Out to Lunch

Last week, we discussed choosing a writers conference. So let’s assume you’re going to one.A question I hear frequently is: How do you maintain all this social media stuff when you’re away from home?
Writing Tip for Today: Our smartphones are becoming more indispensable than ever. But here are a few other ideas for keeping your social media campaign alive while you are gone:

• Take Advantage of Scheduling. One of the best (and worry-free) ways to stay engaged with your social media audience is to prepare blog posts, tweets and Facebook postings before you leave. There are good “dashboard” services and they have both free and subscription options. Presently, I like Hootsuite and Social Oomph. They are easy to set up and you can write tweets or Facebook, LinkedIn or other SM site posts, then schedule them to go out at a time you choose. Both Blogger and WordPress also feature a scheduler. You can pre-load your posts and they publish when you schedule them. You don’t even have to wait until you’re traveling–these dashboards make it easy to spread your posts around when you’re home, too.
• Give Them a Sign. If scheduling your social media content is too much work, don’t simply let your platforms go silent. Post a notice on your blog, Facebook or other site, and tell your readers you are going to be away or on hiatus. If your readers log on and don’t see new content when they expect to, without a message explaining why you could lose those readers.
• Feed the Minnows. You may have signed up for social media sites that you now seldom frequent. That’s OK– not every site is equal. But if you’ve cultivated some readers on those sites, be sure to link them with your dashboard. That way you can send a link to your new blog post, tweet or other message and still retain those readers.