A Self Promotion Strategy You Might Not Have Tried · 1:29pm May 21st, 2017
Clickbait and page break abuse.
The sad truth is that I have not done anything productive in quite a long time. In fact, have been informed that going into my page now requires an Archeology degree and a written allowance from Knighty to disturb a site of historic interest. Yet, I am still getting a few favorites here and there and my view counts are still increasing. Part of this comes from people randomly stumbling across my works through search and maybe by word of mouth, but given the timing makes me think there is another piece to this.
I may not have written much recently, but what I have done is comment in groups. Being social reminds people I'm not dead yet. If I give a good piece of advice or share something that someone else finds insightful, then there is a chance someone will see my comment and think "This guy seems cool. Maybe he wrote other cool stuff." Views and favorites ensue.
Granted, this strategy is more for (re)building a fanbase than extending your current horsefame. If you are Skirts, then you already have so much visibility that everyone who might like your stuff is probably aware of your presence through the grapevine. If you are just starting out, maybe even into the low triple digits, then remembering to get out of your dusty old word processor and be semi-active in the community is going to give you some bonus name recognition.
Implementing this strategy is straightforward: go out and find a few active groups you are not in or have not commented on in awhile. Lurk around to get the lay of the land and then make some kind of positive contribution that fits with the group. If you lose interest in the topic, find another group so you are always active in a handful. Definitely make an effort to find groups you feel you can genuinely take an interest in -- no one likes an obvious networking drone.
You can also take an interest in people's stories and leave comments. You get a lot of visibility when you are the only one doing it. Everyone knows The Descendant because for a while he watched the new stories box like a hawk and welcomed every new author to the site. You can do anything here so long as you are presenting yourself well and making an on-topic contribution to the story's comments section.
I think a good policy here is "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it." Cultivating a rep of thoughtful constructive criticism or just pointing out things you appreciate shows that you know what you are doing and have good ideas that might have become good stories. It also lends itself well to short to mid-length comments that aren't going to blow up into energy-draining back and forth with the author about whether their OC is a Mary Sue or if you just do not like their story. This means you save time and energy for more comments.
If you are doing in-comment reviews, I feel the community as a whole is trending more towards "who would like this" reviews rather than your Nostalgia Critic ripup artists. The "Mary Sue" drek is still coming out as we get new writers, but we have all seen these mistakes over and over and are tired of them. Either give us a good story or a so bad its good story. We no longer have the time for plain bad stuff, so do not waste your time (and goodwill) hanging "Waste of time" signs on stuff with Paint cover art and grey vote bars. Maybe a general positive comment along the lines of "Hey, it looks like you are just starting out. Welcome! I think <link> has a lot of good writing tips. Check it out if you get the chance!" Otherwise, it is not your job to slam new people into "their places" with a 10 page thesis explaining in detail the magnitude of their suckage. If someone slams you, you might do more research/refinement, but how often do you really want more of the slammer?
As people write more, they tend to get more focused on writing. But if you do not maintain a presence in the greater community, you are missing osmotic views garnered from reminding people you are a cool person, which might be correlated with cool stories. If you want to be grabbing every promotion you can, comment early, comment often.
I can vouch for the promotion strategy of commenting on groups and other users' stories and blogs, simply because that's the way I managed to get a good number of my own followers, despite not having any stories at the time.
(Side Note: I've even managed to get a couple followers who told me they followed me just because they liked my avatar.)
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I can't quite remember, but I think I had at least 12 followers before I posted my first blog here...
ATM, its purely because of one story and nothing else.
This is good advice. It's also good to see you around, posting stuff. I clearly need to frequent some more group forums