Thursdays with Amanda: Social Media Critiques, Part 11

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.

Continuing with the social media critiques! Again, I’m condensing my thoughts and BOLDING content that I feel hasn’t been said before.

1. Cindy Scinto provided her website, blog and a few Facebook sites.

• The website is very cluttered. I didn’t realize you had a top nav at first, because there was just so much to look at…and consequently, I had a brief moment in which I feared I had stumbled on a spam site. So the main point here is the site needs to be cleaned up, the ads removed, and a clear call to action provided for the visitor.
• For your blog, I’d say your blurb against Winepress publishing may rub new visitors the wrong way. So be careful with that. The blurb was the first thing I looked at.
• As for the blog content itself, all of the three posts were content that I could get elsewhere…so speaking as a potential reader, this doesn’t give me a real reason to visit this blog again. I want original stuff!
• I feel your Facebook pages could be combined. They revolve around books that are essentially the same theme, just repackaged. I feel your “heart like mine” readers are similar to your “regifted” readers, and so putting the two together would mean those who buy Regifted would maybe then buy Heart Like Mine and vice versa.

2. Megan Sayer provided her Website/Blog

• I like this. Clean design. Clear purpose. Solid content. and photos!!
• Clearly, this blog is more of a personal thing than it is a promotional tool…which is okay. I think at some point the fact that it’s a well-done personal blog can make it automatically turn into something bigger. So I’d suggest getting your words in front of others in the blogging community. Guest post on mom blogs and mom sites (like Babble.com) and then have a killer byline that pushes people to your personal blog. Or, make friends in the blog world! Attend BlogHer and other great events to rub shoulders with the best of the best. Basically, do these things and I think your blog could grow…that is if you want it to. Sometimes, it’s okay to have a personal space online that does its own thing.

3. Cynthia Hickey submitted her website and her blog

• The website design doesn’t fit my browser. It requires me to scroll right, which will annoy some users. Also, the top image is a bit skewed and distorted. Also, the top nav has a funky design that is hard to read…I really hate to be so blatantly honest here, but the site looks outdated. Just the way the book covers are positioned and how the colors are coming across. I know you’re a published author, Cynthia, so if you want a great online experience, you may want to get this site redesigned.
• Your blog is MUCH cleaner and therefore a happier place for viewers 🙂
• It’s not updated very frequently, and the posts that are there don’t have any comments. So I think it may be time to either refocus or ditch the blog or roll out a totally new web presence.

Alright…thoughts from the peanut gallery? Do YOU have a blog that is more for you than it is for your career? I want to know!