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Social Media Strategy

I am going to use a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to create and promote my creative piece. My creative piece is a multi-platform murder mystery that will require my audience to go to all of my social media platforms to experience the whole story and discover the murderer.

On Facebook I will announce the story and promote links to the other platforms as well as announce the conclusion of the story. On Twitter I will post the thoughts of the various suspects and the detective via character specific accounts. Finally, on YouTube I will post three videos. These videos will be interrogations of the suspects and, when combined with the Tweets, can be used by the audience to decide who the murderer is.

I am using three social media platforms because each has their own particular templates and benefits. Facebook is often used for longer posts that include lots of links, and so will be useful for announcing and promoting my creative piece while also being suitable for writing out the longer introduction and conclusion to the story. Twitter allows for short stream of consciousness posts as well as the ability for the detective character to interact with my audience via the comments section. It will also force me to be concise with the details I give away which should make the mystery more interesting. Furthermore, I will use the Twitter biographies of each character to give away a key piece of information and use their profile pictures to suggest aspects of their characters. Finally, YouTube is the easiest and, arguably, best video sharing website that I can use to post my detective’s interrogations of the suspects and, again, will allow audience interaction via the comments section.

My target audience is university students and young adults who use a variety of social media platforms. Facebook and, to a certain extent Twitter, are primarily used by the older end of this demographic but links via YouTube may be able to transfer my younger audience to the other platforms. Furthermore, while YouTube is primarily for comedy and news, and not completely suited to crime and drama, the links from the other platforms should draw a dramatic audience to it.

My schedule is for the entire story to be told in five days. This will involve the Facebook post introducing the idea and setting up the story going out the 10th December 2018. On the 11th I will post the first suspect’s interrogation, with the other two being posted on the consecutive days. On the 13th, the detective will ask for feedback on the case from his audience, in the form of both a Twitter poll and a request for feedback. Finally, on the 14th, both the audience’s results and the true conclusion to the mystery will be posted on Facebook.

While this is a rather complicated way to tell a story, it is also beneficial in that it encourages audience interaction with my brand as well as encouraging readers to visit all of my various social media platforms. This could be utilised commercially via the placement of advertisements on each of my social media platforms. Finally, having lots of links between social media platforms pushes you up Google’s search rankings which will increase my viewership.

[thestoryteller76-blog]

What advantages and disadvantages does social media present to the modern writer?

Social media is defined by Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) as ‘a group of Internet-based applications’ ‘that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content’, as stated in theatre & social media (Lonergan, 2016). Furthermore, user generated content is defined as ‘content made publicly available over the Internet which reflects a certain amount of creative effort and which is created outside of professional routines and practices’ and can also ‘include email, chatrooms, text and multimedia messages’ (Lonergan, 2016). Social media is a tool that is available to modern writers for both publishing and marketing purposes as well as a new field for creative opportunities. However, while social media has many advantages, there are also disadvantages and potential pitfalls relating to its use, both in terms of creative constrictions and mental health issues.  

 On the one hand, there are many advantages presented to the modern writer by social media, such as the ability to interact directly with, and market yourself to, a wide audience relatively easily and cheaply. A modern writer can use their website, blog and social media presence as ‘a business card’ that allows for their audience to easily find their work name (Wolff, 2007). The writer can also use their website to sell their work through self-publishing or affiliate links with companies such as Amazon. In addition, they can write work that can be used to advertise other brands. This latter option is especially the case for bloggers who can use their own personal stories as marketing opportunities for brands, who will pay them either through a lump sum or through pay-by-clicks on advertisements placed on their website. Another advantage of social media for the modern writer is the ability to create an alternate persona. This persona can act as both a liberating tool for the writer, enabling them to more freely write what they want to without fear of being judged personally, and as a brand. For example, Jamie Oliver firstly presented himself as ‘The Naked Chef’ which gained him a much greater following than if he had just kept his own name (Wolff, 2007). Now, with social media it is even easier to create a fictional version of yourself which you can brand and sell, for example with gaming YouTuber turned author OfficialNerdCubed (real name, Daniel Hardcastle). In fact, OfficialNerdCubed has recently employed the self-publishing website ‘Unbound’, which allows for people to pledge money in order to crowdfund his book, as well as to receive a personal reward such as a signed copy or their name in the back cover. He utilised his YouTube channel, through specific videos to advertise the crowdfunding, and smaller adverts at the beginning of his regular videos, to fund his book. This lead to him reaching 1837% of the funding or, approximately, £252,178. This shows the tremendous power of social media branding for the modern writer (OfficialNerdCubed, 2018) (Hardcastle and Maughan, 2018).

