As a freelance writer or business writing pro, not one of us wants to waste our time creating social media that few people want or attend to. At the end of this post there is an interesting presentation on writers who earn over $5K monthly from self-publishing, and you’ll see that one of their characteristics is less time spent on social media than some of the rest of us.

This month, I’m keen to share with you a writer friend who I think is a total whizz at social media and creating standout content. She’s called Helen Reynolds, and she’s a communications professional. She’s also a cartoonist and trainer, working in the public, arts and non-profit sectors. Exceptionally creative, she makes content for her niche – other communications professionals in the same sector, and these are the same people that she runs workshops for.

At the top of this post is an image of Helen’s book, a collection of her cartoons which @weareresource offered to publish. Here’s a favorite:

All of Helen’s work-related content is aimed at a sense of ‘this is what we communications pros have to deal with, but let’s have a laugh about it’. Here’s a fine example of this:

What can we all learn from her approach?

• Focus on niche content for your niche audience… Can you answer: ‘Who is your niche audience and what standout content are you creating for them?’
• Identify a platform on which you will be most active. Helen’s chosen Twitter and is popular here
• If you’ve got a portfolio offer of services, then create a website that describes this helpfully for people, like Social For The People
• Don’t be afraid to go too narrow on your early clients and their niche – Helen has broadened out from local govt, to arts and non-profit sectors as her reputation has grown
• As a solo operator, don’t shy away from being entirely the best version of yourself on social media. If you’re warm, humorous and informal, then let it show…

I hope you’ve found this useful. As per usual here, some interesting links for you:

A couple of weeks ago, I heard the inspiring and dynamic Joanna Penn talk at the Bristol Crime Writers festival. Of note to freelance writers was her marketing steer for non-fiction writers to create blogs and podcasts, but for fiction writers to focus on Amazon KDP Select and paid-for ads on Amazon and Facebook. Joanna’s recent post on how her income breaks down may give you insights.

At the top here I mentioned the presentation on writers who earn over $5K monthly+ from publishing – this is from ALLI, which has lots of helpful resources.

And finally, whatever we write, we need to be skilled at story craft. Here’s a useful and detailed post on this from Jane Friedman’s blog.