Even though social media can sometimes feel like an intimidating snowball of doom, it can also be a great way to connect with other writers, editors, agents, and readers. Today I’m going to melt that snowball down a bit by sharing some quick fixes to vastly improve your writer brand social profiles in a just a day (or heck, even a few hours).

1. Write a stronger bio

Your bio is generally the first thing people see when they check out your social profile. It is essential to communicate quickly who you are and why someone should care. A vague bio = loss of connection, and connection is the entire reason you’re on social media in the first place.

First things first, keep your bio pithy and to-the-point.

Your messaging should be consistent across social platforms, but it doesn’t have to utilize all the same words.

Also, remember social media is all about person-to-person interaction — even though it doesn’t always feel that way — so your bio should be in first person.

Follow this basic formula: say what you do  + show why your audience should care + offer proof (awards, education, etc) = great bio.

On Twitter

Start with Twitter because the limited word count keeps you focused on just the details that matter.

Your Twitter bio should include either:

• A collection of quick one-word descriptors about what you do (i.e. novelist, memoirist, copy-editor, etc.) or
• A one-liner that gets to the meat of what you do and why they should care.

For example:

“I help creative changemakers improve their personal brands [what you do, who you serve/why they care].”

or

“Author of cyborg cowboy [unique subject] novels [form] like My Book Title [your work], a NY Times bestseller [proof].”

Optionally, you can hashtag keywords to help you turn up in search. For example, if you include the word ‘personal brand’ in your bio, consider hashtagging #personalbrand. You may also want to tag the company you work for, founded, or write for, so you come up in search for those terms as well (i.e. “Brand Director @BinderCon”).

On LinkedIn

Even with more room here, keep your bio tight with these tips:

• Offer a snippet of backstory or demonstrated expertise that adds credibility, but don’t be too obnoxious in tooting your horn. Tell people a little about what drives you to do the work you do.

• Be sure to think about who you’re trying to speak to. Colleagues, editors, agents, readers and clients may have slightly different interests.

• If you have any honors, awards or life experiences that apply to your brand, drop in a short sentence to showcase your accomplishments.
• Offer an opportunity to keep the conversation going. Invite them to email you, connect or visit your website.

On Facebook

Use a pared down combination of your Linkedin and Twitter bios for your Facebook page.  

With recent Facebook page updates, there are several places to separate specific information: Affiliation, About, Biography, Awards and Story. You can find all of these options under About on the left side of your Facebook page.

You can also pick categories for your page, which I recommend for search purposes.

On Instagram

Your Instagram bio should be very similar to your Twitter version, however, if possible add a couple of key titles to your name field as well. This tactic helps you show up more readily in searches.

For instance, instead of “Andrea Guevara” I might put “Andrea Guevara, brand strategist.” Try to use terms that you think your audience would use to search. Don’t be afraid to add some emojis!

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2. Take a better profile picture

Like it or not, humans are visual beings. So don’t use a crappy, poorly-lit selfie for your professional social profile.

I love you, but get another person to hold the camera. You could prop the camera on a table, or counter and use a timer. Even if it isn’t a professional headshot, surely it will turn out better than a selfie.

Take the photo today and post it today. It really shouldn’t take long and you’ll be proud of your upgraded look.

Then when you have more time and a bigger budget, invest in a professional headshot.

3. Upload a powerful cover image

Your cover image should usually consist of one of these features:

• A picture of you doing something important (like a Ted talk),
• A high quality promotional image (like your latest book),
• An image that portrays the essence of what you do/who you are. For instance, mine is usually a beautiful, evocative nature shot with a short inspiring saying.

It’s not that you can’t feature other ideas, but remember you’re trying to give people an idea of who you are and what value you offer.

Specific platform recommendations:

On Twitter, use a cover image that encapsulates the essence of what you do. For Facebook, go with either an essence of what you do image, or a call to action to “like” the page, or sign up for email list. For Linkedin, I recommend a cover image that demonstrates your expertise (i.e. a photo of you speaking or teaching).

Also, I know famous people break all of these rules, but don’t base your social profile on their methods. The normal rules do not apply to them — they are already big shots. Once you’re a big shot you can have an enigmatic bio, oddball images and the like. Not until then.

4. Clean your online house

As writers, we often feel like we need to be on every new social platform that pops up. I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep up with all of them. And as a brand strategist, trust me when I say that you’ll get a lot farther by doing what you’re best at rather than becoming a social media scatterbrain.

Let’s get rid of some of your seldom used social accounts.

Do a quick Google search of your name and see what comes up. If there are any social accounts you don’t really use any more, deactivate them. Don’t delete them though, because you’ll want to keep your username reserved. This helps prevent others from using the same username and creating confusion.

Don’t worry about having a presence on all the cool kid platforms.

The two most important principles are to: be where your ideal market (readers) are and keep your profile current and useful. So go ahead and free up some headspace and time by deactivating those ho-hum accounts.

5. Share quality content, quickly

Coming up with consistent, quality shareable content is one of the big keys and struggles to building your readership online.

However, the first step to begin boosting engagement can be simple: Post other people’s excellent content, then interact with others.

Of course I’m not talking plagiarism here; I’m talking about sharing links to articles, posts, memes, videos, etc.

But before you just jump in and start spamming your feed — you know when a bazillion posts all from one person fill your feed? Yeah, that’s called spamming.

