The Twitter Strategy Ruth L. Snyder Uses to Maximize Her Time When Marketing Her Books

This is episode 12 of Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and inviting you into to my community for a behind the scenes look at what's truly working for authors just like you. My name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy. And the most rewarding part of my job is helping others get results and reach their goals. In this episode, I want to position the spotlight on one of my members, Ruth L. Snyder. Hi, Ruth. Great to have you today.

Thanks, Shelly. It's great to be here.

So I'm just going to tell you just a little bit about Ruth. Ruth spent the first 10 years of her life in Southern Africa. How cool. Where her parents served as missionaries. In 1977, her family moved to Three Hills, Alberta, and she now resides close to Glendon with her husband and five children. You're a busy lady.

Yes, I am busy. Ruth enjoys writing articles, devotionals, short stories, and Christian fiction. She's a member of the Word Guild and the Christian Pen, and she currently serves as the president of Inscribe Christian Writers Fellowship. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, crafting, volunteering, photography, and travel. So several years ago, she traveled through 28 states in 30 days, which, that would be an interesting conversation too. But welcome to, to this episode and I'm so happy to have you, Ruth.

Thanks, Shelly. I'm happy to be here.

So in this week's Center Stage Spotlight training, I'm going to have Ruth share a specific success strategy in our interview together. And I'm excited that we can learn from each other. I think that's where some of the magic happens, is when we are able to interact and learn from each other. And today, Ruth is going to share about Twitter. I have to admit, when I first got on Twitter, it was just a little bit intimidating. And I think other authors feel the same way. And so, Ruth, to get started, why don't you just share just a little bit on what your experience is with Twitter and why you recommend Twitter for authors?

Okay. Well, I actually started using Twitter in 2009, and at that point, my children were very young and I was very busy looking after them. And I wanted to develop my platform, but I knew I didn't have time to blog so one of my friends suggested I try Twitter, and that's what got me going. And I found it amazing for finding information and building connections with people all over the world and having conversations that I would never be able to have in any other way. So that's kind of where I got started on Twitter.

Yes. That's amazing. And actually, since you joined Author Audience Academy, you've published two books on Twitter and you have some more in the works, right?

That's correct. Yes. I've published a beginning step book and an intermediate steps, and I'm working on the advanced steps.

Awesome. Yeah. So I'm looking at the COVID It says, learn Twitter 10 beginning steps. So if you search on Amazon for Ruth Elle Snyder and you can check out her books on Twitter or I will have all of the links in the show notes. Twitter is one of those things that could take over your life. Right. It's just like any social media. So what are some tips you have for us as authors? We need time to be with our family, to write, to do other things. How do we use Twitter in an effective way? And what's something that's worked for you?

Well, something that I'm still working on is scheduling my tweets. And I fought this for a long time because I really like to be personal on social media. I hate seeing repeated posts that are just the same thing over and over and over again. So I really struggle to have to work on scheduling my tweets. But as authors, we need time to write, and if we're gonna have time to write, we can't be on social media all day. So scheduling our tweets is the solution that I found works for me. And what has worked is picking one day where I write out some tweets that are related to my newest work in progress, or announcing a new release, or even talking about some books that have been out for a while and making tweets for. So Maybe I'll make 15 tweets for the week and share those tweets once a day or even twice or three times a day throughout the week and have them repeat so that I can put them onto. I use hootsuite. I can put them on to hootsuite. Schedule the time and day that those tweets are going to show up, and then I don't even have to think about it the rest of the week. But that doesn't mean that I'm not on Twitter the rest of the week, but I can go into that after.

Yeah. So that's a Great strategy, because what you're doing is basically you're creating a scheduling block of time. I was trying to think of the word. It's batch scheduling. You're batch scheduling that task. So instead of doing a few minutes every day where you have to get logged in, you have to get in the flow, you have to figure out where you're at. What am I doing again? You know, oh, yeah, hootsuite and hashtags and this and that. You do it in one block of time. Once you get in the flow, it's easier to stay in the flow and then you don't have to think about it. Yes, you can still get on there because it is good to interact. But if you get busy one day, your kids need you or you have something come up, you don't have to think, oh, man, I forgot to do my Twitter. And have that always over your head because, you know, we're all this way. We all have a million things going on that's just hanging over our head. So if we can tear clear. Yeah, if we clear one of those things out, that is great. Now give us an example. Do you have anything. I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but do you have any tweets or can you pull up your tweets and give us an example of a tweet that you've sent out recently that maybe got some response or interaction or just an example of some of the things that you do? Because I know that's one of the things that I authors often find difficult is what do I say? You know, I only have 140 characters. How do I really make the most out of that? So do you have any samples or examples that you can share with us?

