Navigating Social Media: A Beginner's Guide for Writers

Welcome to the exciting world of social media! If you're new to these online platforms, fear not. This quick guide is tailored just for you to give you a leg up on the often-confusing realms of online community. 

Diving into the basics, let’s demystify the jargon and discover how to connect with fellow writers and readers. 

Starting off, you'll have no shortage of options for the WHERE of your journey. Use one, some, or all of this list -- or find other sites that you prefer more!

> LinkedIn: 

A professional networking site to showcase your career and connect with industry professionals. Build a professional profile, connect with colleagues and other writers, and share updates about your writing achievements and projects. 

> Twitter (currently "X"): 

A micro-blogging platform for short and snappy updates. 

Follow people of interest (such as fellow writers, publishers, and literary agents), and tweet your thoughts in 280 characters or less. Use hashtags to categorize and find like posts quickly, or try navigating their lists feature to find peers that will allow you to lift each others' work up. 

> Instagram: 

This is a visual platform for sharing photos and short videos. Follow other writers, and share images related to your writing journey. This site is not suited for long-form content, so try to find ways to consolidate what you're trying to share within the first two images, and link to another site within the description to invite readers to learn more from there. 

(Don't forget to use hashtags (#) to increase visibility!) 

> Threads: 

Newly minted and in direct competition with Twitter, Threads functions very similarly to Instagram with some aspects of Twitter thrown in as well. One big difference is that the character limit on a post is 500, and you are able to log in via your Meta account credentials. (Meta being Facebook/Instagram.) 

> Facebook: 

A classic virtual gathering place to connect with friends, family, and like-minded individuals. After creating a profile, you can add friends and share updates, photos, and thoughts on your timeline. 

This site allows for long-form content, but often truncates long posts under a "see more" button after so many lines of text. Use this to your advantage to hook readers in with the initial statements and any accompanying images. 

> TikTok: 

A mobile-based short-form video platform, TikTok allows users to create and share entertaining or informative videos to all, generally spread by an adaptive algorithm which changes based on an individual user's likes and viewed content. Explore a feed of short videos set to music, and create your own videos using a variety of creative tools and effects. 

These are a selection of some of the most popular sites currently, but naturally, there are always more alternatives that you can find depending on your needs as a content creator. Take some time to explore each and discover what works best for you! Just don't get sucked in and spend all day in there. ;) 

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Now the WHAT -- as in, "what do these phrases mean?" 

Naturally, the tech world has developed quite a lot of specific jargon or re-adapted existing terms to fit their needs, and marketed intent. Luckily enough sometimes these terms converge among different sites and allow for some uniformity for the average user to keep up with. Here are a few common ones to get you started. 

> Media:

Generally refers to photos, videos, or other visual content you share on social media platforms.

> Handles:

Your username on social media, most commonly preceded by the "@" symbol. It's how people mention or tag you in posts (e.g., @YourWriterName).

> Trends:

Popular topics or hashtags circulating on social media. Keep an eye on trends to stay relevant in your writing community. 

> Attachments:

Files, images, or links you include with your posts to provide more context or share external content. 

> Explore Pages:

Recommended accounts or pages related to your interests. In many sites these days, these pages are updated by an algorithm that adjusts the content you are shown based on what you interact with on the site. Variants of these are usually one of two types - "For You" which commonly features the recommended content, or "Following" which offers chronological posts from accounts you follow. 

> Hashtags:

Activated words or phrases that follow the # symbol, these allow users to search for and follow relevant topics easily. Most often a phrase in a hashtag may be run together as one word, but on some occasions can be separated via underscores. (e.g., #TheBookWhisperers OR #The_Book_Whisperers). 

> Tweets:

Popularized by Twitter, and currently "replaced" by the more simple term "Posts"; Tweets are generally short blurbs of text and/or pictures/video that are shared on Twitter. However, because of this term being turned into a verb, people often mistakenly refer to any post of any site as a tweet. While technically incorrect, the idea is still right and understood by most. 

Further questions like WHO, WHERE, and WHY are even easier to answer. Anyone can use social media, most are easily accessible via your phone’s app store; you can use these services anywhere you have signal (and sometimes even just draft posts for yourself while you don’t have signal!); and there can be any reason or occasion for using these platforms, but we strongly recommend using them to promote your creative skills and garner interest in what you make! 

Social media can be a powerful tool for writers, helping you build a community, share your work, and stay updated on industry trends. Take it one step at a time, explore, and enjoy the journey of connecting with a broader audience. Happy writing!