Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 5: Tumblr and Reddit (The Dark Side?)

Four weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting on the internet. Three weeks ago, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting a blog. Two weeks ago, I discussed Facebook, Twitter, and hashtags. Last week was all about the visual social medias, Pinterest and Instagram.

Today? I’ll be discussing DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET: Tumblr and Reddit

Or are they?

Tumblr and Reddit are given a lot of grief about being breeding grounds for social justice mobs, trolls, and dank memes (in which dank means something between dark, cynical, and cool).

For older web denizens: they’re where the teens are, and honestly? Where 90% of the Facebook content comes from. Look at where all those reshared thought experiments, story inspiration, and other screen-shots come from. A LOT of them are screenshots from Tumblr. Or made popular on Reddit. Or both.

If you wait for them to come to Facebook, you’re gonna miss a lot of content and it’s gonna be old before you see it.

Tumblr

So what IS Tumblr? Is it a blog? Is it a quote sharing site? Or is it for reblogging memes?

The quick answer is… yes.

For the longest time, I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. I reposted stuff from my Instagram since Tumblr seems to like pictures, and I reshared my blog posts from here over there. (Or over here, if you’re reading on Tumblr…)

But, it’s just as much for resharing your favorite webcomics or your not-character-count-limited mental contemplations. And GIFs are super popular.

NOTE: It’s also very popular for…um… archives of adult imagery. Luckily, safe-search is a thing. I’ve yet to end up somewhere I didn’t intend. A big advantage to its compartmentalized set-up.

It’s a social media network, like Facebook, that’s not geared towards a specific media (unlike Instagram or Twitter), which can make it more visual, but it supports anonymity–which can make it more attractive to teens (or Russian troll farms).

There’s definitely a part of it that’s socially progressive. Tumblr’s the sort of place that encourages defining your pronouns and can be very accepting of any sort of identity that doesn’t espouse hate.  That said, the admins are struggling with censorship issues around LGBT tags as well as antagonistic alt-right groups gaining a presence on the site.

Tags are important here if you want people to find you. And if you look around, you can find Tumblrs groups to join (sort of like the ‘blog hops’ of olde…). The communities are like islands, but they share resources.

If you like something, heart it. Reblogging stuff is VERY encouraged, and shows support for the original poster — and also means that the original poster gets credit — very awesome for the artists and writers and singers on here.

Note: If you add a comment to a reblog, it’s now permanently attached to that reblog.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and their posts/reblogs show up on your feed. Don’t be intimidated, most people are quite welcoming on Tumblr.

Reddit

Here, everything is a popularity contest. It’s like middle school.

No. Really.

Getting Started

You create an account, you join forums called ‘reddits’ and ‘subreddits’ (or ‘subs’), named /[whatever] that are organized by areas of interest, and then you either share text or links to content.

On your feed, you’re only shown links to reddits and subreddits that you subscribe to.

Then, as people read posts, they ‘upvote, ‘downvote’, or [do nothing]. Every upvote and downvote affects your karma.

The more upvotes you get, the more likely you’ll show up in the feed. You can check tabs of ‘Hot’, ‘Rising’, and ‘New’. And karma means a lot.

What is Karma

You earn karma for:

• posting
• commenting
• getting upvotes

Posting new content or sharing external links are typically seen as more valuable contributions, but it depends on the quality of your comments.

NOTE: When you comment, you can reply to other comments — otherwise known as nested comments.

You lose more karma for every downvote. It’s a way of trying to keep people from being jerk-faces.

Unless the forum is about being a jerk-face. Then, friendly people get downvoted.

Although there is an overlying sense of ‘Reddiquette’, each forum has its own admins, moderators, and set of acceptable behaviors.

Overall, someone with higher karma is seen as being more of a contributor and potentially someone to watch for new, quality content. The best of them have been given Reddit Gold.

Reddit Gold

You can literally buy virtual gold that is only intended for rewarding, or ‘gilding’, OTHER people with posts you find valuable.

Being gilded (or buying that status) temporarily unlocks:

• comment highlighting
• ad-blocking
• exclusive subreddits
• a personalized Snoo (known as a “snoovatar”)

WARNING: Reddit values anonymity, tends to be hands-off, and doesn’t censor. There can be really dark reddits, and subreddits with a lot of either off-color or outright offensive content.

