Novel Proposal Writing Tips from Chip MacGregor Part 2

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If you had an opportunity to read my last post, we talked about Novel Proposal Writing basics - part 1.

Using Chip MacGregor's helpful tips, we covered the purpose of the proposal, hook, overview, and synopsis. Today we're going to discuss the latter section of the proposal that not only lets the proposal readers know about your story, but about YOU. :-)

1.  Genre - where does your book fit. Historical Romance? Contemporary or Southern Romance? Speculative Fiction? Young Adult Historical?

2. Audience: who might be interested in reading your book. For example, Demographics (your people group) and Psychographics (what makes it interesting).
Here are a few examples from one of mine.

If a reader wants to laugh at the plights of loveable characters and enjoy a wonderful clash of cultures, A Twist of Faith is a book for them. The Mitchell’s Crossroads series confirms Pepper’s tagline- Blue Ridge romance peppered with grace and humor. Its light-hearted feel with deep spiritual elements blends romantic tension, humor, and redemption in a tight braid of a heartwarming story. Expanding upon the unique and quirky Appalachian setting, this series showcases clashing cultures and gives a southern accent to classic tales.

Characteristics of the audience:

• female fiction readers from their 20’s to their 40’s (I’ve even had readers in their 50s and 60s enjoy this)
• buyers of fiction by Jenny B. Jones, Tamara Leigh, Janice Hanna Thompson, Laura Jensen Walker, Sandie Bricker, Denise Hunter, and Rachel Hauck.
• readers of historical romance, particularly medieval periods due to the historical subplot
• readers who enjoy humor and quirky characters
• people who enjoy romantic comedy/dramas like Kate & Leopold, Pride & Prejudice, Emma, No Reservations, Leap Year, While You Were Sleeping, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. 
• readers who want to read about how God gives second chances and the healing power of forgiveness

3. Manuscript: how long is your work and is it complete? If you are unpublished, you must have a complete manuscript to be considered

 

4. Comparables: How is your book like what is already out there? It can be similar in voice, tone, theme, or style. You need to list 3-5 examples and describe how each one is similar.

Here are some examples:

 

Once Upon a Prince and Princess Ever After by Rachel Hauck, published by Zondervan (2013, 2014, respectively) -  ATOF is similar to Rachel’s books because of the sweet, endearing romance and culture clashes.

Meant to Be Mine by Becky Wade, published by Bethany House (2014) The romantic tension and deep spiritual thread of Becky Wade’s newest release is similar to A Twist of Faith’s storyline.

Made to Last by Melissa Tagg, published by Bethany House (2013) The locale of Asheville with its delicious small-town appeal is similar to my novel.

Weddings by Bella series by Janice Hanna Thompson published by Revell (2010)

This series takes the plight of a young woman’s infant wedding planning business and follows her romantic relationship – while including her quirky and loveable Italian family. The large and ‘intrusive’ family in Janice Thompson’s book is similar to the one in Here to Stay.

Love Starts with Elle by Rachel Hauck, published by Thomas Nelson (2008)

A small town girl struggles with feelings of insecurity from a previous relationship but finds an unexpected romance in Rachel Hauck’s sweet story – and this is similar to my heroine’s insecurities and unexpected romance.

 

5. Bio: who are you and why are you qualified to write this book? It's usually about a 1/2 of page and "if you're attractive include a picture" Chip says. Edie Melson had a great post on bio writing a few months ago, here.

 

6. Marketing Info: All your 'platform' stuff goes here. FB, Twitter followers, social media, blog, organizations...etc. It should be between a 1/2 page to a full page.

Here's an example:

 

The Author’s Tribes:

Facebook Friends: 1174

Twitter Followers: 937

Website and Blog: www.pepperdbasham.com

Words Seasoned With Salt has been a great blog to promote writing, host reviews, and inspire. I have an average of 200 visits per day. Many published authors have been guests on my blog – such as Julie Lessman, Mary Connealy, Rachel Hauck, Ruth Logan Herne, Siri Mitchell, and Janice Thompson.

Group Blog: http://thewritersalleys.blogspot.com

I am the creator (and regular contributor) to The Writers Alley – a group writing blog hosted by 10 aspiring authors. It was created three years ago and have over 600 subscribers. The average hits is 1000 per day.