Well, one thing I do every day is I make a graphic. And I've discovered that for my audience. Scripture verses really resonate with them. So I'll find one of the pictures that I've taken or a picture that I have on Word Swag. That's one of my favorite apps to use for making graphics. And I know Shelly loves it too.

I love Word Swag.

I'll make a graphic every day and I'll share that Monday to Friday. I share a graphic every day. And that has really resonated with my audience. Here's an example of a tweet I use for my Twitter book. Tips on how to use Twitter more effectively in learntwitter. And then the link and New release and Kindle. And then the link to.

I have the link to Amazon, ca and Amazon.com because I have an audience in both places.

Right. Because you live in Canada, so that's really important for you. Another little tip is you could possibly create a smart URL and then it automatically redirects the person depending on what country they're accessing the Internet. So that way you only have one link. But yeah, that's. That's an awesome tip. And for those of you that aren't familiar with Word Swag, currently it's just for the Apple Store. So if you have a iPhone or iPad, hopefully they'll release it for other platforms eventually. But Rana Designs is another one for Android, you can check out or canva, canva.com or picmonkey.com, both of those are online tools that you can check out as well. Graphics work really well in social media because we're a visual society. We are. And so a lot of times those graphics do catch our attention. And that's something that I have also been doing. In 2015, I've pretty much posted a graphic quote almost every day. I mean, I've missed a day here or there, but I'm developing a routine and I'm developing a system and my followers are getting used to seeing those. And especially on Facebook, I get a lot of interaction. So it just depends. I'm learning to get more interaction on Twitter. I have to admit. I have been one of those people that just posts things on Twitter and doesn't always interact until Periscope. Now that Periscope is connected with Twitter, I'm on Periscope, and so I will be able to follow up with those people because most of the time it's their Twitter account that's the same as their Periscope account. So people who are on my periscopes or that I'm on their periscopes or I meet people in a periscope in the comments, I can follow up with them on Twitter and it's awesome. So I'm finally getting interactive on Twitter, and so that's really good.

And that's what we have to do. We have to find out what works for us because we're all different individuals. And even though we might all be on Twitter or might all be on Facebook, we have to find what works for us and our audience.

So true. And I recommend only really focusing on one to two social media platforms because it can get very overwhelming. Now, you can still post on the other ones, but to really focus your attention on one or two. So Twitter may or may not be one of those that you're focusing on. If you try to do everything, if you try to do every social media, you probably will not do any of them really well. But if you pick one or two and really choose to interact with those social media platforms, that's where you can really build relationships. So Facebook is definitely one of mine and Periscope's definitely. At least right now, as of recording this episode, it's a close second because it's just been a really fun way for me to interact with my audience and I love video. So any other scheduling tips or things that you want to share as far as for this success strategy before we wrap it up?

Well, I would just challenge you to write and schedule tweets for a full week and try it for a few weeks. Maybe the first week it'll not go very well. It takes a while to establish a habit, as we all know. So write and schedule tweets for one full week based on your Twitter marketing plan. And I prefer using hootsuite. You can enter your tweets, assuming that you're scheduling to Twitter in the top in the scheduling bar, whatever program you're using. And then.

Make sure that you schedule, do a little bit of research, do some trial and error and find out when your audience is on Twitter and schedule your tweets for those times of the day and then keep changing and learning as you grow. It's always a learning process. So find what works for you and keep doing that.

Awesome. So our take action tip for this episode is what Ruth just shared. Write down. And she doesn't have to be a lot. She does 15 tweets. So whatever you want to do, maybe it's just one per day. Write down your tweets for this week and schedule them at least one week in advance. That's your take action tip. Schedule them and see how it flows for you and adapt it for you and for your schedule. So thank you so much for being here, Ruth. I'm really excited. And definitely check out her book series. It's Learn Twitter. There's a beginner, intermediate and advanced. So wherever you're at on Twitter, you can check that out. Advanced should be out soon, right, Ruth?

Probably. Hopefully by the end of this year.

You'Ll have people knocking on your door. Where's the last book? We need the advanced.

So thank you so much for joining us and for sharing this training and this take action tip. Before we end, I want to give you a backstage pass in this week's Godly Gain segment, which is all about keeping Christ at the center of all we do. In the end, it's not about us, it's all about Him. Therefore, the scripture I want to share with you this week is Colossians 3:23. It says, Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. I believe when we keep the focus on the Lord and that the work we're doing, whether we're scheduling tweets or we're doing other things related to our books and our business, we'll be able to keep a focus on what is most important. It's so easy to get lost in the details, and yet when we're working for the Lord, we'll have not only the right motives, but the right focus.

And I want to invite each one of you to check out our community@authoraudienceacademy.com the forums are always busy and interactive, and it's really the place that I hang out the most. And we have members just like Ruth inside there ready to interact with you and to share their advice and tips as well. So thanks again for joining us and we'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.