The communities are typically well-described though, so you know what you’re getting into before you click the links.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and keep an eye on their content.

So far, I’ve shared a little in /writing, /writing-tips, and /nosleep. /AMA (Ask Me Anything) is one you’ll see on the news on occasion, with scheduled visits for politicians or celebrities, as well as normal people with unusual experiences offering to talk about them.

Feel free to explore and I find it best to wade into a Reddit, watching the expected behavior before trying to contribute.

But I’m still learning my way around.

So… that doesn’t really sound that scary, does it? A little different, but not completely unfamiliar organizational structures.

Long form, images, links, these are the sites where content is created.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 4: Visual Social Media

Three weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting with others on the internet. Two weeks ago, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting a blog. Last week, I discussed Facebook, Twitter, and hashtags.

Today? I’ll be discussing The visual social mediums!

Instagram

On this social media, you share an image, with a short caption and some hashtags.

Once again, I recommend using the same name, profile picture, and short biography as you do on your Facebook and/or Twitter, for that all important brand consistency.

This is a good, low-intensity entrance to social media to anyone with a smartphone or iPad. Posting 1-3 times a week is a good rate of interaction.

You can also comment on and ❤ other people’s photos.

Typically, you share a photo that you’ve taken, but you can also create images or share memes here. It’s really not set up to let you add images from a computer, though, so a camera-enabled wifi/data enabled device is required.

It easily syncs with most other social medias, sharing the links for you.

• Personally? I reshare to Facebook, but I copy and repost to Twitter and Tumblr, because I want people to see the image, not a link back to Instagram. I *think* you see the image on phones/etc, but they’re hidden on

Uploading Images:

Step One:

When you go to upload an image, your current camera gallery will load on default. Whichever image you select will be cropped into a square. You can pinch the screen, to zoom in or out and try to recenter the image, but if it doesn’t fill the square, preview images will clip the edges.

You can do multiple pictures, either in a collage or as a set people can scroll sideways through.

Or! You can upload a video.

Step 2:

The app gives you a LOT of editing tools. I usually leave them alone, but you can swype to the left on the tools row for all the options.

You can change the color, saturation, brightness, focus, contrast, just for starters!

Step 3:

The app provides a LOT of filters to select from.

They’re preset configurations for all the edit options from the previous tab. You can pick one, and then customize it by selecting the EDIT tab on the bottom left.

Typically, it’s suggested to find 1-3 filters you really like and stick with them, for that all-important BRAND idea. That way, when looked at en masse, your images will mesh well together.

NOTE: You can always hit the back arrow if you want to adjust the cropping.

Step 4:

This is where you add the details:

• captions
• hashtags
• tag people (@username)
• tag locations (if Location is turned on, it can auto-sense these.
• select the social medias to which you wish to cross-post

Instagram Community: Hashtags and Photo Ideas

As with Twitter, it will show you the popularity of any hashtag you start to type and autocomplete your most commonly used ones.

Some recommended hashtags are (hat tip to Alejandras Life):

• #writersOfInstagram (selfies, or pictures of your work)
• #amWriting (pictures of your work, or you working)
• #amReading (pictures of the book your reading)
• #TBR (pictures of what you’re reading next)
• #writersLife (selfies, behind-the-scenes shots)
• #wordPorn (images of quotes– from others or from your own writing)
• #writersBlock (pictures of what’re you doing while blocked)
• #amEditing (you know, what 90% of your writing consists of…)
• #writersFollowWriters – (a recent tag, to introduce yourself to other writers and find people to follow and support!)
• #noFilter – a way to brag about a picture that turned out great, and didn’t need any help

Images Used Elsewhere

After I drafted this post, I went to look at my feed and saw that my local news channel had asked to use a photo I’d posted on Instagram, and cross-posted to Twitter today. And offered accreditation

I swear, I’d already drafted the rest of this post before she asked.

So… that’s a thing that can happen. And… she opted not to. Maybe she’ll use it later this week?