Don’t do it; just do this instead:

• Make a list of 10 people or brands who have awesome, relevant content. (We’ll help you get a head start here!)

• Next, sign up for a FREE Buffer account, It takes thirty seconds.

• Pick a wonderful piece of content from each of those brands on your list. Create 10 posts within Buffer (you can easily schedule them to drop at later times). Optionally: add a sentence or two about why you like it, or to put it in context.

Depending on what options you’ve selected, you now have at least a couple days of great content to share.

Keep up your momentum and schedule yourself ten minutes per day to find more quality posts and schedule them using Buffer and don’t forget to like, retweet and respond while you’re at it.

If you use this post like a checklist (and you totally should), you will have a better profile picture, a more applicable cover image, a powerful bio, and 10 pieces of quality content scheduled, plus you’ll also deactivate those useless, dusty old social profiles you don’t use. So go ahead and upgrade your online presence today.

I’d love to see your improved profiles, so please leave a comment below!

I get it; It goes against your anarchist, artist nature.

A few years ago after nearly two decades as an entrepreneur, I came back to my love: Writing.

About a year into my time at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, a classmate and I attended an all-day marketing for writers seminar. Somewhere around the second or third presenter, I was totally overwhelmed. I thought the hardest work I’d do as a writer would be the writing. I had no idea just how much the publishing industry had tightened its belt, and how much promotion was now in writer’s hands.

I wanted to create art, not be a one-woman marketing show.

The van Gogh effect

Writers are often overwhelmed or even repulsed by the idea of self-promotion and having a personal brand. Heck, a lot of us don’t even know what that really means. We’ve been conditioned to think it means buying into a commercial system rigged to churn out saleable wears, but not true art.

Vincent van Gogh is often brought up as the poster child of this ideology. He’s the ultimate artist martyr. He eschewed commercial pursuits and is widely accepted as a true artist.

I wonder though, isn’t it possible to have both?

In her bestselling book, You’re a Badass at Making Money, Jen Sincero says, “Your gifts, talents and desires were given to you because you are meant to thrive and share your youness with the world as only you can.”

The ability to create true art and have a successful career do not have to be mutually exclusive ideals.

Celebritizing artists

One of the ways we’ve painted ourselves into a corner is evident in our cultural obsession with celebrity. Wildly successful writers are held up high while we admire and think, I’m not outgoing like that, or I don’t have that talent, or I don’t have those connections. In each of those comparisons we doom ourselves to mediocrity or even obscurity. Success seems impossible or random.

We forget that there is so much room in the chasm between starving artist and mega-bestseller.

Meanwhile our society is starved for authentic connection, which is key to a successful personal brand.

Think about the last time a book, article, podcast or TV show moved you. Chances are there was something genuine about it that grabbed ahold of you.

I believe the most artistically contrarian thing you can do nowadays is to be totally rooted in exactly who you are.

Stop waiting to be chosen

There’s virtue in writing for writing’s sake. Don’t get me wrong, but most of us still need to make a living.

The writing world is one of the few industries built on a precedent where people are expected to work for years on a project in the hopes that someone will buy and promote it.

As our industry changes now there’s a massive opportunity, if we shift our mindsets.

Imagine if we started treating ourselves like the valuable brands we actually are, looking at our work not as just art, but as valuable assets. We might just create better ways to make a living while preserving the quality of our art.

Instead of waiting for someone to choose us, it’s time to buy in to our own value and build our own audience.

It may take some mental reprogramming to effectively switch from the legacy we’ve been taught. Like me, you may have been told to shut up, sit down, or fall in line or that you’d never make it as an artist.

It’s time to let that all go. If we as writers don’t understand what value or beauty we bring to the world, no one else will.

More than ever, we need truth tellers and artistic leaders who can give us the insights into humanity and culture that just isn’t present in mass-produced pop culture.

Crafting your personal brand is not selling out. It is about getting clear and buying in to who you truly are. Amid the increasing cacophony of messages, we must not only have a strong voice, but one that comes from being deeply rooted in who we are.

Start being your own advocate

Six months after van Gogh’s death, his brother’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger inherited his huge collection of paintings, drawings and letters. Understanding the intrinsic value of his work, she made it her mission to promote it by telling his life’s story through the art and letters he’d left behind.

Imagine if she had thrown his paintings out, or sold them just to earn some quick money for her and her son. Instead, she gifted the world with an irreplaceable artist’s work.

I wonder how many times the world has missed out on important art because it followed the artist to the grave, simply because they didn’t have an advocate like Jo.

The world needs your voice and it’s time to become your own advocate.

Begin here

Take a few minutes and grab a notebook or open a blank Word doc.

Think about what you really want. Give yourself permission to imagine a life and a career unbound by old ideologies.

What makes you feel most alive? Do some stream of consciousness writing; let whatever comes to mind flow without judgment.

Next, write down five characteristics that make your creative work unique and valuable. If you need help, ask some friends to tell you why they love your work.

If you ground yourself in what’s possible rather than shackling yourself to a set of outmoded beliefs, you may begin to see opportunities you were once blind to.

Our personal brand exists whether you are consciously creating it or not.

Go ahead and be an anarchist, but understand why your version of anarchy is so valuable. And position yourself in a way that those who will appreciate it can find you.