Advice on Hashtags (and Social Media for Authors) from Scott La Counte

This article by Scott La Counte, CEO of BuzzTrace, How to Promote a Book on Social Media: 10 Tips for Indie Authors, has great advice for authors using social media.

There are ten points, and #10 is all about Hashtags:

10. Hashtag It! Hashtags are one of the easiest ways to get followers quick, if you use them right. A hashtag is something that starts with a # sign. When a person clicks on the word after it, they see other people talking about that topic. So, for example, if you are talking about politics you might end your tweet with #politics.

Here’s a few things to remember about hashtags:

First: don’t hashtag everything. Use them when they seem relevant, but every post doesn’t need nor should have a hashtag.

Second: don’t be generic; posting a tweet about how happy you are about something with #excited will not find you any followers.

Third: use hashtags relevant to your followers—if you are at a writers' conference, for example, and there’s a hashtag for that conference, use it. This will connect you with other people at that same conference.

Last: think of hashtags that build into your brand—unique hashtags that only you use. So, for example, you might have a hashtag for the book you are working on, and whenever a reader clicks on it, they can see all the tweets about that particular book; or you may ask readers and influencers to use a certain hashtag whenever they talk about your book.

The whole post is well-worth reading. Thanks to Scott and the folks at IngramSpark for sharing!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Hashtags for Illiustrators - Some suggestions (add your own in comments!)

#childrensbookillustration (note that with 297,466 posts as of this week, #childrensbookillustration it is different than #childrenbookillustration, which has 54,108 posts)

There's #picturebookart, #picturebookillustration, #childrensillustration, and so many more...

Some have over a million posts already (like #illustratorsoninstagram) and some are much more specific, calling out the medium/materials, (like #fountainpengeeks or even super-specific like #pilotfalcon, or the process (like #foundobjectart).


A good suggestion over at CreativeHowl is to separate the hashtags from the description with a hard return and a few lines of dots, so it seems more tidy (a big block of 10-30 hashtags can be visually intense.)

Perhaps the coolest thing about hashtags is you don't even need to be signed up for instagram to watch the flow of creativity - just go to instagram and search!

Do you have other good illustrator hashtags to share? Please do so in comments! Thanks, and

Illustrate On!
Lee