How can you take something as personal as writing and shout out to the world "Read what I think - I think you will like it!"?
I presently write for seven publications. One of them is an on-line blog format within a publication, and I get remunerated according to how many 'hits' that I have. I have been writing for them for over a year now and I haven't developed a strong readership, so I have promoted that writing on my Facebook page.
This may work just a little bit better if I had more than thirty Facebook friends. Perhaps it would work just a tiny bit better if I out and out flaunted myself and asked people to please 'Like' and 'Share' and promote my work.
But that is not the way that I roll.
What I have discovered is that I can 'link up' someone that I have written about when I make my Facebook status post. How that works from the other end, I have no idea. But I thought that it was a quiet, unobtrusive way to spread my writing around. So I tried it.
When I step out of my own quiet little world and try something new, it seems that newer and fresher words roll off of my fingertips. So when I saw Cher the other night I had a fresh batch of insight and stories to share. And I wrote a little bit about that and shared my piece on Cher, with 'the world'.
I was just puttering my way through the morning when I thought that I would have a look at how my article looked and reread it.
Something new and different on the side of my blog caught my eye. It was an 'in your face' look at how many 'Likes' and 'Tweets' that my article had. I was 'Tweeted' seven times. Seven!
'My' editor and I have corresponded back and forth a handful of times about ways to increase my readers. One of things that he noticed was that one of my articles was 'tweeted' several (three) times and it generated the most hits. I wasn't quite sure how to recreate that interest but he planted a seed. I must find ways to create interest ...
I have followed the lead that my leader-in-writing gave me and came up with the idea of 'linking' up with those that I write about.
Not only did I get retweeted, some (two) of these people wrote nice little comments that made my morning.
I dipped my toes into the public arena and seven people took the time to read what I wrote and pass it along! And two of those people even commented!
The scariest part of all, is that this also puts me in the vulnerable position of having people with opposing views to put down my work in a very public fashion. I suppose that is also something that could generate a lot of readers but it is not the way that I would knowingly choose to go.
I suppose that I should check into this 'Twitter' thing and see if I can make it work for me. I do not relish the idea of developing any more on-line addictions so I have shied away from the idea.
In the meantime, I shall bask in the glory of my moment of fame on Twitter. Seven times! Yes. I have been Tweeted (and I think I like it!).
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