Pinterest

This is a social media where, as you browse the internet and see pretty pictures, you can click to save them to a Pinterest folder.

You can ‘follow’ people and see what images they save, and they can do the same for your boards. There’s also a direct message option, but I haven’t been bombarded with spammers, so it’s relatively safe.

Once again, you’re going to want a pretty consistent name, profile picture, and bio. Then, if you’re like me, you’re going to want to organize your “Pins”, the images you’re saving.

So, you can create different ‘boards’ to pin images to. You can have private boards, friends only, or public boards. Many people use them for consolidating remodeling ideas, wedding planning, or suggested styles for clothing subscription services.

The general theme is that you’re “pinning” the images up, as if to a bulletin ‘board’, so you can see them all at once.

The Plugin

How do you save all these images?

With the quick installation of the plugin (a bit of code that makes the Pinterest logo show up when your mouse is hovering over an image, or when you tap-and-hold an image for a touchscreen), all you have to do is select that logo and a pop-up will ask you which ‘board’ you’d like to save the image to.

Ways to Use Pinterest as a Writer

I set up boards for inspirational actors/models for my characters, locations, and clothing and left Pinterest alone for a year. These are helpful for ME when writing since I tend to be somewhat less visually focused.

I’ve recently got back into Pinterest. These days, I’m also posting and/or resharing:

• memes
• blog post images with link-backs to my posts!
• pictures of books I’m reading

You can browse Pinterest, or anywhere on the internet, look for images you like, and pin them to your own boards.

Use hashtags as before, but the visual is what really sells things.

The internet, especially on smartphones, is a very visual place. It’s far easier to ‘like’ a picture than write a comment.

As entries to social media, Instagram and Pinterest involve the least amount of time and effort on your behalf. Plus, they’re both used (especially Instagram) by young adults.

So, for those of us who write YA, it’s a good idea to establish a presence on a media that your future audience actually uses.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 3: Short-Form Social Media and Hashtags

Two weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting with others on the internet. Last week, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting your own blog.

Now? Let’s talk about the rest of the social mediums.

ALL OF THEM. Or maybe I’ll hit 2000 words before I’ve finished with Facebook, and Twitter, and Hashtags, oh my!… Looks like there’s gonna be a Part 4 after all.

Facebook

The granddaddy of all social media these days. With ‘friends’, ‘followers’, and everything in between.

What is Facebook

In case you’ve been living under a rock: For Facebook, you sign up, and your “profile page” shows all your “posts”– anything you want to share from 1 liners to links, to long-form notes. You ‘friend’ people and they friend you back.

Your ‘feed’ consists of what you and your friends post. It’s often sorted by ‘Top Stories’ – i.e. things that others have been commenting or ‘liking’ (hitting the thumbs up button on) a lot. But, you can switch it to show the feed in chronological order as well.

Groups and Privacy

There are privacy settings of ‘public’, ‘friends only’, and you can create your own custom lists, or share in groups.

Groups are facebook pages with members and their own privacy settings. You can search for groups based on your interests, or just wait for people to invite you. If the group is private, the posts can’t be shared externally, and can’t be seen by other people.

This doesn’t mean people can’t screenshot them, though. So be considerate of what you post.

Your Facebook page is where you can announce things to everyone you’ve ever known and their 2nd cousins. (Unless they’re under 13.)

One Thing. Teens are catching on about that whole object permanence thing. They’re moving off Facebook, to places their parents don’t supervise. To places where the message is erased right after they send it.

How to use Facebook and Improve Your Visibility

Personally? Most of my followers, writing groups, and blog share hits come from Facebook. Despite the teen-flee, it’s still super useful and a great way to connect.

However, if people don’t interact with you, Facebook will stop showing them your posts. Especially blog links or Patreons, assuming they’re all spam.

So how do you make Facebook show your friends and followers your posts?

Don’t just talk about your writing! Post things from your life, upload pictures, share memes (stock images, with quippy text).

If you have pets? The internet is 50% cat pictures and videos and people still love them.

You can share personal information without sharing private information. You’ll see me talking about my life and interactions, but only rarely do I discuss details or name names.

Facebook Pages?