I am a regular contributor to Christian Fiction Online Magazine and have guest blogged on the popular writing blog, Seekerville. I have been published in ACFW’s Afictionado.

Though most of my presentations are about my profession in Speech-Language Pathology (and mostly related to Autism Spectrum Disorders), I have spoken at women’s conferences on various topics from God’s redemption throughout generations to God’s unique plan for our lives. I have also spoken for writers groups.

I have been a member of the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for over four years, a Revell reviewer for three, and have developed a ‘following’ from my guest blog posts and these articles.

My first nonfiction article, Start Talking 101, was published in Momsense magazine in January 2010.

I am active on social media sites such as FaceBook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

7. Your writing. This is where the editor or agent will probably look first before viewing anything else. You'll include 40-50 pages of your manuscript.

 

Okay - what do you write best about this part of the proposal? Where do you struggle? Let's chat!

 

 

Popular Hashtags and How to Use Them Effectively with Edie Melson

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Hashtags can be a confusing concept, so today I’m sharing a list of popular hashtags and how to use them effectively.

First, lets back up and evaluate the reason we’re all working at building an online presence. We are looking to deepen existing relationships and build new ones. But building new ones can be difficult if the only people we interact with are those we already know, either online or in person.

We can get a little bit of exposure to new folks by our existing connections introducing us, but that’s a time consuming way to go about it.

What if there was a way for someone to search a given social media network by topic and find new, interesting people to interact with? That would be a great way to grow our connections.

THAT, in the simplest of terms, is the purpose of using hashtags.

When you compose a social media update that includes one or two hashtags that summarize the topic, you are giving folks a way to find you.

For example, I’m working on a new series of Steampunk novels. Because of that, targeting a specific type of reader—one who reads Steampunk. I find those readers within the larger group of people who read science fiction (ABA – secular) or speculative fiction (CBA – Christian).

Here’s a sample tweet I might send out, targeted at those specific readers: 

Step-by-step instructions to help you turn a plain top hat into a #Steampunk masterpiece! Via @EdieMelson http://bit.ly/HoGs3w #Specfic

Let’s break down how I composed this update. I know that the Steampunk community loves to create costumes. So I’m giving them information they’d find useful and interesting.

•     I used #Steampunk so that anyone searching Twitter for others who are interested in this genre can find me.

•     I also included @EdieMelson, because on Twitter, that is a clickable link that takes them directly to my Twitter page.

•     Finally I used #specfic, because that’s the hashtag for speculative fiction to pull in readers who might find this interesting.

•     If I was targeting the general market reader, instead of #specfic, I would have used #scifi.

NOTE: Use # (hashtags) to denote a subject, and use @ (at sign) to denote a person or organization. With organizations, you’ll find some that hashtag their names and others use the @ sign.

Twitter isn’t the only social media network that has hashtags. You can use hashtags in the same manner on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram.

Hashtag Etiquette

Try to never use more than three hashtags in any one tweet. If you can make it two that’s even better. Otherwise you end up looking like a used car sales man. If you’re trying to reach more groups, schedule multiple tweets, at different times, about the same subject and target your groups two at a time.

Always research your hashtag before you use it. Never assume it’s the correct one. For example, I was targeting military families with tweets about my devotional for military families and I thought #military would be the logical hashtag. No, turns out that hashtag is frequently used by those trying to date someone in the military. Not really the demographic I was trying to reach. The hashtag I wanted was #militaryfamily and #deployment. The best place to research hashtags is also the easiest, just type it into Google or the search engine of your choice.

Now, I’m going to give you an updated list of popular hashtags. 

freedigitalphotos.net 

This list is extensive, but by no means exhaustive

For readers, the most popular hashtag right now is:

#amreading

For writers, there are two popular hashtags right now:

#amwriting

#write

If you’re editing something:

#amediting

If you’re quoting a literary agent:

