Today’s post is a short-but-passionate plea to a whole bunch of bloggers out there: install some form of social media sharing on your blog. If you’re not sure what I mean, go to your blog and see if you have something like this at the base of your posts:
It may not be an exact match for this, but there should be something like it. A way of linking the post you’ve just made, quickly and easily, to places like facebook, twitter, and other forms of social media. If you have it, go upon your way, my friend, for you and I have nothing further to speak of.
If you don’t have it, keep reading.
Personally, I don’t care what form of link salad you use. My particular preference runs towards Share This ’cause it’s what I know, but most platforms will have a bevvy of options and WordPress, at least, offers the function to anyone whose installed Jetpack (and, if you’re using wordpress, odds are you have). Hit Google for ten minutes and you’ll probably find some options that are workable with your Content Management System of choice.
So here’s what I want you to do. Pick one. Install it. Hit Google again to figure out how, if you aren’t particularly technologically savvy, or ask one a friend who speaks fluent blogger. Hell, if you’re really desperate, give me a link to your site in the comments and I’ll try and find a decent how-to for you. Just make the attempt and get something there.
The internet is rapidly evolving. The age when people actually visited websites to engage with content is over, and even the period where we pushed content out towards the reader is pretty much done. RSS is dying. Google Reader is officially dead. We find new content via social media, and you want to make sharing your shit as easy as goddamn possible in order to facilitate that.
I can think of at least three websites I’d share the content from twice as often if only they implemented some form of social media linking. They’re consistently interesting, but my day-job involves curating up to a hundred social media links per week. The seconds I can save by clicking a twitter or facebook icon at the bottom of the post do actually matter in this instance.
That link-salad down the bottom of a post isn’t just there for decoration. Ignoring it when trying to build an online presence is kinda like telling yourself you can be a carpenter without learning to use a hammer.
I’ve ended up taking a short, unscheduled break from writing newsletters over the last fourteen days. Regular GenrePunk Ninja transmissions will resume
Like many of you, I have good weeks and bad weeks on the writing front. This week has been rocky, and if
Welcome to GenrePunk Ninja supplemental, where I occasionally post foundational essays written before I launched the GenrePunk Ninja newsletter, especially if they’re
7 Responses
I hasten to obey
This is why you are awesome.
Note to self: must buy a 13 ducks t-shirt when I get paid tomorrow.
🙂
Hahaha, no. I am not a content provider. I am a writer of stories. Do not consume my random wafflings. Consume my published works. For this purpose I urge you to become my fan on Goodreads. OH, excellent. You already are 😀
And I would urge you to publish in magazines that make it easy to link to stories they've released onto the internet, but that's a whole other rant 🙂
Here is my reply to your rant before you even type it. If all you care about is shareability, post your fiction on Facebook. If you care about standing in the company of giants and being found by readers who love the same things that you love, editorial vision is more important 🙂
It's not the sole thing to care about (personally, my major concern is getting paid), but it's a consideration. Magazines may build a solid following, but quick-and-easy shareability can be the difference between your story stopping at that core readership and being passed around to their friends and friends-of-friends.
Fortunately, this tends not to be a huge problem in SF. I just did a quick tour of my favourite online markets – Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Apex, Daily SF, Tor, and Lightspeed – and they've all got the link salad instituted at the base of the story. Anything I read there that I truly love, it's a matter of seconds to share with people in whatever format I'm looking for.
It's SF writers that are making me gnash my teeth at this point, and a truly astonishing number of otherwise forward-thinking literary markets and festivals.