On Thursday, 9th August, I attended the first of five sessions to learn ‘how to deal’ with social media. The course, Content Compass Bootcamp, is run by the amazing Joey Clarkson, whose energy and versatility encouraged us to participate fully in every exercise she set. We were given monthly planner sheets and post planner sheets and a veritable wealth of information to help us up our social media presence and build confidence in our brand, product, writing project. . . or whatever it is we are working on or towards.
Putting into practice what I’d learnt, I uploaded a video to Instagram a couple of days ago. It was about those pesky words we writers use too often. I was searching my WIP for the word ‘that’, which I know is a horrible word, and I use it too often. I tend to write things like:
She thought that he was staring at her. The word that is totally unnecessary. She thought he was staring at her is sufficient and reads much better.
I don’t know why I do it, but I found over 1000 ‘thats’ in my 83,000 word manuscript.
The video went out to the public as a reel, and to my astonishment, it was watched (to date) over 2,000 times, and I gained 30+ followers in twenty-four hours. Which is amazing. The thing is, I know I have to keep this up and that is where the Planner Sheet and the Post Planner Sheet come in handy. I now have to post regular content to social media at least three times a week. This blog post is will be my second post for this week and I have to do at least one more before Sunday. . .Yikes! I think the best way is to make videos and prepare content in advance which I’m trying to do. This last week was a little difficult because I was on Nonna duties, and my days were taken up with the grandchildren, which of course was a pleasure, but left me less time than usual to get organised. But, I’m making excuses!
Gotta dash now. . . I have to make a video, take a photo and write some content before I head off for a pedicure at eleven. Well, you have to keep things in perspective don’t you?
Thanks to tenor for Gifs
It’s a lot of work and time to want to be seen and heard. But THAT is the way it is. Thank you for this post Ninette.
Ha ha, it certainly is!