Social Media Guide for Wattpad

Social Listening, Part 2

Now that you’re set up, I want you to listen. But how?

How to listen

Take time to do a few Google searches. Search for your work online, but without knowing the name of the book, or the author, or where it is. If your book is about dinosaurs, your search might be for dinosaur books or dinosaur stories or even Tyrannosaurus Rex tales.  Are you catching the variations? Some are more specific. Some are more generalized. 

Pay attention to the kinds of sites that are being returned. Are they independent websites? WordPress blogs? Tumblr blogs? Pinterest boards? Something else? Don’t look beyond the first page of search results. But do run more than one search and pay attention to the differences.

Where to listen

I want you to listen on these platforms. 

On Facebook, there are hashtags (but they aren’t used as much as on Twitter). You can search on them or search for groups or pages devoted to similar books or stories. If your book is about Southern cooking, consider a group devoted to the same topic, or a group about Southern nostalgia or about American cooking or the like. 

On Twitter, I want you to follow some hashtags. For our dinosaur example, let’s follow #dinosaur or #archaeology. The #fiction hashtag is probably too broad. And everyone should listen to the #wattpad hashtag. Try it in combination with your specifics. E. g. #dinosaur #wattpad. 

On Pinterest, you may need to do some searching to find people to follow who are putting out content similar to your work. If your book is about a time traveler who goes to medieval France, run searches on topics like France, history, science fiction, or medieval times. 

A similar angle can be explored on Tumblr. Again, you are going to use the search function and hunt for content like your book.  For a book about child stars, consider not only following people who are Tumblr blogging in general about child stars, but maybe even follow people who are Tumblr blogging about certain child stars, like the Olsen twins, Miley Cyrus, or Wil Wheaton. For stars with a lot of popularity, you’re going to get a ton of results and it may be too much. Tweak the approach and add more limits, like Wil Wheaton Star Trek or the like. 

Google+ also lends itself to the search approach, but there are also hashtags (I will get to those later) and they may or may not be of help to you. 

YouTube and WordPress can also be searched on (YouTube is now the second-largest online search engine, second only to Google). 

Finally, I want you to listen here on Wattpad, too. Go into the clubs that are devoted to your book’s two genres, and pay attention to only the first page of topic results. Yes, there is junk in there. And one of the pinned topics is always the one where you can share your story. Look at the other topics. If your book is Hobbit fan fiction, then a topic asking if anyone is a fan of LOTR is right up your alley. 

Listen for a few days, maybe 10 – 20 minutes at a time. Hence don’t listen to all of these platforms at once. And if you find a hashtag or whatever that you like – follow it! Add a stream in Hoot Suite! And if you like your Google search, create a Google Alert.

Homework

It’s just what I’ve outlined above. Listen! It’ll only take you around 10 – 20 minutes per day. And use Hoot Suite. I cannot emphasize this enough. Otherwise the volume will start to overwhelm you. The link is to Hoot Suite’s own instructional blog. The YouTube link is for an independent guy providing a decent tutorial in how to get started with Hoot Suite. He’s pretty good and I love his accent. :) 

Feel free to listen to me online. Most of my online presence is linked to in my profile. Or run a Google search for jespah trek and then the name of whatever social media site you’re looking for. Those are usually fruitful. The one big exception is Twitter; I did not lock down the @jespah account. I have two accounts there - @shrinkingjes is my professional account. @jespahTrekFanFI is my writing account. 

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. ;) And don’t forget to Google da puppy …. Are you set up yet? Who are you following? Share your ideas in the comments section!