Tools to manage your author platform/social media?

[Nikky Lee]

Hi guys,

I'm doing a bit of research for a blog about handy tools for writers to use to manage their author platform/channels.

If you have author website, social media channels etc, do you use tools to help manage them? (e.g. I use Hootsuite to schedule posts on social media, particularly for Twitter contests do I don't have to stay awake all night!).

Here are a few I've used and/or know of:

Website builders/Content Management Systems
1. WordPress
2. Wix
3. Squarespace
4. Blogger

Social media tools
1. Hootsuite
2. Buffer

If you do use any of the above (or something I haven't listed here), what are their pros and cons? Would you recommend it to others?

I'm particularly keen to hear from anyone who has tools for Instagram or Youtube as I don't do much on these channels, so I don't know what's a) available b) actually useful to authors.

Thoughts?

 

[CageSage]

I'd be interested to see the outcomes of the research.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

To publicise my Cornish Detective series, I'm trying to summon up the enthusiasm to activate the bare-bones accounts I started on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Goodreads and Amazon KDP's Author Central three years ago. I've done more on Pinterest and started a Facebook Business Page based on my writing blog Paul Pens, composed of threads I started on the Colony. I'll be adding a Business Page based on my Cornish Detective website.

All this is a full-time job. Who knows what will work? It's repetitive unless you create fresh content each time.

I know that this site runs on WordPress and several members have WP blogs, as do I, but my experiences last year were so horrendous that they merited their own thread:
https://colony.litopia.com/threads/the-help-paul-with-wordpress-thread.6139/#post-73452

In 22 years of using computers, I've never come across a site that's so needlessly complicated. Considering that it's aimed at normal people who want to have a blog the level of expertise in IT needed is absurd. Every time I visit my blog and website I feel the hackles on my back raise. I'm seriously considering moving everything over to Blogger, which is simpler and less treacherous. When WP is working it looks and operates fine, but try Googling "Wordpress Locked Out" to get an idea of what happens when it goes wrong.

Increasingly, I'm of the opinion that having an online author platform is of limited use to attract readers to your books. Certainly, they'll check you out, as we all do when we find an author we like; it's become an inalienable right that we can pry into the lives of others. I think an author's platform is more to impress literary agents and publishers who are considering you as a client—can you publicise yourself, saving them work!

 

[Eva Ulian]

I'd also be interested in what others use. I have used Buffer but for it to work properly you need to be a paying member, so I thought what I got out of it, I wouldn't miss all that much.

I don't need it for Twitter because they have a facility to program your tweets whenever you want and is very easy to use.

I have blogs and websites on Blogger, Google, Tumbler, about.me and Webs.com. I also use facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram, though I've never uploaded anything on the latter- that was one of my new year resolutions, to get Instagram going. So I'll be looking to see views and news on that one.

PS Like Instagram, I've done nothing on Goodreads, a bit better on Amazon. At least I have my book there.

pps I've just realized, I've not really answered your question @Nmlee about the pros and cons... will do so asap.

 

[Eva Ulian]

I think an author's platform is more to impress literary agents and publishers who are considering you as a client

I never thought of it that way, though I agree that is the case.

I'm just a natural show-off kind of person and addicted to communicating with others in a way that I can just switch them on and off when I want- which is not the case in real life.

That power of switching people on and off gives me an incomparable freedom that I find it inebriating.