#askagent

#author


#authors

#Christian


#Christfic Christian fiction

#devo Christian devotion

#devotion Christian devotion

#ebooks

#editing

#editmark


#fictionfriday


#flashfic flash fiction

#freebooks

#freelancelife

#freelancewriter

#fridayflash  flash fiction on a Friday


#Goodreads

#Indiauthor self-publishing

#Indiepub self-publishing

#Kindlebooks

#kindlefree

#Kindle_promo

#JesusTweeters from believers

#MBTWriMo My Book Therapy NaNoWriMo 

#microfiction

#MyBookTherapy writing community

#nano national novel writing month

#nanowrimo  national novel writing month


#novels


#novelists


#poem


#poet


#poets


#poetry


#pubtip  publication tips


#publishing


#reading

#scifi


#selfpublishing


#socialmedia

#socialnetworking

#specfic

#suspense

#twitter

#vss   very short story


#webfic  web fiction


#weblit   web literature


#wip   work in progress


#womensfic

#womensfiction

#wordcount


#writegoal


#writequote


#writer


#writers

#writetip  writing advice


#writing


#writingtips  writing advice

#wrotetoday


All of these should help you find the hashtags best suited to your situation.

I’d love to hear from you now. Twitter is ever-changing and hashtags come and they go. What are some of your favorites? Also, if you still have hashtag questions, post them below in the comments section.

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Edie’s an author, freelance writer and editor. She’s the co-director of the Blue RidgeMountains Christian Writers Conference, Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy, and Social Media Director for Southern Writer’s Magazine, as well as the Senior Editor for Novel Rocket. Visit her on her blog, Twitter, andFacebook.

You are Killing Yourself with a Weak (or non-existent) Writer’s Bio with Edie Melson

I've been accused of being blunt and forthright, and I suppose the title of this post proves it’s true. But really people, don’t you realize how important those few lines at the end of a guest post or article really is? That space is valuable real estate and you’re growing weeds on it.

I’ll say it again, you are killing yourself with a weak writer’s bio.

What a Bio NOT Supposed to do:

Let me share what a writer’s bio is NOT designed to do. It’s not there to make me want to become your best friend. Sure I want enough info so I know you’re a real person, but my time (and everyone else’s) is in short supple, so don’t make me wade through folksy humor to get to what I need. If I want to get to know you better I’ll look up your blog and follow you on social media.

What a Bio IS Supposed to do:

There are several reasons to have a writer’s bio ( and several sizes you need—but more on that later).

1. Because people are curious and suspicious. If I’m going to read something online, I at least want to know who wrote it. I’m leery of articles that don’t have an author. Is it computer generated (yes they can do that), is it stolen (happens all the time), is the author ashamed of having written it?

2. Because I may like what you have to say and want to read more. If what you’ve written resonates with me, I’m going to want to go deeper. No bio either means a dead-end (if I’m busy) or a lot of extra sleuthing on the Internet. Trust me when I say this, a lot of you are NOT easy to find—but that’s another post.

3. Because I want to share the post through social media. I know I CAN share it even if there’s no bio or attribution, but then my followers run into #1 and #2 above . . . and they complain to me. I’ve worked hard to build a strong online community, so I refuse to send out things that will knowingly frustrate them.

What You Have to Have

1. Links. You want to be found, by readers, by friends, by other writers. That’s hard to do when you don’t at least leave us a trail of breadcrumbs. Here are the links you need:

•     Blog/website

•     Facebook

•     Twitter

These are the bare minimum. Of course if you don’t have these three, then you need to read my post on Gaining Traction with Social Media instead of Spinning Your Wheels. 

2. A sentence or two about your credibility. For me it’s a quick line about how long I’ve been in the industry and how many books I have.

That’s it. You probably thought you needed all sorts of things, but you don’t. Now you’re probably wondering how you organize all this information and I’ve got you covered there, too.

Compose Your Bio:

It’s important to remember a bio isn’t a resume. It’s not necessary to include information that isn’t relevant to what you’re writing. So the first thing is . . .

1. Keep it Relevant: For example, if you’re not writing about how to sell something, it isn’t important to mention your job 15 years ago as an outside sales person. Think relevant when you’re composing your bio.

2. Organize it with the important stuff up front. I know our families are important to us, that’s not what I mean. This is a business and although I’m happy to learn you have a successful marriage, that’s not the first thing I need to know. So start with your credibility, then move into how I find you and your books.

