Facebook

Facebook Masterclass.

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Conversations with characters meme by Lizzie Chantree.png

Hello everyone. I went on a Facebook Masterclass last week and as soon as I got home I deleted my personal profile and my business account and started again! I now have a page that’s a few days old and barely finds an audience, but I’m working on it again. The page is Lizzie Chantree Author if any of you want to pop by. My other page had over a thousand likes and follows, but it’s much easier just having one business page linked to one profile page.

You can only have one profile on Facebook, so you can’t have one for your close friends and one for your business that has friends on it. You can however have several business pages linked to one profile. With your business profile, although it’s great to get ‘likes’ and ‘follows’, the best way to widen your audience is from comments. Facebook like interaction and are focussing on meaningful posts and mental health. This means that ads or links are not as valued as chat and will not reach as many people’s FB pages.

Another thing I didn’t realise was that you can still be followed on Fb if you don’t approve a friend request. Check where it says INTRO. Under that it will say how many people who  are following your profile anyway.

I’ll be posting more tips in my FB book group Lizzie’s Book Group and here on my blog in the coming weeks.

I finally completed my latest manuscript and am on my second set of my own edits before it wings its way to my editor. It’s such an exciting feeling to hold a finished book in my hands. I can’t wait to start on my next one too! Have an amazing week everyone.

 

Sharing is caring.

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Lizzie Chantree blog

 

Hello everyone. I hope you had an amazing weekend. Today’s Monday Marketing is about how shareable your blog posts are. I find it really frustrating when I find a great blog to read and want to share it with my 60.4k real twitter followers. I love tweeting about topics that interest me and hope my Twitter followers enjoy them to. I read a lot of articles and often add them to my social media timelines. If there is no way to share an article, I leave it and sometimes don’t return to that site.

Tip 1.

Add social media sharing buttons to each article. Most websites and blogs have plugins you can add to easily share to Twitter Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more. It might be worth taking the time to call to whoever is hosting you site to ask how to add these buttons, but with WordPress, you simply click the plugin tab, find the ones for social sharing and then click install. They then appear at the end of every post you add to your site.

Tip 2.

Visuals. Always add visuals or photographs to your blog posts, Tweets and Facebook pages. Tweet images get on average 150% more RT’s than tweets without an image and on Facebook, posts with photos or images get approx. 87% more interaction. The images often catch the eye and engage the reader of the tweet or post.

Tip 3.

It’s often a good idea to add your Twitter timeline and Facebook details to your blog page or website at the side of the front page. This updates as often as you send out a new post, so your site has fresh content and it encourages readers to visit your other social media sites. You can do this by adding a widget to the sidebar on your blog post. Once again, a quick telephone call to your site provider will be the quickest way to understand how to do this. Most blogs and websites have a social sharing section in the plugins or widget sidebar in the menu, where you just have to say where you want it to go on your site and then click install.

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Don’t forget to join me for #CreativeBizHour on Twitter tonight @Lizzie_Chantree for an hour of creative chat and networking. Just add the hashtag to tweets and replies to chat to join in.

Do mentors matter?

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I have been lucky enough to have had many mentors in my life and I think they are so important when you are discovering a new field of interest. When I was inventing my first product, Runaway Spray, which is a ‘ladder’ or ‘run’ stop spray for hosiery, I had great support from business mentors from The Prince’s Trust When I wrote my first book, I discovered an international book club full of writers (RRBC) and they have been amazing in helping me to find my way in my new career, as have my fellow authors at my new publishers. I  provide mentoring myself through my networking hour on Twitter (#CreativeBizHour) and have been able to support people with new creative ideas through being a judge for Shell LiveWire’s Grand Ideas Award, and having a Facebook group where I share creative ideas with fellow artists/designers/ businesses/writers (Lizzie’s Book Group)

If you are starting a new career, or looking to push forward with your current job or hobby, then you might be surprised to find out how many people and organisations there are out there to offer unbiased help and support. Facebook and Twitter are full of networking hours and groups, you just have to search for them in the search bar and then join. With these groups, it’s good to join in and support others too. It’s about teamwork. When you have found a mentor and learnt what you need to, perhaps you can in turn become a mentor for someone else and help them on their own journey?

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In your opinion, do mentors matter and has one helped you in your life? It will be exciting to hear if anyone else has been nurtured and helped to blossom into the person they have always wanted to be.

Monday Marketing. 3 quick tips.

