Presentation at the Whidbey Island Writers Conference 2012. Social networking sites are useful for talking about your work and engaging readers and potential readers. But if you make Facebook and Twitter your main author platform, you are giving up some control over your marketing message. You need a home base, a hub—a blog. Learn how to use a blog as a social media hub, improve your content and make your site more user-friendly.

1. Do I Really Need
an Author Blog if
I’m on Facebook
or Twitter?
bob dunn - WordPress trainer, coach & blogger

2. digital real estate

3. your hub
a self-hosted WordPress site

4. your blog (or website) as a
social media hub

5. drive people
to your
blog using
social media

6. tweets
ask a question that makes your reader curious
Do women give more to charity than men?
use a little old-fashioned fear
These 5 writing mistakes will make you look stupid. Do you
make any of them?

7. don’t just
broadcast

8. answer questions...
be helpful

9. manual
vs.
automated

10. commenting on
other blogs

11. connections

12. sharing

13. RSS
make it easy to sign up for your RSS feed
create an email signup

14. conversation

15. the do’s and don’ts
of getting more
comments

16. do create
engaging
content

17. don’t
write
crap

18. do ask a
question
?

19. don’t trick your
readers

20. do comment
on other blogs

21. don’t beg

22. moderation

24. 3 tips
to make your
blog
user-friendly

25. navigation

26. navigation

27. readability
white space
short paragraphs
bullets
headings/subheading

28. about pages
tell people about yourself

29. write an irresistible about page
what you do
your mission/blog’s purpose for being
an interesting, relevant bio
a sense of your personality

30. PHOTOS

31. make it easy for
people to contact you

32. so in a nutshell
connect, share and be social
it’s not all one way, social is two-way
don’t just broadcast, create conversation
make your WordPress site the hub!

33. bob dunn - WordPress trainer, coach & blogger
425.223.0022
bobwp.com
bob@bobwp.com
twitter: @bobwp