3. Include EMBEDDED hyperlinks when you send a bio to someone else to post. Don’t type out the full URLs, but actually embed the link to the words BLOG, TWITTER and FACEBOOK, as well as any others that are relevant. The reason you want to have the words already linked is because of the word count guidelines you’ll run into. You don’t want to waste your word count on a hyperlink—especially if you only have 20-25 words.

If you’re not sure how to insert links into a word document (or anywhere else) here’s a post on Everything You Need to Know about Hyperlinks. 

How Many Bios Do I Really Need?

In a word, several. Depending on the guidelines of where you’re submitting it could be as small as 20-25 words or as long as several paragraphs. I try to keep several CURRENT versions of my bio in a file, easy to access.

Here are some examples:

25 word bio:

Edie Melson is an author, freelance writer and editor with years of experience. Connect with her on her blog – TheWrite Conversation, Twitter or Facebook.

50 word bio:

Edie’s an author, freelance writer and editor. She’s the co-director of the Blue RidgeMountains Christian Writers Conference, Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy, and Social Media Director for Southern Writer’s Magazine, as well as the Senior Editor for Novel Rocket. Visit her on her blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

100 word bio:

Edie Melson is the author of four books, with two more due out January 2014. Her popular blog, The Write Conversation, reaches thousands of writers each month, and she’s the co-director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian WritersConference. Her bestselling ebook on social media has just been updated and re-released as Connections:Social Media & Networking Techniques for Writers. She’s the Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy and the social media director for Southern Writers Magazine. She’s also the Senior Editor at NovelRocket. You can connect with Edie through Twitter and Facebook.

150 word bio:

Edie Melson is the author of four books, with two more due out January 2014. As a respected freelance writer and editor with years of experience in the publishing industry, she’s connected with writers and readers throughout the country. Her bestselling ebook on social media has just been re-released as Connections: Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers. Her  popular writing blog, The Write Conversation, gives her the opportunity to share what she’s learned and mentor others. She’s the co-director of the BlueRidge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, as well as a popular faculty member at numerous others. She’s also the Social Media Mentor for My Book Therapy,  the Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine, and the Senior Editor for NovelRocket. Be sure to connect with her through Twitter and Facebook. 

300 word bio:

Edie Melson is a leading professional in the writing industry. She’s a sought after writing instructor; and her heart to help others define and reach their dreams has connected her with writers all over the country. She’s the co-director of the Blue Ridge MountainsChristian Writers Conference, as well as a popular faculty member at numerous others.

She’s a prolific writer, publishing thousands of articles over the years, and has a popular writing blog, The WriteConversation. Edie is a regular contributor on the popular Novel Rocket and Inspire a Fire websites, as well as social media director for Southern Writers Magazine.

In keeping up with the leading edge of all things digital Edie has become known as one of the go-to experts on Twitter, Facebook, and social media for writers wanting to learn how to plug in. Her bestselling eBook on this subject, has recently been updated and expanded and re-released as Connections:Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers.

Fighting Fear, Winning theWar at Home When Your Soldier Leaves for Battle, is Edie’s heart project. This devotional book for those with family members in the military debuted on Veterans Day, 2011. Look for her two newest books for military families debuting in January 2014: While My Son Serves and While My Husband Serves.

She’s a member of numerous civic and professional organizations, including Blue Star Mothers, the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, The Christian Pen, and American Christian Fiction Writers. She’s also the Social Media Mentor for My Book Therapy, the Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine, and the Senior Editor for NovelRocket.com.

Edie has been married to high school sweetheart, Kirk, for 30+ years and they’ve raised three sons. You can also connect with Edie on Twitter and Facebook.

I think you get the picture, and now it’s your turn. What questions do you have about a writer’s bio? Share them in the comments section below.

 Her bestselling ebook on social media has just been updated and re-released as Connections: Social Media & Networking Techniques for Writers. She’s the Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy and the social media director for Southern Writers Magazine. She’s also the Senior Editor at Novel Rocket. You can connect with Edie through Twitter and Facebook.

What's Up the Street Next Week?

http://sell-photo.com/artworks/new-year/free-happy-new-year-2014-clipart.html

HAPPY FIRST SUNDAY of 2014!!! How did you celebrate bringing in the New Year?
As we look ahead to the grand and glorious future, can you guys share one writing goal you met in 2013? Just one!

