Thread by @BowTieWriter, So with Elise's permission, I wanted to do a thread about what [...]

Mike Headley

BowTieWriter

So with Elise& #39;s permission, I wanted to do a thread about what I look for when I do a social media audit of folks. I& #39;ve done some for friends before, and I thought people might be curious to see my process.

To be clear, not claiming it& #39;s anything groundbreaking. Just what I do. https://twitter.com/EliseIsWritinYA/status/1265614134030110720">https://twitter.com/EliseIsWr...

https://twitter.com/EliseIsWritinYA/status/1265614134030110720

Step 1: Check out the social media profile on the initial site. I& #39;m looking for clear information in the bio and a link to the page. Also, consistent branding.

So let& #39;s see what we have here.

Okay. Got ourselves a nice clear header, good profile pic. Let& #39;s check out that bio.

I don& #39;t personally like "Almost #AmQuerying <BOOK TITLE>" as a lead. Your bio is like your hook; when people mouse-over your icon they see that bio. You want it to tell people who you are. Telling me what you& #39;re working on when I don& #39;t even know you& #39;re a writer? That& #39;s confusing.

Also, I have my rants about book titles being poor hooks in other places because they& #39;re too abstract. If you look at the pinned post, "I write YA fantasy inspired by Bronze Age History..."

THAT is specific and evocative. Honestly more striking than a book title.

All of this is basically just copy things. The short version is lead with your hook. Tell us briefly what you do.
"Write of Mediterranean Bronze-Age inspired YA fantasy" is much more compact and clear. Don& #39;t let your bio try to do too much.

There is, however, a clear link to the website. Good! That& #39;s important. If I want to learn more about you, I have a clear path to do that.

Last note: pictures are good. Super abstract avatars can be hard to parse (but it& #39;s okay if you don& #39;t want yo face out there)

(Incidentally the reason for that is people are trained to recognize faces. We can parse something as a face even if it is dime-sized or smaller as an icon on a website. If your picture doesn& #39;t have a face - even a cartoon face - that& #39;s more of a problem).

TO THE WEBSITE!

Okay on the webage something immediately jumps out to me: I cannot clearly parse this text.

The white text on the almost-white table is really hard to parse. Also, this image isn& #39;t BAD, but it& #39;s pretty generic and not exactly evocative of a writer. I see: PLANTS.

Scrolling down I get a full screen of a big library thing.
Several Wordpress themes do this now: they& #39;re designed almost more for mobile, so on desktop you get HUUUUGE pictures.

Depending on the theme, you can scale down those pictures so they aren& #39;t as ginormous.

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