Promoting Your Work on Social Media

Social media can be a real asset in attracting potential readers. While using it is now second nature to many, this section outlines some simple ways you can use it to promote your work.

Maximise Your Writer Homepage

Your Writer Homepage is a hub for all your activity on CUT. It is where readers can find links to your published work on the site, and also features a short biographical section where you can say a little about yourself. Populating this page with engaging content and writer posts also makes people more likely to visit it. Your homepage can also be found on search engine result pages when people search for your name, which can help build your online profile as a writer. If you have multiple websites and/or social media profiles in your name, you can begin to ‘own’ the first result page on a search engine like Google. Having positive search results ‘on-view’ when people search for your name is a great way to raise your profile and that of your work.

Promote Your Writer Homepage

One of the simplest ways to promote your Writer Homepage, and the work contained therein, is by sharing it on social media. There are links to major social media platforms on your Writer Homepage, allowing you to share it and your work on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Share Your Work on Social Media

When you share a link to one of your stories or to your Writer Homepage on social media, you can mention CUT, which will let us know about your post. This will then allow us to re-share your link, amplifying its reach and helping promote your post/work/profile further. Your profile will be potentially visible to a multitude of people. In order to mention CUT in your posts you need to create a tag to www.cutalongstory.com:

• On Facebook, you’ll be able to tag us by writing @cutalongstory in your post. If you ‘like’ our page, on Facebook it will make it easier for you to find us.
• On Twitter, the process is much the same. Simply type @cutalongstory within your tweet and we’ll be notified that you’ve mentioned us. We will then re-tweet your tweet.

We also suggest you consider ‘liking’ or following CUT on these social networks.

Post Regularly

We recommend sharing or posting on social media on a regular basis. Relatively frequent posts can help you can build a following which will become more receptive to your posts when you promote your newly published work. However, try to avoid only posting about your writer homepage and work. Consider who makes up your audience and try to tailor your posts to things you think will engage and interest them.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are words that are prefixed with a #, for example #shortstory. These hashtags are searchable within Twitter and Facebook. This means that you can click on a hashtag within a post and be taken to a page where you can see other people’s posts also including that hashtag. It’s a way of connecting with people who have similar interests and increases your chances that your post will be seen among all the other posts on social media.

Include relevant hashtags in your posts, such as: #ebook, #shortstory, #writer,  and #read.

Mention Other Users on Twitter

Follow writer organisations and reading groups on Twitter. You can then @ mention these users in your tweets. This will help to create awareness of your work and profile.

This will also make other users are more likely to re-tweet your tweet, letting their followers see it, thus extending its reach.

Create a Facebook Page

Consider creating a “public figure” page. This is different from a personal Facebook profile. Generally, the posts are public and rather than adding people as friends, people can ‘like’ your page, which will enable them to see your posts in their timeline. If you are signed into Facebook, you can create a Facebook page here.

Once you have created a Facebook Page, you may consider paid promotion. You could pay to advertise your Writer Homepage, Facebook page, e-book, etc. on Facebook. You can find out more by checking out their advertising information page for businesses.

Link to Other Websites

If you have your own website, or if you are featured on any other websites, it’s a good idea to provide examples of, and links to, your CUT e-books on these platforms. You can also include links to these other sites within your CUT writer profile, squaring the circle as it were. If you do make changes to your CUT Writer Homepage, you will receive an email from us to confirm that your change has been received.

Record a Video Reading

Videos are a great way of building your online presence. We are building the CUT YouTube channel by adding videos of writers reading extracts from their work and linking to them from their Writer Homepages. It's relatively straightforward to make one yourself and submit it to us. Please, check our guidance notes for further information and advice. 

Use Your Own Personal Network

This is a frequently overlooked resource. Tell your friends, family, colleagues and extended social circle about your work. All too often, such people are keen to support creative endeavours by people they know. If they enjoy it, encourage them to tell others.