For the Writers?
Was it going to your first Writer's Conference?
Finishing your third novel?
Finding a Critique Partner?
Introducing Yourself as a Writer for the first time?

For the Readers?
Was it reviewing for the first time?
Reading a different and new genre?
Starting a blog?

Well, we're starting off 2014 with a WINNER!!

Joanne Sher is the winner for the $10 amazon gift card from our New Year's Eve party at the Alley!! Congrats Joanne. 

A few things happening at the Alley this week?

Pepper's chatting about Saving Mr. Banks and Writing from Real-Life on Monday. Leave a comment for your chance to win Writer's Digest's Dialogue book by Gloria Kempton.

Edie Melson visits the Alley on Wednesday to talk about The Importance of Writing an Author's Bio

and Friday Casey's chatting about Under the POV Microscope.

Tuesday and Thursday will be surprises- so make sure to tune in with us to see what Sherrinda and Krista have in store for you!

Have a wonderful week!

Social Media Tuesday - The Write Conversation with Edie Melson

10 Ways You May Be Wrecking Your Social Media Presence

For writers today, an online presence can mean the difference between success and failure. But if we’re not doing it right, we may be our own worst enemy. Today I want to share 10 ways you may be wrecking your social media presence.

You have an inconsistent social media presence—I’m not talking about taking weekends off, but on spending consistent time building your online presence. This includes showing up on Twitter and Facebook with reasonable regularity, and keeping a regular schedule for your blog posts.

You over-promote—The promotion I’m talking about is SELF promotion. Use Edie’s 5 to 1 rule—for every 5 social media updates, you’re allowed one additional update about yourself.

Your website doesn’t have social share buttons—I don’t know how much time I’ve spent on your sites looking for your twitter handle or trying to follow you on Facebook. Most people won’t spend more than three seconds. That’s not long.

You engage in Hashtag overload—Hashtags are great, and using them CORRECTLY can net you a lot of new followers. But correctly means no more than two per update. When you up your ante to three, the results begin to drop off.

You use auto-responders—Is there anyone out there who likes to talk to computers? Not me. Beyond that, we’re a pretty savvy group. We can tell an auto-respond message from a real one.

You’re obsessed with the numbers—Social Media growth takes time. Shortcuts bring more trouble than help. As long as you’re seeing growth, you’re doing well.

You don’t utilize a scheduling program—Personally I prefer Hootsuite. It keeps me visible online without having to spend hours a day tied to the Internet.

You try out every new platform that appears—No one can do everything well. Focus your energy on Facebook and Twitter. With these two platforms you’ll hit almost 100% of your audience. After that, no more than one or two more. Focus, focus, focus.

You’re guilty of hogging the stream—This means you post three or more updates in a row. You’ll find that behavior will encourage people to unfollow and unfriend you in droves. Spread out your updates and keep your connections happy.

You send out game invitations—This is a personal one for me. I used to get so many game requests I finally made it a hard and fast rule that I do NOT play games on Facebook. I’ll give anyone a pass for the first invitation you send, but after that, I will immediately unfollow anyone who sends me another one.

Now it’s your turn, what turns you off when it comes to social media? Is there something that leads you to immediately sever a connection? Share, so we can all see things from a different perspective.

Blessings,

Edie

Why Numbers + Words = Publication

Imagine two men dressed in nice suits standing in the middle of a crowded room, we'll call them Bill and Jerry from Event Planners Inc. Working as a team, Bill and Jerry planned this well attended event and wisely understood each person in attendance could be a potential future client.  

Bill was the shy, silent type. He forced a few smiles and managed to gain eye contact with a few people. He'd known his weakness as a shy person for a long time and really preferred Jerry to handle the hobnobbing. Eventually he constructed the perfect excuse to escape the room and hid in a quiet place, content the big turnout demonstrated good work.

Jerry wouldn't classify himself as a social extrovert. Small talk tripped his speech many times and he forced himself to smile for photos despite an overbite. The numbers for Event Planners proved the importance of making a strong appearance. He prayed before each event, boxed up his introvert and set it on the shelf for later, and walked through the crowd as if he had the best news ever to share. He shook hands, stumbled through conversations, and laughed with those around him.