These are sort of like a Group but typically owned by one person or a business. They’re for professional use only.

If you’re an author, it’s reasonable to establish one. But, don’t count on anything here being seen unless you have a large group of active followers, or you pony up some cash. They have the lowest priority in Facebook feed because Facebook wants to earn some money off you.

Another way to get seen more is to post videos or pictures. Facebook prioritizes these. Especially facebook videos, but I’m not quite ready for live-streaming…

Twitter

This one can be very polarizing. Some people love it, some people hate it. A lot of it is in how you use it and what sections of twitter you hang out in.

This is one I’d REALLY advise caution when wading into socio-political issues.

What is Twitter

Here, you chose a username, add a brief description, then share text or images, up to 280 characters long (it used to be 140 characters).

Remember to think about brand consistency. You can change your profile name, but the username, i.e. the ‘@whatever’ part will stay the same FOREVER.

How To Use Twitter

There are no ‘groups’, per se. And everything is shown on your feed chronologically. Which means, after you’ve followed a couple handfuls of people, it can be hard to keep up.

I like to create lists. Mostly based on why I followed them (agents/publishers), or where I know them from (Writer support group A or Support Group B). That way, when I see a comment in my feed, I can associate it with the right people.

I have to admit, unless your profile picture is of you, or your name is in your username? I have a hard time keeping track of who is who on twitter. And… I kinda don’t even try.

If you like a post, you can ‘heart’ it.

It’s perfectly reasonable to respond to a tweet directed at you with a GIF–and Twitter has the GIF library to support it (before facebook!)

If you want to share a post, so your followers can see it – it bumps it in THEIR follower’s feed so they have a better chance of seeing it. You can either ‘Retweet’ or ‘Quote Retweet’. Quote retweet lets you add your own comment to the reshared tweet, and means they won’t get notifications for everyone who comments on it.

Why would they get notified? When you @mention someone in your tweet, so it shows up on their notifications. Just type @[their username] and they’ll be notified.

Confession?

I spend a lot more time tweeting and looking at my notifications than I do looking at my main twitter feed.

When I do want to see what my friends are saying, I’ll go to specific lists and look. The rest of the tweets? I only see what Twitter suggests as “your friends are liking this post” or “did you miss this” from people I interact with a lot.

Why Writers Should Consider Twitter

Twitter offers a lot of opportunities:

• A writing community
  • I like to check out writer hashtags, and, after making sure I’m looking at the ‘Latest Tweets’, not the ‘Top Tweets’ tab that’s the default, I’ll go cruising through the tweets looking for people to follow.
• Twitter Pitch Contests:
  • Essentially, boil your Manuscript’s pitch down to about 240 characters, add the relevant hashtags
    • The contest name: #pitchWhatever
    • Your manuscript’s genre: #f (fantasy) #r (romance), #litfic (literary fiction), etc
• Twitter Contests:
  • Some are for Mentors:
    • #AMM – Author Mentor Match
    • #PitchWars

    Some are for query critiques

    • #sunVsSnow

    Some are for first page/chapter reviews

• Some are for query critiques
  • #sunVsSnow

  Some are for first page/chapter reviews

• Many agents and Editors are active on Twitter.
  • #MSWL (Manuscript wish list) can help you find agents who are looking for your manuscript.
  • Looking at their feed can give you a good feel for their personality, and if they’re a good fit.
  • WARNING: Do NOT go back 5 years worth of tweets, gleaning for every crumb you can, liking all their posts. That’s creepy. Just look a couple weeks back, or look at a specific tag.

Hashtags

I just referenced a lot of hashtags, but they require their own discussion.

Twitter is one of those places where hashtags are important. Hashtags often give context to a post. But also, they can be ways of finding related discussions, or groups. And are useful for searching a person’s posts, for a specific topic.

Just because you’re a member of a group, doesn’t mean all of your tweets are related to that topic. But if you hashtag it with the group’s hashtag, everyone can find it.

NOTE: DO NOT MISUSE HASHTAGS

You will annoy people, or get remembered…for the wrong reasons. People use hashtags to find related posts and if you use them improperly, the search will be cluttered with off-topic posts.

