a NY Times Bestseller? No. But they have definitely helped get me more readers and connect with people with similar interests, which is more than I could have done by going on a cross country book signing tour…and it costs a lot less. I also figure there’s not a state in the country that I couldn’t have lunch with someone if I happened to be passing through – and if I do I’ll be sure to post the photo of the meal. Hell, there’s several countries on different continents that I could have lunch with someone I know from social media.

So yes, in answer to the question today – yes yes yes. Social media is great. I’m a total convert. So, uh, here’s what I had for breakfast.

Website: I also have a website ( www.PaulDMarks.com ) that I try to keep up to date, but that’s not easy sometimes. Still, it’s the best place for people to go to find news, bios, updates, past interviews (though most of those haven’t made the page yet…), and other info on my books and me, such as my encounter with Cary Grant or the time I pulled the gun on the LAPD – you know, fun stuff like that.

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Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus Award-winning novel White Heat, is coming September 10, 2018:

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com

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