Bill and Jerry are like many writers. Their favorite moments come when they hide in their office and plow through the work. Jerry has learned, though, it is the meeting with the people who are potential clients that stirs business.

Good business product + meeting with potential clients = increased sales.

Lets apply this to writing.

Bill The Writer loved to hide in his study and write. He was willing to socialize with the family or church friends, but mostly preferred the comforting seclusion of his office. His editor reminded him to promote his book after the last low sales figures came in. Bill had more important tasks to be done. If he spent his time on promotion, who would write his books? Bill ignored his editor's request, assuming the publisher would pick up the slack, and set new records completing his next book. He polished the best proposal he'd ever written and sent the package off to his agent. One year later his agent emailed. 'I'm sorry. There isn't a house willing to take this book. Truly it's your best. Your last editor refused to even look at it. Did you work on the marketing as they asked?"

Jerry The Writer, was as allergic to being an extrovert as the next writer. When his editor raved about his recent release and recommended new ways to market, Jerry took a deep breath--scared to try the new ways. He spent each morning in prayer asking God to give him the strength to follow through with marketing. 

At first, he forced himself to spend one hour a day setting up marketing strategies. Jerry set up a Twitter account and learned how to use hash tags to find his audience. He scheduled one week's worth of tweets, one per day, using Hootsuite. He then used the remaining hour to build his audience with retweets, mentioning others, and sending direct messages. He set a timer to insure he didn't go over the hour. The rest of his work day he spent writing.

Two weeks later his confidence helped him to add a face book personal page and an author page. It took a little longer to set these up since he wanted to maintain the twitter project  and not exceed the one hour. Jerry tweeted his new page to followers on twitter and watched the number of likes grow.

Knowing there were many other avenues of marketing, Jerry devoted some of his marketing time to reading new marketing strategies posted by Amanda Luedeke from Chip McGregor Literary Agency every Thursday and Edie Melson's blog on marketing trends, how to and not to. His market ideas grew. 

Not wanting to tip the balance scale, Jerry made a schedule for the week. Sometimes his work (crit groups) happened at night, sometimes in the day. He set realistic goals for writing each week and forced himself to meet the goal. He budgeted time to spend with his daughter and date nights with his wife. The Superbowl, fishing, and vacations were naturally written in ink as well. Of course, the first block of each day remained reserved for God.

One day Jerry's editor emailed him. His book sales had increased proportionately for a new author. He asked when Jerry would have his next book finished.
**

The inspiration for this post came from attending Amanda Luedeke's marketing class at ACFW this last year and from subscribing to Edie Melson's blog and Chip McGregor Literary Agency blog. 

Amanda Luedeke wrote "You can do it" many times in her new book: The Extrovert Writer. Although marketing is a Goliath project, we can turn it into doable steps and succeed like Jerry the Writer. 

Edie Melson's guidance is tailored for every level of experience. I have successfully followed steps given on her site many, many times. It sure feels good. :)

A caring word for you: 
1. You can market your book.
2. Marketing increases sales.
3. BUT your book needs to be well written.
4. Do not rob your family of essential time with them. Do not let them rob you of God's call to write. Balance.
5. Do not let social networking vaporize minutes from your day. Set a timer. Be rigid.
6. Stay healthy. We need professional photos that show we take care of ourselves.

Let's share ideas to help each other-
Do you have a marketing question or idea? Amanda Luedeke and Edie Melson will be stopping by today to answer your questions.
What social media to you prefer for promoting your work?
What source do you learn marketing skills from?


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photo by freedigitalphotos.net

This blog post is by Mary Vee

Mary has moved to Michigan with her husband, closer to her three college kids. She misses the mountains of Montana, but loves seeing family more often. She writes contemporary and romance Christian fiction and loves to pen missionary and Bible adventure stories on her ministry blog, God Loves Kids.

Visit Mary at her website and her ministry blog to families: God Loves Kids. Or chat on Facebook or Twitter

Social Media Etiquette by Edie Melson

The social media universe has developed into a world with it’s own ways of interacting, and its own rules of social media etiquette. Stumbling around this brave new world is exciting, but it can also lead to some embarrassing moments. Today I’ll share some tips to help you acclimate to this new online society.

