Author: avadel
Category: Wattpad Tricks
Hello, readers!
In Tip #1, we talked about some of the basics of gaining traction on Wattpad, but today we want to take a look at a specific but important aspect to getting follows: the message board.
After all, why do people follow you? Some people do it to be friendly, for sure, and some people do it so that you'll pay attention to them or provide them a service, like judging, reviewing, designing, etc. However, what is the one and only technical function that a follow serves (other than letting you see private chapters, which we haven't seen in years and aren't even sure exist anymore)?
That's right. They let you see announcements.
(*frantic voice whispers in ear*) What's that? (*whispering continues*) Oh. Yeah.
The helpful voice in our ear just reminded us that it also lets you keep up with people's newsfeeds. Does anyone actually use the newsfeeds, though? We don't, so we're dying to know.
So, ignoring the mostly outmoded private chapters and the newsfeed we don't know anything about, message boards are the whole purpose of a follow. That means boards often serve an important role in determining who a person follows. Because, let's be honest: how many of you have unfollowed someone simply because their message board posts were starting to annoy you?
If you have or have thought about it, then you can see where we're coming from. And we don't know about you, but unless it's mandatory for a service, we check people's message boards before we follow them to make sure we won't unfollow later—and to make sure they're worth listening to.
Worried now that your message board isn't up-to-snuff? We're here to help.
Disclaimer: this is based primarily off our own experiences and general marketing tactics, so you may have other ideas or information. If so, we'd love to hear what you have to say! This article is by no means the final authority but rather a (hopefully) helpful guide.
With that out of the way, let's talk about some of our personal DOs and DON'Ts for posting to your message board!
THE DOs
Most accounts that win our follow do at least one of the following five things, or better yet, some combination.
1. Be Helpful
Post information that is beneficial to the Wattpad community. Found a book that deserves more attention? Be its cheerleader; give us a short pitch, the author, and a link in a shout-out. Know of a great opportunity more people should be taking advantage of? Tell us! These opportunities can include awards/contests, giveaways, promotional spots, or something else interactive. These things can include your book but should mostly be for other accounts. Help connect more Wattpadders with each other!
2. Be Unique
What's special about you and your account? Capitalize on it. Try not to post the same thing that everyone else posts it so you don't get lost in the crowd. Be creative in your approaches to communicating with your followers. Our favorite types of people to follow are ones whose bios and message boards convey a strong sense of personality. On top of this, try to stay unique from yourself as well; don't always post the same types of thing. Varying what you post about and how you post about it will keep the followers you do have from getting bored or skipping your messages because they think it's just the same-old-same-old.
Lastly, remember that followers only get a short preview of your post as they scroll through. Make sure what you write stands out early in your message, or they might not click to read the rest.
3. Be Interactive
Ask your followers for opinions! Start discussions about interesting topics and invite responses. You might be surprised at what you get back. People like sharing their thoughts. Giving them a place to do that will help them feel included and might also let them connect with new Wattpadders. As a bonus, your profile looks more lively and you look more like a 'real person' when you're having public conversations with people. That availability might drive more people to both follow you and actually talk to you.
4. Be Positive
We're not saying you have to have a flat, plastic tone. However, most people respond better to positivity and confidence than negativity and self-doubt. Keep an eye on the bright side, share good news as is appropriate, and when possible, say what you say with a smile! (Tonally, of course. Message boards don't support most emojis. But we suppose you could sneak an emoticon in there. (; )
5. Be Professional
Similar to the last tip, we're not saying you have to be stuffy. Internet writing tends to be more casual, silly, and syntactically creative than formal writing, and that's great! It lets us communicate more emotionally. After all, a positive (or playful) tone of voice is hard to achieve without some incorrectness here and there. But it is good to make sure that your posts are readable. When you're not throwing it out the window to make a point, try to keep up good grammar. Capitalization, punctuation, and (mostly) complete sentences go a long way. If you abandon grammar completely, people might have a hard time taking you seriously. In a platform mostly geared toward writing, your message board is a quick snapshot of your narrative ability. Aim toward making it a favorable one.
