Well, the Twitter followers are still coming in strong, and I have made some supportive writer contacts. I'm up to 1,048 followers now (up 188 followers from last week), have been added to 18 writer lists, and several of my posts were retweeted. Also, one of my blogs landed on someone's paper.li which exposed my article to an even wider audience.
Probably the main event of the week was participating in the writing process blog tour, which I posted on Monday, April 21. Unfortunately, when I first posted it, I included the wrong link. Luckily, the Twitter writer that invited me to do the blog (@Stirlingwriter) noticed the problem right away and let me know. The automated post from Weebly was correct, but when I tried to share it and tag all the other writers involved with the tour, I mistakenly copied the link to the Weebly admin page instead of the actual webpage. I quickly posted the correction, but a few people had already shared the wrong post. Once I realized I could delete the incorrect post, though, the sharing stopped and the corrected post was retweeted.
In case you're not familiar with blog tours, they include a set of questions for each writer to answer and a mention of three additional writers that will continue the "train." Finding others to write can be a difficult task, especially for new writers who don't have connections yet. I ended up calling on six Twitter friends, two of whom agreed right away, three I didn't hear from, and one I waited on for a couple of days who finally let me know she didn't feel this was "her thing." I graciously thanked her and embarked on the task of finding a replacement, and boy, was that impossible, being it was the day before the blog post was due. I tried everyone on Twitter and Facebook with no luck. Good thing my husband is a bit of a writer, because he was able to fill the last spot. These will post on 4/28/14. Since that time, however, I heard from another author that was out of town last week, and he wants to participate in the blog tour, so I will be replacing my husband's bio with his bio this weekend, and he will post his blog a week later (5/5/14).
I completed some additional tasks for the 21-day Personal Branding Challenge through Jill Celeste on Facebook and replied to comments on my blogs. By posting a new article on my science blog, as well as this one, my traffic has increased on both sites. Currently, I'm averaging 100 visitors a day on www.sandiewill.com and 10 visitors on www.rockheadsciences.com. I also learned that I won a "Big Ass Box of Books" from Bradford Literary Agency (www.bradfordlit.com) via Twitter - can't wait to see which books!
As far as my methods on Twitter this week, they are the same as last time, except I went back to following more writers again. One day, I selected 50 and that seemed to increase the followers even days later. I don't think I mentioned it, but during my first week on Twitter, I followed at least 200 writer-types and that really started the following for me. If you are included on any lists, check out the members. They usually have the same interest as you, so it's a great way to start a following that will be meaningful. I also posted a picture of a homemade key lime pie this week and a picture of kayaking in a spring, but it only generated one comment.
Here's a summary of the tasks I did on Twitter this week:
In addition, I'm going to post an additional blog tomorrow that will summarize how I reached 1,000 followers on Twitter in five weeks.
Hope you had a good week and find this blog useful. Have fun tweeting!
--Sandie
Probably the main event of the week was participating in the writing process blog tour, which I posted on Monday, April 21. Unfortunately, when I first posted it, I included the wrong link. Luckily, the Twitter writer that invited me to do the blog (@Stirlingwriter) noticed the problem right away and let me know. The automated post from Weebly was correct, but when I tried to share it and tag all the other writers involved with the tour, I mistakenly copied the link to the Weebly admin page instead of the actual webpage. I quickly posted the correction, but a few people had already shared the wrong post. Once I realized I could delete the incorrect post, though, the sharing stopped and the corrected post was retweeted.
In case you're not familiar with blog tours, they include a set of questions for each writer to answer and a mention of three additional writers that will continue the "train." Finding others to write can be a difficult task, especially for new writers who don't have connections yet. I ended up calling on six Twitter friends, two of whom agreed right away, three I didn't hear from, and one I waited on for a couple of days who finally let me know she didn't feel this was "her thing." I graciously thanked her and embarked on the task of finding a replacement, and boy, was that impossible, being it was the day before the blog post was due. I tried everyone on Twitter and Facebook with no luck. Good thing my husband is a bit of a writer, because he was able to fill the last spot. These will post on 4/28/14. Since that time, however, I heard from another author that was out of town last week, and he wants to participate in the blog tour, so I will be replacing my husband's bio with his bio this weekend, and he will post his blog a week later (5/5/14).
I completed some additional tasks for the 21-day Personal Branding Challenge through Jill Celeste on Facebook and replied to comments on my blogs. By posting a new article on my science blog, as well as this one, my traffic has increased on both sites. Currently, I'm averaging 100 visitors a day on www.sandiewill.com and 10 visitors on www.rockheadsciences.com. I also learned that I won a "Big Ass Box of Books" from Bradford Literary Agency (www.bradfordlit.com) via Twitter - can't wait to see which books!
As far as my methods on Twitter this week, they are the same as last time, except I went back to following more writers again. One day, I selected 50 and that seemed to increase the followers even days later. I don't think I mentioned it, but during my first week on Twitter, I followed at least 200 writer-types and that really started the following for me. If you are included on any lists, check out the members. They usually have the same interest as you, so it's a great way to start a following that will be meaningful. I also posted a picture of a homemade key lime pie this week and a picture of kayaking in a spring, but it only generated one comment.
Here's a summary of the tasks I did on Twitter this week:
- Thanked anyone who retweeted or mentioned my name or blog, included me on a list or recommended to follow me
- Followed new followers, as well as 50+ writers
- Replied to any comments on Twitter and blogs
- Participated in a writing process blog tour: "How Do I Write: A writing process blog tour" at www.sandiewill.com/blog and set this up to post twice a day on Twitter through Hootsuite
- Posted a blog titled, "Week 4 on Twitter as @SandieWillWrite" on Twitter twice a day through Hootsuite
- Posted a blog titled, "So, what's it like to go to geology field camp?" on my science blog at www.rockheadsciences.com and set this up to rotate with all of my other blogs and post on Twitter @SandieWillWrite four times a day via a WordPress plug in
- Posted pictures and articles related to writing, publishing, geology and other sciences
- Posted some non-writing related content, but need to do more
In addition, I'm going to post an additional blog tomorrow that will summarize how I reached 1,000 followers on Twitter in five weeks.
Hope you had a good week and find this blog useful. Have fun tweeting!
--Sandie
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