On a terribly slow Wednesday I’ve been experimenting with #writerslifts on Twitter and now I’m starting to wonder if this particular lift was actually going to reach my writing floor..
What’s a #writerslift on Twitter then?
Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here’s 3k worth to be a much better job than I ever will in presenting today’s topic. Coincidentally they’re all #writerslifts that I was a part of too.
And while I’d seen them floating around Twitter (you can’t miss them if you follow more than a handful of fellow writers) I’ve never really jumped onboard too many of them until yesterday where I had a couple of brilliant ideas to try and work with.
IDEA #1
Update the books I’ve written page so that there’s blurbs, pics and links to everything. I fine tuned it with Search Engine Optimization tactics (the very few I know) and created a one stop info shop for a decent chunk of my written work. And I put them all in the one place so I could move to the next part of the plan, namely:
IDEA #2
Promote one book? Well I could, but why not use one link to my page on this site to direct potential readers to many of my books instead? I mean there’s nothing like being spoilt for choice is there? Not only that, but with the ads on that page means that I could still make a few cents in the process, even if nobody bought anything. A win win really.
Plus using stats tracking on this blog, I could see how effective #writerslifts were for me through the numbers that my posting attracted to here – tens, hundreds or thousands? Let’s find out!
And so I found five separate Twitter users doing a #writerslift and jumped on board. I liked their tweet, retweeted it to my own profile and added my page link. Then I sat back (well actually went off to play Xbox with the kids) while waiting for the results to slowly filter in.
Almost a day later and I may have to call in an elevator repairman..
Now obviously these results are my own experience and possibly not indicative of #writerslifts for every author, but a day on from me and my five different versions of ‘Hey, check out what I wrote!’
My results were:
138 COMBINED VIEWS ACROSS ALL 5 TWEETS – Or 27.6 average if you want to break it down. Which is a bee’s bit higher than anything else I usually tweet on the platform so that’s a win.
9 LIKES
5 RETWEETS – Thanks retweeters!
13 NEW FOLLOWERS – Some were authors in the same #writerslift, others were authors I followed from who who agreed to follow them back. One was a sexbot there to promote some dodgy website, which I seem to be averaging at least once a week (the sexbot follower, not the dodgy website that is.)
But the most important and telling stat here:
0 CLICKS
Ouch. A potential combined audience of thousands here to work with, a tiny bit of growth for my own profile which is nice but ultimately while people liked and retweeted, that’s as far as anyone went. Nobody ventured further than a glancing look before moving on, the stat counter went hungry, I had to stop dreaming of which Lexus I was going to buy with the results momentarily.
Now before you say ‘But hey, this was only a day!’ – if you’ve ever spent more than five minutes on Twitter, you know how quickly things move and get buried as tweet feeds get updated. Will these tweets still be seen later in the week? Of course, there’s always a few late to the party. Will the stat numbers jump up dramatically? I doubt it. More importantly, will clicks appear on my book page?
Well it’s not looking good at the moment from this little experiment.. (I will of course update this page if that situation changes.)
#writerslifts – From what I’m experiencing from trying them out so far is that you’ll meet a few more people writing away like you are…but that seems to be about it. So nice for networking but for sales results, you may have to try something else.
But as I stressed earlier, this is just my findings. You may just be an author who finds #writerslifts the greatest hashtag known to man and benefit every time one pops up. And if that’s the case, please share that with a comment below because I’d love to pick your brain to see how you approach them.
Meanwhile..
In an interesting comparison to what was happening on Twitter, I also whipped up something quick and easy to promote one of my books on Tik Tok, running it across the same afternoon.
It took me all of 15 minutes to put together and in less than 24 hours it’s had:
9 likes
693 views
0 Sales though. Still, it’s exceeding Twitter’s reach and I didn’t have to jump on the back of someone else’s post/tweet/update for it to be seen. Some food for thought if you’re in the same boat as I am currently looking for ways to get your work out there.
Edit: Okay, one last experiment then..
Maybe I should try my own #writerslift then? I mean what have I got to lose? Results posted soon!
THREE DAYS LATER
Nothing. Two likes but not a single link other than my own. No shares, no retweets, no one jumped on board, it died a lonely death. Wowee, how incredibly unimpressive.
Hmm, maybe #writerlifts aren’t for me then?