Social Media Guide for Wattpad

Social Listening

Becoming a Good Social Listener

What am I talking about here? The reason for doing this is because you need to know your audience before you can share anything with them. 

Well, truly, you could share whatever you wanted to with them, whenever. But it wouldn’t get you very far. Consider this. Do you have friends or family members who email or share on Facebook everything that comes across their desks? It is weird conspiracy theories, dubious medical advancements, odd political screeds, art that you have no interest in, etc. 

It’s a nuisance, right? 

And you want it to stop, right? 

Don’t be that person. 

Instead, you probably also have friends and/or family members who only send you interesting stuff, or at least email or share it maybe 50 – 75% or more of the time (most people aren’t perfect in this area, which is all right). You get petitions that you want to sign. You get music you enjoy listening to. You get pictures of kids, or kittens, or puppies (YES!) that you think are cute. The jokes are funny. 

Be THAT person. 

And the easiest way to be that person is to listen to your network.

Homework

What, there’s homework??? 

Don’t panic. It’s easy and free. 

Here’s what I want you to do. Create accounts (if you don’t already have them) on the following sites

·         Facebook

·         Twitter

·         Pinterest

·         Tumblr

·         Google+

If you have a WordPress blog or an account, great! If not, seriously consider it (I’ll tell you why later).  If you have a YouTube account, great! If not, seriously consider it. You don’t have to upload anything yet, and maybe not ever. 

Also, to make your life easier, do the following.

·         Get a Gmail account, and link your Google+ account to it (you will want this later). If you want to use the Gmail account for signing up for the above social media sites, that’s fine.

·     Get a free Hoot Suite account. Once you have opened it, take their free introductory webinar. It lasts maybe 15 minutes. Once you have done this, set up your account to watch all of your new social accounts. The set up does not have to be perfect and these should usually be tweaked anyway. But go with Hoot Suite as it is powerful and it will save you time later if you do a little setup work now. 

All of this setup will take you about 30 – 60 minutes, depending on how many of these accounts you already have and how computer savvy you are. Be sure to put the links in the comments section to your pages, or accounts (or just @shrinkingjes or the like for Twitter) so that others will know who to follow. 

The below link and video are from my class, and they are about social listening. They aren’t perfectly on point but they are pretty close. 

Also, if you have issues setting anything up, Google is your friend. There are a ton of tutorials on YouTube.

Did this chapter help you? Did it hold your interest? Do you want to see more? Then please vote! You know the puppy wants you to. ;) Are you set up yet? What are your user names on the various platforms? Be sure to share in the comments section. I hope you’ll follow not only me, but each other as well.