 Blogs can also be used to create personal narratives, as well as for marketing of other brands. A blog is traditionally in the form of a public and online diary entry and, as such, can fulfil the format of an ‘episodic narrative’ that is usually found in soap operas and comic books, albeit without the cliff-hangers that usually occur at the end of every episode but not at the end of every life event (Rettberg, 2014). These personal blogs can be a great way for the writer to be creative, both in writing and in observing their lives, and can also be a bridge between the writer and their audience, thereby increasing their own brand further.  

 There are also particular advantages with regards the social media platform, Twitter. Twitter offers the opportunity for a modern writer to alter the format of their creative writing, namely to create very small pieces of micro-fiction of 280 characters or less. This presents its own opportunities for the writer to hone a more concise version of their craft. In addition, these micro-stories can be threaded to create longer narratives that the writer’s readers can follow hourly, daily etc. thereby encouraging the readers to return to the site regularly. This, in turn, offers the chance for the writer to utilise these daily viewings with advertisements for and links to other, longer, writings or branded products. Furthermore, due to Twitter’s retweet system, the writer can reach a much wider audience by allowing their readers to advertise for them. This audience can be increased further by utilising hashtags which ‘tag’ the tweet into a particular theme such as #flashfiction or #journal, which allows people to read tweets specifically under these hashtags. Furthermore, hashtags can be used to target the tweet to a particular audience, thereby increasing the likelihood of engagement. Twitter can also be used as a way of breaking down the perceived notion that writing is a completely private practice, and that writers are such private people that the reader cannot hope to interact and engage with them. This is because tweets can offer a window into the writer’s life, such as by telling the world that they are “just cooking dinner” or “are about to go to the cinema”, which offers a way for the reader to see the writer as a more ordinary, and less mysterious person. This, in turn, can open the way for the writer to achieve a level of celebrity and fame that is usually confined to popstars and actors, or just engage on a more personal level with their audience. (Myers, 2016: 476-492)

 As well as offering ways for the modern writer to write and advertise, Twitter can also be a great place to access information that would otherwise be too difficult to find on the Internet or in a book. For example, by searching the hashtag ‘amresearching’, the writer can ask a wide variety of experts for information or browse to see if their question had already been answered. Additionally, the writer can utilise the hashtags ‘askagent’, ‘tenqueries’ and ‘pitmad’ to find and question agents, find out what agents like and don’t like about rejected stories and pitch their novel to prospective agents, respectively. Many publishers also have unsolicited submission opportunities that they advertise on Twitter. (Fuller, 2018) Finally, the modern writer can use Twitter to follow popular writers and see how they advertise, what creative stories they tweet and, possibly, have the opportunity to ask them questions. This can be either by creating a rapport with said writer or by utilising an ‘ask me anything’ that many writers participate in either on Twitter or other social media platforms such as Reddit.

 On the other hand, there are disadvantages presented to the modern writer by social media. These include an increased pressure to create and publish more and more work, while maintaining a quality that your audience expects. This can lead to overworking, burnout and mental health issues such as depression or over-anxiety as the writer feels the need to meet the demands of their audience. These issues can be increased by the fact that the audience is able to interact more directly with the writer and because they feel that they have a more personal relationship with the writer, while remaining anonymous themselves. This can lead to negative comments or even trolling regarding the writer’s work output and quality. It can also be increased by the fact that the writer has to keep up a certain work output so as to maintain their placing in the social media’s algorithmic search engines. These algorithms can also cause difficulties because they are different for each social media platform and each require different types of work output, templates and effort on the writer’s part to advertise. Furthermore, they are not always the best explained and can require a lot of time to master, time that could previously have been spent writing. In addition, it is often not enough to use just one social media platform and so the writer will have to learn how to use the various templates and styles of the different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, all of which have their own rules and audiences.

 There are also disadvantages specifically regarding Twitter. For example, it, and other social media platforms are tremendous time-sinks, be it whether the writer is using them productively to advertise and network, or to converse and argue with fans, or even just as a procrastination tool. This can be useful at times but can also lead to the writer neglecting their actual craft of writing. Furthermore, Twitter’s 280-character limit can also present unwanted challenges for the writer by constraining their creative output. This can lead to a huge threaded tweet posted at once, thereby ignoring the value of Twitter’s concise template, or the writer posting a screenshot of a longer piece or even not attempting to write a tweet at all. Finally, there is the ability to receive instant feedback on Twitter, be it positive or negative, or even ‘outright abuse’ (Myers, 2016: 476-492), which can be a detriment to the writer’s writing and mental health. Namely, the writer might receive too much un-constructive criticism and give up, or they might receive too much weak but positive feedback, such as in the form of ‘likes’ which could cause the writer to chase these ‘likes’ rather than writing what they want to.