Facebook

When to LIKE , COMMENT or SHARE on Facebook: When you read a post on Facebook you have three options if you want to interact. 

The First is to LIKE the post. When you click on LIKE, Facebook will register your user name and the fact you liked it. This carries more weight with the Facebook EdgeRank Algorithm than just viewing the post, but not as much as commenting.

The second option is to COMMENT. This carries the most weight with Facebook and will give you the most engagement with others seeing the post. BUT, and this is an important consideration, it will also include you in all subsequent conversations. This means that if you get email notifications on Facebook, every time someone else comments on this post, you’ll get an email about it. If it’s a popular post, that can mean twenty or more emails in your inbox. So think carefully before you comment.

NOTE: You can opt out of a conversation (what Facebook calls post interaction). But if you choose to do that, everyone in the conversation will be notified that you opted out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s always good to know.

The final option is to SHARE a post on Facebook. This takes a copy of the post and pastes it on your page. When Facebook pastes the post, it gives you the option of deleting the name of the person you got the post from. Doing so is bad form. Not quite as bad as plagiarism, but it is in the neighborhood.

·       So LIKE a post, when you want to let people know you agree or enjoyed it.

·       COMMENT if you don’t mind becoming part of the ongoing conversation.

·       SHARE a post, always giving credit to the original poster. 

When to Hide a post, Hide a person, or just UNFRIEND them: 

HIDING a post will make that particular update disappear from your timeline.

Hiding a person can keep that person’s updates from showing up on your timeline. This is a good option if you don’t want to offend someone.

NOTE: To do either of these, click on the gray arrow on the upper right of the specific post

UNFRIENDING someone basically says you don’t want to have any interaction with that person. Depending on how many friends you have, this may be noticeable, especially if you interact regularly at work or socially. 

NOTE: To do this, you’ll need to visit their FB page, hover over the FRIEND button and choose UNFRIEND from the drop-down menu that appears

·       So HIDE someone who’s annoying.

·       UNFRIEND someone you don’t mind alienating. 

http://www.libertynews.com/2013/07/ifieverseezimmerman-trends-on-twitter-as-violence-spews-into-the-streets/

Twitter

When to RETWEET and when to REPLY: There are two ways to answer someone on Twitter, RETWEET and REPLY. And there are specific times to use each one.

A RETWEET, is a repeat of the tweet sent. This is used when you want to share a tweet with your followers. For instance, if I saw a tweet about how to avoid getting embarrassed on Twitter, I’d retweet it to my followers so they could learn too. I also use it to share good news about others.

A REPLY, is an answer to a tweet that’s been sent. This is used if someone asks you a question on Twitter. It’s also used when someone else mentions you on Twitter. It’s a way of saying thank you. It’s considered a very bad instance of bragging to retweet a mention of yourself. For instance if someone tweeted about this post, I’d REPLY and say thank you.

·       So RETWEET if you see an update you want to pass on to your followers.

·       REPLY when someone mentions you or asks a question.

Social Media in General

When is it acceptable to HOG THE STREAM? The short answer is …NEVER! Hogging or Spamming the stream, means posting several social media updates in a row. This can be on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. You can do this inadvertently by engaging the AUTOMATIC updates available on some ancillary programs like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, or Buffer.

This option of automatic updates claims to identify when the largest amount of your followers are engaging on social media and update at that time. Unfortunately this can often result in multiple updates sent one right after another. This can leave you labeled as an irritation or even banned from certain networks. I recommend you avoid any automatic scheduling options to avoid this.

So schedule the times when you send out your social media updates and don’t post them one after another. Spread them out.

·       First, so you don’t irritate anyone by Hogging the Stream.

·       Second, so you reach people who are on at different times of the day. 

These are just a few of the worst blunders for social media. I’d like to know what social media faux pas you’ve seen and which ones irritate you the most.

Bio: Edie Melson is the author of four books, with two more due out January 2013. Her popular blog, The Write Conversation, reaches thousands of writers each month, and she’s the co-director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. Her bestselling ebook on social media has just been updated and re-released as Connections: Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers. She’s the Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy and the social media director for Southern Writers Magazine. She’s also the Senior Editor at Novel Rocket. You can connect with Edie through Twitter and Facebook.