The Importance of #Hashtags for Social Media Networking

Following on from my previous post, Explorations in Social Media, I would like to explain my perception of the importance of using hashtags, and I will suggest some networking groups that I have found as a result of my studies. It has taken me a good few years to even begin to comprehend how to use social media in a professional and useful manner. I joined Facebook when it became the Next Big Thing, and I subsequently joined Twitter when I began to explore the possibility of becoming a 'serious career writer.' The other networks sort of followed on naturally as I was introduced to them, and now I have settled on those that seem most suitable. My current regular platforms are Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Facebook.

All four of these social media websites now offer the use of hashtags to correlate information and bring people together. To my knowledge it was Twitter that first started this trend (although please correct me if I am wrong). Somebody, somewhere, came up with the idea to put a hashtag in front of a word and voilà! Other people picked it up, liked the idea, and began sharing it around the internet. Personally I think hashtags are great, especially on Twitter. My news feed tends to be clogged up with tweets that mainly tell me to buy one person's book or another (I know, I am one of them!). Now I can narrow down my searches more easily by asking Twitter to show me the tweets I want to see. Then I can interact with different people about different things, and I don't need to open several different Twitter accounts and confuse myself even more.

On Twitter I am only just beginning to explore a lot of hashtag groups that I recently discovered. It seems that one leads on to another, and while this all very exciting, it can also become very time consuming. I have to be interactive as much as possible, but I fit it around my family life, and my children will always come first. Anyway, a couple of hashtag groups that I am active in are #bizitalk and #PurpleBiz. In fact, just recently I was a #PurpleBiz Business of the Day, which gave me a huge confidence boost, not to mention a lot of new followers that will eventually translate into more book sales. I just have to keep up the good work.

My next task is to explore some other hashtag Twitter groups. These include #TwitterSisters, #ConnectFriday and #PinHitsHour among others. I love meeting all of the diverse small businesses and fabulous people that meet in these groups, and now I am also finding myself added to various Twitter lists (something I am still learning about so more to follow on that later). If you are exploring Twitter for the first time, or you are unsure about hashtags and what they can do for your business, just try them out. Put them in your Twitter search or click on them in messages on your news feed, and you never know where they might take you...

My novels are adult paranormal with equal amounts of dark romance and contemporary English Gothic. Sign up now for special offers and book release news.

Explorations in Social Media #bizitalk

I am currently experimenting with social media networks as a method to sell books and build my author platform. Truthfully I wish I had spent more time researching how the industry works before I went ahead and got my books published. The common knowledge is that anyone can publish a book these days, but only a select few (or rather a lucky few) gain the fame and fortune that we all seek. Yes, I know, there are lots of authors who say they only write for the pleasure and joy of creativity. This is true for me, but I also want to earn a living from my writing, and after a very long moral battle, I accept that there is no shame in this desire.

Now, I am a working mother who spends 90% of my time being the 'housewife and mother' and the remainder is spent trying to write more books and promote the ones I currently have in the marketplace. I have no money to put into an advertising campaign, but I do now have the support of a publisher as a result of my fourth novel The Darkness of Love. This is very exciting, because Chances Press have organized a Christmas blog tour for me, and they are planning another one in 2014. It makes me feel very special as an author, actually, that someone else is prepared to put in the work for me without demanding immediate repayment. They have great faith in my work, and they clearly appreciate my writing. This is a huge compliment.

Part of my networking experiment has been to explore the use of hashtags, mainly on Twitter, but also on Google+, Facebook and Pinterest. These are all my main platforms of choice, and I am spending some time on each in turn trying to speak directly with a variety of people, and reading articles and infographics that might explain how best to use these fabulous resources. Therein lies part of the problem. These networks are so vast, so complicated, and so busy, that I need to spend every spare minute of my time working on them with no guarantee that I will actually sell my books as a result of my efforts. The other issue is that they can become addictive, and I need to allocate time for writing and freelance projects alongside my self marketing.

Anyway, it is a long, slow process. I know that with social media we have become a 24/7 culture. We expect results immediately because we can send out tweets, messages, photos and web links at the touch of a button, and we all have portable media devices in the form of smart phones, tablets etc. Even if we do not have such sophisticated personal technology, we can usually find a library with free computers, or find a friend or relative with the media technology on which to work. I now have to accept that I need to become a recognised name in publishing. People need to know who I am and what the titles of my books are, and maybe then they will begin to read them, possibly review them, and better still recommend them to friends and family. Ultimately it seems word of mouth is still the best marketing tool for an author. I am just taking it global with social media... See you out there!

My novels are adult paranormal with equal amounts of dark romance and contemporary English Gothic. Sign up now for special offers and book release news.