 In conclusion, social media presents both many advantages and disadvantages to the modern writer. The advantages include creative opportunities, such as Twitter micro-fiction, and alter-egos, as well as researching, publishing, advertising and branding tools, that can allow the writer to research and advertise independently, and with relative ease. The disadvantages, however, include the issues of mental health problems that arise from both increased pressure and the more direct connection to fans, and creative constrictions from the various social media templates. Therefore, it is ultimately up to the modern writer to find a balance between using social media and actually writing, in addition to participating in other aspects of life.

 Bibliography:

Books:

Lonergan, P. (2016) theatre & social media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pg 23-24.

Rettberg, J. (2014) Blogging: Digital Media and Society Series. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Polity Press, pg 115-117

Wolff, Jurgen. (2007) Your Writing Coach: From Concept to Character, from Pitch to Publication: Everything you need to know about writing novels, non-fiction, new media, scripts and short stories. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, pg 208, 231-232

Journals:

Kaplan, Andreas and Haenlein. (2010) Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53 59-68.

 Myers, G. (2016) Everyday oracles: authors on Twitter. Celebrity Studies, 7 (4) 476-492. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2016.1233708 [Accessed 18 November 2018].

Websites:

Hardcastle, D and Maughan, R (2018) FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES: THE LIFE AND EXTRA LIVES OF A PROFESSIONAL NERD. Available at: https://unbound.com/books/nerdcubed/. [Accessed 18 November 2018]

OfficialNerdCubed (2018) THE NERD3 BOOK IS HERE! FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES!. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWhWg4bksRk.  [Accessed 18 November 2018]

Lectures:

Fuller, C. (2018) Novelist Claire Fuller. [Talk], Available at: University of Winchester. [Accessed 6 November 2018].

Jefferey, S. (2018) Blogging, Branding and Briefs: An Introduction to Professional Blogging. [PowerPoint Presentation], Available at: University of Winchester. [Accessed 2 November 2018]

P.S. Yet another form of writing to be placed in the Storybook. Enjoy!

[thestoryteller76-blog]

A little quiz...

Hello everyone, the Storyteller here. And now’s time for something a little bit different (and I know I seem to say that every week but the Storybook’s pages are a myriad of variances, after all). Namely, I am going to hold a quiz for those most devoted followers of this tome of tales, and the winner will win a signed copy of the first physical copy of the Storybook to be released! Ever!

The questions are as follows (and I hope to see the answers in the comment section soon enough!):

1) What was the title of the first 100 word story published in the Storybook?

2) What was special about the boxer in the first Tale from the Twitterverse post?

3) What did the man sit on in ‘The Man and his Phone’?

I hope you enjoy the quiz and use it as an opportunity to revisit the various posts that can be found in the Storybook. Finally, thank you all for reading through the Storybook over the last few weeks, and I eagerly await your answers!

[thestoryteller76-blog]

The Man and His Phone:

The man on the log, Sat looking at his cheap phone, Pleased with its plainness.

And now a haiku for The Storybook, this time from the Instagramverse. Enjoy and let me know if you’d like to see more!

[thestoryteller76-blog]

Another, shorter, tale for The Storybook, this time from the Twitterverse. Enjoy and let me know if you’d like to see more! 

[thestoryteller76-blog]

Great story! - I really felt bad for both the dad and daughter. In the second paragraph, however, I think you’ve confused your tenses - ‘eyes were burning red’ is past tense but ‘throat aches’ is present. It’s also really impressive how real a relationship you manage to create in so little words.

broken porcelain doll

Nothing could have prepared her dad for what was happening, nothing could have made it easier. Standing in the doorway of his daughter’s room, she was unaware of his presence but he was painfully aware of hers.

She was curled up on her bed, her hair covering most of her figure as she tried to muffle her sounds. She was crying, a lot, until her eyes were burning red, until her throat aches, until the knot in her chest stopped growing, until the streams of water were visibly going down her face like cracks forming on her pale skin.

Her dad stood here, powerless and lost in his daughter’s pain, as he was watching his little girl turning into a broken porcelain doll, one of those she never wanted to play with.

He didn’t know why, she never told him anything.

She never showed any negative emotion, always smiling, like a pretty doll.