Hashtag Do’s

• DO participate in Twitter Pitch Events such as: #PitchSlam, #pg70pit, #pitmad, #SFFPit, #PBPitch, #FaithPitch, and #IWSGPit
  • An agent “like” on a twitter pitch during these contests is ONLY a request for a query. Add the contest hashtag to the subject line of your query and submit as normal, unless the agent has previously tweeted that you should do otherwise.
• DO read the #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) tag is for agents (and Editors of publishing houses) to share what they’re looking for.
  • If they’re looking for something that’s a VERY CLOSE fit to the manuscript you’re actively ready to query, go to their agency website and submit while adding a reference to the #MSWL item to your query.
• DO join in on weekly hashtags like:
  • #1linewed – there’s a theme each week, search to find it
  • #WIPjoy – Work In Progress joy – a line that makes you happy that you recently wrote
  • #FF – follow Fridays, where you tag friends or writers you’d recommend others follow
  • #mondayBlogs
• DO use hashtags like #askagent to communicate with agents
• DO use hashtags like #amwriting, #amediting, #writersLife, #writeTips, #writingTips, #5amwritersClub, #9pmwritersClub, and #nanowrimo to connect with other writers!

Things To Avoid

• DO NOT pitch directly to agents. Outside of twitter pitch contests, Twitter is NOT for pitching.
• DO NOT ask an agent if they like the sound of your novel.
• DO NOT DM (direct message) them.
• DO NOT stalk and act like you’re suddenly besties.
• DO NOT tweet on #10queries, #tenqueries, #MSWL, etc. These are for AGENTS and Editors of Publishing companies
• DO NOT flood weekly hashtags with a stack of tweets.
• DO NOT use #askAgent for anything google can tell you in 2 minutes.
  • Don’t ask what genres they represent, take 2 minutes to look at their literary agency website.

When you go to add a hashtag, on the app (unfortunately, not on the computer), it’ll show you the hashtag’s frequency. It can be 250 tweets in the last hour, or day, or ever. The more popular a hashtag is the more people who might see your tweet. Or, it might get lost in the crowd.

If enough people like or retweet your tweet, your visibility will skyrocket. If not, it can sit there in obscurity. The #trending tab can show you what a lot of people are actively talking about

Personally? I like to go for regularly used hashtags, that aren’t currently over-saturated.

But the funny thing about social media? You can get insta-famous for something you tweeted 3 years ago if it goes viral.

How to Get Followers

Check out posters on hashtags you like.

Follow them.

It’s as easy as that.

Many people auto-follow-back anyone who follows them.

If you get added to someone else’s list, and you like the company you’re in? Click on the list, find the ‘view members’ option from the menu tab (the 3 horizontal lines), and then click ‘follow’ on all of them.

Interact with your followers. Twitter loves GIFs and has a button and a library to add them to tweets. (I like to caption stuff so people who can’t see the image know what’s going on) And they did the GIF thing LONG before Facebook did.

DO NOT be the person who Direct Messages everyone who follows you, many of us hate that and want to unfollow people who do that.

When people follow me, I like to vet them. I don’t like people who are all advertisements or click-bait for 2 full screens. I’m picky. If I don’t see an original tweet from them for 2 full screens, or if their profile picture is empty and they seem to be adding only pretty girls, I back away slowly and pretend I was never there.

Although, if someone DMs me their website or whatever after I follow them? I’ve started sending mine back at them.

Tip: If you’re curious when someone followed you, your followers’ list is in order from most-recently-followed down to your first follower.

WARNING: Some people will go around following tons of people and, after they follow back, unfriend them!

ANOTHER WARNING: You can only follow a certain number of people a day, and you can’t follow significantly more people than people who follow you. The limit goes up as your follower list goes up. But, I think it maxes at 250 people in a sitting.

All-in-all, twitter can be a great place to connect with other writers, editors, agents, and people involved in all stages of publishing. It can be a great place for indie-authors and small publishers.

One Last Thing

Make sure to keep your brand consistent from site to site. You don’t have to reshare everything from Twitter onto your facebook, but you should still feel like the same person.

Check back next week, where I’ll take on Tumblr, Instagram, and more.