The DON'Ts
Accounts that we tend to unfollow—or never follow to begin with—usually do one or more of the following things.
1. Make Mostly Self-Centered Posts
This is probably the easiest DON'T to slip into. We all get so excited about our projects, sometimes we can get tunnel vision. While it is good to update your readers, make sure it's not the only thing you're posting. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to announce every time you update a chapter; if you do, try to do it in an interesting way. Excerpts can be good, but make sure they're hooking and short. Note that when scrolling through notifications, it's easy to tell what's a 'real person' talking and what's an excerpt, so that first sentence better grab the reader's eye! Otherwise, they're likely to skip over it. Better than excerpts might be a punchy teaser with a bit of quirk. A good rule of thumb we've heard is that you should be posting about other people/things at least twice as much as you're posting about yourself.
Practice: Give us your punchiest, quirkiest teaser for your latest chapter here:
2. Spam Notifications
Wattpad currently allows you to make three announcements a day. If you consistently reach that quota, one of two things is happening. Option 1: you have so much important information, it is absolutely coming out of your ears. That's possible but unlikely. Option 2: you're oversharing.
Try to limit your announcements to notable, conversation-creating, or helpful posts. Wattpad is a little different than most social media—in most cases, your followers don't care about minutiae of your life like when you're going to bed or what you had for lunch. That's not to say you can't turn those topics into interesting things. Maybe you say you're going to bed after a long day of writing and hope you don't dream about [vague xyz] from your book. That could be unique or interesting. Maybe you ate something spectacularly odd today and want to know what odd things other Wattpadders have eaten. That could start up a discussion. The point, though, is to be intentional with what you write, and, even if you're posting good material, to try not to clog up people's notifications.
3. Use Rude Tone or Language
Be humble and polite. Don't rant about other Wattpadders, contest results you don't like, your lack of reads, or anything similar. There is a place for disappointment, and expressed correctly, a post might be a good place to get some encouragement. However, if you're angry with people, consider if the problem might have anything to do with yourself. Rather than blame others for your problems, ask yourself what you might be able to do to improve. If people are rude to you, stay polite to them; they might change their tone. If you didn't do well in a contest, let it roll off your shoulders or see it as a call to enhance your writing. If you're not getting reads, engage with other Wattpadder's books. You can't change the Wattpad world, but you can change how you act in it.
Also, this is just personal preference, but we don't follow people who regularly use explicit language. We're not the only ones either. Note that if you do choose to use that speech, you are potentially limiting your audience.
4. Complain
The easiest way to get us to unfollow you is to complain about people unfollowing you. We don't say that to be harsh, but it's something you should probably be aware of when dealing with others. No one who follows you is obligated to. They're there to enjoy your content, and they are free to leave at any time. Rather than complain that people are leaving, thank the people that are staying (and not sarcastically either). If you're posting good content, people will likely stay and more people will likely show up. However, if you're posting poor content, that might be why people are unfollowing you, and complaining about it could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
In addition, don't lament your lack of ability. Talking down about your own work makes it less likely that other people will think it has merit. A little confidence goes a long way. We're not saying get a big head, but if you don't think you've 'got it' yet, look for ways to improve, and in the meantime, fake it till you make it! No artist is ever done learning their craft.
5. Write Confusingly
This largely goes back to our "Be Professional" tip. If we check out a profile whose message board consists of posts with no regard for grammar, we are unlikely to follow them. It's difficult to read and generally seems like more trouble than it's worth. Also, similar to how people do judge books by their cover, what your writing looks likes implies certain things about your writing's content. If little effort seems to be put into the presentation, most people assume there's nothing interesting there to read.
Conclusion
Message boards are an important way of communicating with your followers and building your Wattpad image. Hopefully these tips will help you navigate some common pitfalls as well as give you ideas for improving what you're already doing.
Have other tips related to this topic? Let us know here, or write us an article about it!
Want to submit your own Tip?
Comment in this book and email your entry to avadelauthors@gmail.com. We'll review it, and if we think it's well-written and helpful to the Wattpad community, we'll post it! Your entry may be something you have written previously, even if it is published elsewhere. (=
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