He should have known, really, that no teenager in this world could smile every single day, at all time, and truly mean it. Maybe he hoped his girl could.

He remembers how cute her toothless smile was when she was born, he remembers holding her small frame in his arms and putting her in her bed when she fell asleep in front of the TV.

He remembers telling her that he would never hate her mummy, even if they weren’t together anymore and that they would always be a family. She had smiled that day, she didn’t cry, she never cried in front of him, not since she was eight.

But he did cry in front of her, when his dad passed away, when her mum left him, when he thought she wasn’t there to witness it.

And now, he was the one watching it and he didn’t know what do to other than sit next to her, passing a gentle hand through her hair telling her everything would be okay, until eventually, his broken porcelain doll fell asleep.

[thestoryteller76-blog]

Fantastic story! I already feel worried about what will happen to the protagonist and you capture the eerie feel of an abandoned theme park really well. The only thing I could suggest is maybe to add a bit more description of the park to the beginning of the piece, (maybe with some of the other senses such as how silent the place is?) just to set the scene even further. But I’d love to know what happens next!

The Theme Park

The place before us looked abandoned. The grass that was visible looked dead, and there was a minimal of it in the first place. I could already imagine this place at night - a scenery straight out of a nightmare that leaves you sleepless for days. But we are staying here. Staying the night. If not for a dumb dare, then for the video. If we don’t film something interesting, then we might as well stop filming all together, with our fan base numbers decreasing each day.

If you’re a creator like me, you will know that the funnier or scarier the content, the better, the more views you will get.the more views you get, the more you get paid. Right now, we needed the money, and we would do almost anything to get it. Anything, like staying in an abandoned theme park. A radioactive ghost town. Illegally. This place can only be visited through guided tours, and we are not here with a tour guide. We are here with a mission to film a video, with a content hopefully scary enough to get us more views.

And I knew we would get that, because this place gave me chills just by looking at it, let alone sleeping in it, and trying to conjure spirits in it.

As we stepped closer to the middle of the theme park, I saw a broken baby doll on the side. And by broken, I don’t mean just dirty, with a missing eye. Half of the dolls head was missing, the face broken up and crumbling as I went to pick it up.

Holding it at an arm’s length, I brought the doll up with me to where my team stood; the doll’s creepy eyes seemed to follow my every move, without moving at all. Every inch of my body was telling me to throw the doll away, to leave it where it was, to leave it in peace, to not endanger myself this way, but I didn’t listen; the adrenaline hitting me from just having the doll in my hand. I placed the doll next to me as I sat down criss-crossed in the circle of my friends. Right as I plopped down, they turned their heads towards me, and then towards the doll whose hand I still had a hold of. Little did I know about how this night would go…

[thestoryteller76-blog]

No One

‘Mama?’ cried the baby, cracks splintering its once clean skin…

But no one came…

‘Dada?’ it called, the large crack in its tiny skull spreading, it’s innocent thoughts pouring out…

But no one came…

“Help!” it screamed, it’s left eye being cleaved in half and its ears shattering…

But no one came…

The baby could do no more than lie there and sob as its body completely disintegrated, leaving nothing but a voice and a cry…

‘Mama? Dada? Help! Mama? Dada? Help!” it cried for all eternity, long after its body had turned to dust…

But no one ever came.

Image Credit: Smith, S. (Unknown). (Unknown.) Samantha Smith’s Pinterest. (Unknown). Available at: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/146718900335192706/. [Accessed 20 October 2018].

[thestoryteller76-blog]

Snow Alone

The man walked along the path, not really lagging but not going with much haste either. It was as if he was transfixed by the beauty of the surroundings, for beautiful they were, with the sunlight reflecting off the snow in a glorious oxymoron of heat and cold. However, he was also spurred on by the ice forming on his clothes like it had formed on the stone walls either side. By the look of the footprints on the ground, he wasn’t the only person to come this way, but, presently, he felt like the only person in the world.  

Image Credit: Samuels, J. (2017) (Unknown). janesamuels’s Instagram. December 25. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdIkT5qFmzs/?taken-by=janesamuels. [Accessed 20October 2018]. 

[thestoryteller76-blog]

Fun Abandoned

There’s a certain melancholic feeling when looking at abandoned things. Shopping centers, houses, streets and schools. But I think the feeling is greatest when looking at places that were once full of life and, more importantly, fun. At least, that’s the feeling I get when looking at abandoned theme parks. Ferris Wheels, no longer filled with eager observers, no longer turning, the ticket boxes no longer trailing queues of people. There’s no more laughter and no more shouting, no more running and screaming and excitement. And, yet, you can still feel… can still sense… the old joy. But it’s gone.

