My Social Media Marketing Tools

A Whole Lot of Stories, Independent Author Support, Motivation and Inspiration, , , , , , , 11 Comments

“Name it and claim it” is a “theology” taught by some members of the religious community. In honor of that quote, I’m naming and claiming a future where I earn enough to supplement my retirement income. In that future, I have published and blogged my way into an extra $2500 a month. I enjoy life; I travel; and the kids don’t know how close they came to inheriting nothing.

I am recharged this year. This is the RENAISSANCE for me, and so far, I’m off to a good start. I’m three times more active in the blogging community than I was. I can do this for another few weeks, but eventually I’ll need to actually write and edit stories. When I first began writing and blogging, I used a lot of tools to help me be present on social media and grow my blog and twitter followers. 

There was Feedly, the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) that kept up with news articles which pertained to topics like those in my novel. I still use Google Alerts to search for my favorite subjects.

Buffer was another tool that allowed me to schedule news posts to my Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. I was always out there, somewhere. I used Who Unfollowed Me, so I’d know who to unfollow back.

There was WhatsApp; Bitly the url shortener; and Mailchimp for newsletter subscriptions and email marketing. (Some of these I bought when AppSumo was selling lifetime subscriptions for $49.) 

I’ve spent the last two days trying to cull out what I have; deciding what I know; and identifying what I need to brush up on. When my brain was more agile and my eyes were stronger, I knew this stuff. 

Today I’m researching YouTube to re-learn how to use the previously mentioned, Buffer. I also have MissingLettr which does the same thing as Buffer, but I’ve never used ML to schedule posts. So, I found a side-by-side comparison, but the explanation got too complicated to explain to my readers in a day, I’ll save that for when I can lay it out, choose one, and explain why I chose it.

 Mailchimp is remaining on the shelf for a while until I have another book under my belt. I’m not some big writer with a ton of news and give-a-ways so I don’t need a newsletter, but Mailchimp was great for collecting email addresses. After all these years, I still have the list. I’ll cull it out when I’m ready, but I’m sure people have dropped off for various reasons.

The very things I’m picking up, many of you have lain down and eliminated from your routines. Maybe when I get to where you are I’ll rest, but remember my goal, $2500 a month. Starting over is exciting! I wish I were 20 years younger.

If you have an opinion on any of these apps, I’d appreciate a share. What’s working for you? What did you stop using? Do you use any marketing tools? If so, which?

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Educator, Author, Blogger, and supporter of Independent Writers. One mystery novel, The Neon Houses, http://amzn.to/2kSqdPX. Find me on Twitter @boom_lyn.

11 thoughts on “My Social Media Marketing Tools”

  3. Great for you on having such a fantastic goal, Linda. I’ve used a lot of the tools you mentioned, some I still do (like Mailchimp and Who Unfollowed Me). I wish I could say there was one that did wonders for me, but there was/is no magic bullet that I’ve discovered. Mailchimp is great for a newsletter. Outside of blogging, my preferred platform is Bookbub. It’s definitely been the most beneficial for me, plus it’s fun and doesn’t require a lot of time.

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    1. Mae, I read your post on Story Empire after I wrote this. Your and your readers’ comments were certainly food for thought. Writing is why we got into this in the first place and I haven’t had time to focus on writing in a while. I’m loving blogging, but Facebook isn’t doing anything for me. Twitter is a favorite but it’s not helping my writing or published works at all. What I do there is retweet my friends. Since I’m still in the thinking and planning stage, your post gave me a lot to think about. Thanks for commenting here. 🤗

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      1. I’m so glad my Story Empire post provided food for thought, Linda. I’m now on year 10 of doing this, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. It seems every time I turn around there is some new social media platform or changed algorithm to learn, and my available time has gotten less. Ugh! I’m paring things down to a few platforms to see if that makes any difference. I figure it will give me (hopefully) more time to write, and at least it’s worth a shot to see how it plays out!

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