/ lizziechantree / 4 Comments

Happy new week everyone. Its been a hectic couple of weeks here, with a paperback and ebook launch, but it has been very exciting too. We all lead such busy lives, so how do we keep up with current social media trends and changes and not miss anything that might have an effect on our writing or business? There are places to go to find out about any major changes.

girl with books meme by Lizzie Chantree

  1. Facebook Newsroom: Facebook Newsroom  This page will give you details on how to control your newsfeed, platform updates, ad transparencies, Facebook community news and much more.
  2. Twitter’s Blog: Twitter’s Blog This page will tell you what if happening with your follower count, give tips and share latest news. Some people will see their Twitter follower count changing due to Twitter’s current policy on removing locked or inactive accounts.
  3. Instagram’s news page: Instagram Business News This page will tell you of trending topics, latest businesses that are popular and styles to follow.

Monday marketing. 3 quick tips.

/ lizziechantree / 9 Comments

Happy new week everyone. Here are 3 quick tips about scheduling social media posts or tidying up your Twitter feeds. Marketing can eat into your day, so I am sharing some great tools to help you schedule in some of the posts to save time. I don’t agree with all posts being scheduled, as the idea of social media, is to be social! Interaction is the main way to keep and grow your Twitter/ Facebook accounts etc.

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  1. SocialOomph: This a is a scheduling app. It has free and paid options. You can run a free trial to see if it is the app for you. You can schedule tweets, Facebook posts and blog posts, add images and links.
  2. Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a bit clunky for me, but it is a great place to start when you are looking for content to retweet on Twitter or you have your own information to schedule. Because this app updates so often with new news items, it can be slow. The upside is that there is a wealth of information to choose from and it is very easy to use.
  3. Manageflitter: This is a good app for unfollowing anyone who doesn’t follow you back. There have been recent changes, so unless you pay for the basic service, you can only have about 30 unfollows a day. For their basic package, you can unfollow as many as you like.

 

Pinterest for writers.

/ lizziechantree / 14 Comments

 

Lizzie Chantree biz quotes 1

I’ve just read an article that was so interesting that I read it twice! It was about an author who used Pinterest for marketing his books. I had never thought about Pinterest other than a fun way to connect with people who enjoy design ideas, like I do. I am now beginning to see things a bit differently.

The article stated that Twitter posts have a 24 minute viewing time lifespan, Facebook posts 90 minutes and Pinterest post, 3.5 months! This is because people often go back to their favourite pins and re-pin them, share them, or just admire them and show them to friends. The most viewed pins have some sort of useful message or meme on them. Women make up 80% of users on Pinterest. On average pins are re-pinned 11 times.

Some tips for a great pin.

  1. Design your pin to be tall and thin like a bookmark. This takes up less Pinterest real estate on each page and makes it more likely to be repined. Size 300 x 800 px.
  2. Give tips or pointers. People love to read short tips, like this list!
  3. Give the edges colour, so that they stand out.
  4. Add links to your pins, so that when they are shared so is your URL.
  5. Add descriptions to your pins. Don’t leave those spaces blank. Use the opportunity to tell people about yourself or your product.

 

Get writing!

/ lizziechantree / 10 Comments

Happy new week everyone. Today’s post is about motivation. What motivates you to get up in the morning and then sit at your desk and create your products, or write your books or blog posts? For me it is the feeling of accomplishment when I see a finished manuscript. At present, I am only about 5,000 words into my latest novel, which is the sequel to Ninja School Mum. It’s hard to stay motivated when you still have 75,000 words to write, but the thought of holding that book in my hands when it’s ready, is worth the time it takes to write it.

Lizzie Chantree book quote 7

After a lengthy and exciting book launch for Ninja School Mum, it has taken me a while to re-energise and get back to my routine of 1,000 words a day if I can, as a minimum. This week, to motivate myself, I have written a ten point list of goals for the week and scheduled writing time into each day. This might sound silly, but writing time is very easily overlooked when the washing needs doing, the school run organising, the dinner prepared and the housework and shopping completed. Actually writing a weekly plan for when I will sit down at my desk without interruption, gives my week structure and makes me push other tasks aside for after my writing time.

I have been known to write 5,000 words in a day, or as few as 50, so I will let you know how my plan works. The main point here, is to stop procrastinating and to get writing!

You can’t edit a blank page.

My 10 point goals for the week: Schedule time for each point.

  1. Write 1,000 words a day of my latest manuscript.
  2. Write a blog post for Monday.
  3. Post in my Facebook group, Lizzie’s Book Group.
  4. Visit 4 other blogs to support them.
  5. Write the questions for my networking hour #CreativeBizHour on Twitter.
  6. Post to my author Facebook page.
  7. Post to my author Instagram page.
  8. Write guest posts for other blogs.
  9. Update Twitter feeds daily.
  10. Cover design for my latest book, out in July.