Social Media

  • Blogging, Business, Marketing, Social Media, Writing, Writing Advice

    Don’t make this mistake on your author website

    Don’t make this mistake on your author website

    A while back, I watched a great webinar on website design by Gill Andrews. I ended up buying her book. It has bite-sized chapters that get straight to the point.

    One thing she encouraged me to do was remove the social media icons at the top of my website. And I’m here to tell you: don’t make this same mistake with your author website.

    I was reminded of this yesterday in the middle of a business mentorship from Ash Ambirge. I was one of the lucky beta folks who signed up, so I’m currently wallowing in all sorts of useful information.

    Anyway, she also recommended removing these icons from the top of your business website page.

    But, ha, thanks to Gill, I’d already ticked that one off my list. The icons were gone.

    Gone, gone, gone.

    Which is just as well because two of the three accounts were neglected and the other one is my nemesis. (My nemesis, if you’re interested, is Twitter.)

    So, what’s the problem with your site visitors seeing your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram icons?

    Well, apart from the fact you might be neglecting some of the accounts so do you really want potential readers going over there? Guess what? That’s not actually the worst of it, though it’s not great.

    No, here’s the bigger reason.

     

    Social media icons are outbound links

    If your social media icons are the first things they encounter when they land, they might just be tempted to click one of those icons.

    And, folks, that would be terrible.

    Terrible.

    Those icons are outbound links. They are teleporters. Your visitor has now been teleported to another site.

    Slap yourself with a wet kipper.

    Cause you and I both know those social media sites are designed to be addictive.

    How many website visitors are already longing to go back and check their Twitter or Facebook account anyway, to see what’s happening?

    Far. Too. Many.

    Don’t give them any more excuses than they have already.

     

    Teleporting new visitors to Twitter is bad!

    If you’re an author with a website, you don’t want your new website visitor to be offered a range of teleportation destinations that takes them AWAY.

    It’s like installing a revolving door with the word ‘exit’ in Twitter and Facebook icons.

    Because that’s what you’ve installed – a revolving door. Or, an exit right next to the entrance.

    Or, just a plain old teleporter (and believe me, they’re old to those of us who watched the original Star Trek, or who’ve spent time in Second Life).

    Don’t do it!

     

    Think you can compete with Twitter? Ha!

    I know having people follow you on social media would seem to make sense, but that’s not what’s likely to happen.

    Seriously, it won’t.

    Because… you can’t compete with cat videos and the latest news.

    Your website visitor will forget about you right after they go ‘check out’ your social media account. Those top trends will catch their attention, or maybe you’re tweeting a hashtag that interests them.

    Then, click, they’re gone!

    Yes, your website may still be open in one of their browser tabs, but so are a million other things.

    A million other things they will never return to.

     

    Here’s the solution – remove the teleporters!

    So, what do you do on your website?

    First up, you remove those teleporters at the top of your home page.

    The ones that present an invisible doorman who says, “Hey, nice to see you, now here’s the way out!”

    Remove them.

    Now.

    Don’t wait until whenever.

    Get rid of them.

    And here’s the bigger reason why. It’s not just that most website visitors will spend mere seconds on a site before they leave (and you don’t want to push them out the door any faster). No, there’s another very good reason.

     

    New visitors need time to get to know you

    If they’re new to your site, they don’t know you yet. So, why would they follow you on social media? There are so many people to follow. So many shiny accounts.

    You need to ensure that you hook their interest in you first.

    That means your website has to hold them for longer than a few seconds. You want to entice them to pull up a chair and browse your site.

    You want them to get to know you and your work.

    And you want to remove anything that will push them out the exit fast.

    This also means you need to watch where you place outbound links.

    You want your website visitor to have time to look around before they get tempted with anything clickable.

    So, where do you put social media icons?

    I have personally removed them completely for the time being, but you can put them at the very bottom of your page, in your footer. That way, your visitors have the chance to read your content first.

    And if you’re finding social media addiction is interfering with your writing time, here’s an old post I wrote on social media blockers. I use Cold Turkey – the free version. There’s a paid version too which I haven’t used.

  • Social Media, Writing

    Social media blockers

    Blog image for 'Social media blockers'.
    Social media blockers

    Social Media Blockers Provide a Quiet Room

    Spending too much time on Twitter or other social media? Checking the #writingcommunity and #amwriting threads there far too often? Come on, be honest!

    This is pretty much the modern equivalent of tidying your desk or playing with your pencils. If you really want to maximise your writing time, you need to get tough. You need a social media blocker.

    I know, I know … you have this really good reason to be on Twitter. You have this writing or plot problem and if you just put out a tweet about it, maybe someone will answer. A blocker would totally interfere with that.

    So, there you are on Twitter, or FB, or wherever you hang out, and while you’re waiting, a million other fascinating tweets/posts will appear. Before you know it, a couple of hours or more have gone by, and you’re running out of writing time.

    Another problem is that social media just fractures your concentration. The internet throws so much information at us, and for so long, that our attention spans have diminished. We’re chasing one shiny new piece of information or entertainment after another.

    Sometimes you just have to get tough. One way to do that is to use a social media blocker …

    Protect your writing time by using social media blockers.

    I use the free version of Cold Turkey, though there are others available.

    On Cold Turkey, you can make up custom lists of sites you want to block. My two worst time wasters are Twitter and YouTube, so I have that as my A-List. My B-list is just Twitter. So, um, Twitter is definitely my downfall, with YouTube a close second.

    For other people, it’s Facebook, Instagram, or some other place. It’s always worthwhile checking your browsing history to see just how long you spend on certain sites, going from one page to another.

    Virginia Woolf talked about the necessity of having a room of one’s own to write fiction. But the internet gives us a neverending window of passing traffic, entertainment and noise. It removes that quiet room needed to get some writing done.

    And that’s why it’s worth using a site blocker. Cold Turkey comes with a timer, and you have the option to add in a break time.

    There are other alternatives – including a number of Chrome add-ons. Pause, for example, literally pauses your access to a site by showing a calming green screen for five seconds (or longer, if you want to adjust the timer). You are encouraged to reflect on whether you really want to continue to the site or not. This add-on is produced by Freedom Labs and you’ll find it in the Chrome web store.

    Then there’s the ingenious Forest, which encourages you to ‘plant virtual trees’ instead of visiting your usual internet haunts. It’s more of a nudge app than a blocker. So if you don’t mind your trees dying when you leave the app, then you need something stronger. Forest works on iOs, Android and Chrome.

    Other blockers and nudgers are available, some free, some with paid options. For now, I’m happy with the free version of Cold Turkey.

    Personally, I find it a bit of a relief to have the block on. And if you really do have questions you want to ask others in the writing community, you can always jot them down and ask them when the timer is up. Social media will still be there.