Image Credit: Mangham, B (2012). 0353 - Ukraine, Pripyat, Ferris Wheel HDR. Barry Mangham’s Flikr. November 11. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pixog/8197441849/. [Accessed 20 October 2018].

[thestoryteller76-blog]

I love the slightly sarcastic/self-deprecating tone - it made me chuckle to myself - looking forward to the next entry!

First ever post...

My first ever blog post! And as I sit here on my bed at 5.30pm on a Sunday evening, having had since Thursday to think of something to write about, I have absolutely no idea what to say! So I guess I’ll talk about that.

Creating a blog is something I’ve always wanted to do, but like every other average 21-year-old, I don’t feel there’s anything exciting enough in my life for people to actually want to take time out of their day to read. For example, this weekend the most exciting thing that happened was my boyfriend and I making brownies. And by my boyfriend and I making them, I mean I made them whilst he played Rollercoaster Tycoon on my laptop.

Thrilling, I know.

Other than that I spent my weekend lounging around, re-watching American Horror Story on Netflix. I really do need to get job… 

So hopefully at some point something actually exciting will happen that I can post on here for you all to read about… Hopefully. 

Until then I’m just going to keep posting junk like this! 

Thanks for reading xxx

[thestoryteller76-blog]

I love the imagery (very Angela Carter) and pacing - it really draws you to read until the end. Looking forward to more!

𝒜𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓁 𝒜𝓌𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 👼🏼☾♡

𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓅𝒾𝓉𝓎

Honeyed sunshine beams ebbed blindingly from the shadowy jewelled milky way. An amber glow radiated from the otherworldly being like an aurous mist, defining each and every contour and curve of the dainty doll silhouette. The stark spotlight engulfed this boy, igniting the passion of performance within, and transferring the emotions flowing as roaring rivers through his veins via the language of dance. He was no longer a flicker of candlelight flame, but a rich, dazzling beacon. A ball of stardust, a shooting star soaring, gliding gracefully on the blank canvas which was lucky to be marked up and stroked with each precise step and chassé. His feet dotted the floor with a contrast of airy and sharp staccato. The stage was his canvas, an experienced painter controlling every brush-stroke he made with a raw intensity and passion. The canvas savouring every marking made by the artist, lapping up the elegant delicacy. Fluidity and flexibility poured in ripples and waves, building up to a crescendo. Crystals clung in scattered clumps, dusting the broad chest planes, tiny cascading teardrops that glimmered obnoxiously under the sparkling limelight. Chocolate-rich saccharine vocals smothered and caressed, enveloping your eardrums in a soft feathery embrace. Top notes emulating the tranquility and peace of a gentle lullaby, the steady melody a coy tinkling of a cherub’s harp. As the brightest diamond of the night sky began to fade, it was already over. The silky song subsided, and the firecrackers of thousands of exploding meteors shrilly shrieked. It ended as quickly as the euphoria felt during your first kiss. Celestial was everything he was, is and always will be.

[thestoryteller76-blog]

The Rainy Day

Sometimes, you just need a rainy day. It’s a time of rebirth, when the plant life can get a needed refill. It’s a time of beauty, be it through the flash and crash of a thunderstorm or the glowing of a rainbow or even just the putter patter of droplets on glass. It’s a time of relaxation, an occasion where you can say ‘no, I think I’ll just stay in today’. Maybe watch a movie or read a book or just gaze outside. And, finally, it reminds us just how great it is when the sun comes out and shines.

[thestoryteller76-blog]

The Storybook - The Opening

Hello everyone, The Storyteller here. Welcome one and all, to The Storybook, a place for stories, no matter how small. I hope you enjoy your time here as we explore new stories to read and experience. 

I shall attempt to publish semi-regularly and hope to share a number of different story types from 100 word flash fiction, to rhyming poems to haiku, perhaps with some larger stories thrown in from time to time. 

So stick around and make sure to pick up The Storybook when you can. Happy reading!

And, as a teaser:

Banishing the Blank Page:

The Storyteller sat at his desk, desperately trying to think of a story to tell. Anything really. And it only had to be 100 words! How hard could it be, really? Extremely, that's how. The blank page screamed at him, taunting him. "What will you write? It won't be any good, anyway. Don't you have something else you'd better be doing?" And so on. But then the Storyteller did something unthinkable. He put his pen to the paper and wrote. Everything. From dragons flying over head to UFOs, romance and terrible crimes. The Storyteller wrote and banished the blank page.