Eneh Akpan Writes: Facebook

Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2022

#1262: From Russia Without Gloves

Ukrainian civilian apartments shelled by
Russian fighter jets.
Photo Courtesy: Facebook

Bear hugs

Come without gloves

And in a Russ-ia

With its mili-shia

Crowding borders

Like blood brothers

On a vendetta

A nation

That don't believe in God

Will combust

Like matchsticks on

Hot desert sod

Taking Ukraine

Inflicting grave pain

Rising from a revolution

From a monarchy

To lethal injection

Of anarchy

Into a democracy

Is this your proof of literacy

What happened to diplomacy

It's the 21st century

Playing judge, prosecution

And jury

It's your court

It's your call

Take a shot

At peace

If you please.

Akpan

Monday, September 22, 2014

7 Ways Social Networking Makes You a More Confident Writer

Social networking involves a lot more than sharing on Facebook or joining conversations on Twitter or even posting photos on Instagram, Pinterest and StumbleUpon. Running a blog on Blogger or Wordpress or any of the other blogging sites is also social networking. And that includes participating in online writing communities like Writing.Com, WritersDigest.Com and GoodReads. Keeping these points in mind I’ll like you to tag along as we explore the limitless resources a writer can avail himself of by indulging this great web tool.

1. Connect with Writers Who Write Similar Genres –

Connect is the realest word in networking right now and social networking sites have made it perfectly easy to connect—you can follow, add to circles, friend, add to a list, receive notifications from folks who share similar interests with you. But the word carries well over social media platforms so much so that its present weight of meaning has made its basic interpretation inadequate. When you are surrounded by folks who share your passion, the vibes come off you in waves and charge up the atmosphere with electric potential.

2. Develop an Authoritative Voice –

Whether we realize it or not, the more we share content with our network, the bolder we become in constructing descriptive titles. If you are a twitter fanatic, you know you’re stuck with 140 characters to express yourself less, if you add links. This goes to boost your writer confidence in a whole lot more ways than you could ever possibly imagine. You learn to believe in the power of your own words and ideas. You also fine-tune your creative ability in crafting sensational titles because you get to judge firsthand how catchy your words are in grabbing people’s attention. This is especially true if the posts are re-shared articles by big time websites.

3. Hook Up with Mature Writers and Publishing Insiders –

Social networking would be a pretty sleazy neighborhood on the cyber sphere if this option was not a given. I signed up on Writing.Com which I found when I googled the word writing, because I wanted to learn more on fiction writing within a community of experienced writers. I’ve had no cause to regret that positive step. Besides, this blog is a reality because of that earnest decision I made five years ago to join the wonderful folks of a community I’ve come to call Facebook for Writers. By engaging your connections, you create a personal niche and find your place as a writer. And you know the feeling that accompanies being accepted by folks you revere; personalities you aspire to be associated with.

4. Boost Your Site Traffic –

By driving traffic to your site or blog, social networking offers you an avenue to express yourself; to be yourself. You find release and discover the true meaning of self-expression as art blends with communication to create personal relevance in a highly competitive marketplace. All at once, you are transmitted from a lonely quiet world into a full-blown broadcaster. SMO keeps your audiences pouring in and puts your site out there where it ought to be. And that sort of changes everything. It gives you faith in what you can achieve as an individual.

5. Maintain Your Online Presence –

Networking is the world at your fingertips. Microblogging—conversations, mentions, comments, shares—are all ways to keep yourself buried in the craft of writing. Your writerly ego gets a boost every time you create something with words and you other people to respond. Social networking is kind of big on stuff like the ones listed above. Never a dull moment as you are constantly served opportunities to present yourself as a writer to the cyberspace and to make your subconscious aware of the fact. In other words, networking helps to groom the fellow on the inside.

6. Site Branding –

All that talk about networking falls through with a shearing sound if people cannot identify you for who you are or what you do. Social networking makes it easy to talk about what you are up to, what you’ve been up to and what you are all about. Your site gets the recognition it requires; it’s a medium to advertise your private little corner and call the world’s attention to your personal space. Back in the day, you would have paid one of the big media channels to do this for you, not anymore. And when your audience acknowledge your site for what it is through personal effort, your writerly ego is enhanced.

7. Market Your Talents –

You can put your books and other products out there where the buyers are. Market your wares like a big advertising firm would and it makes you feel big. If you can open up about your talent, letting the world in on it, spilling your gut out in the open, you can consider calling yourself a writer a piece of cake. I don’t think this last bit needs much rambling but it’s one thing to discuss the big authors on your network and a whole ‘nother talking about you and your books. The latter sort of changes your perspective; changes the way the writer on the inside takes on the world around him.

Yeah, that’s 7 ways to get your ego positively fired up through active, consistent participation in social networking; 7 ways to turn your world around and pointed in the right direction all because you tried. Wouldn’t you rather walk this path?

Keep your pens bleeding!

Akpan

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Why You Should Google Yourself

English: The three biggest web search engines

Courtesy: Wikipedia

WritersDigest.com at a time featured/tweeted an article with the title What Agents Want to See When They Google You. I'm not sure those are the exact words but it's close enough for a working title. This post is similar to that one. Difference is what literary agents seek don't count for much in light of what you anticipate.

Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and let's not forget the giant Russian search machine, Yandex.ru, (this is one of my blog's top traffic sources) could be a lot more fun for writers and creators of web content if you know how to wield them to boost your writerly ego. You can learn a lot more about your online presence and image by reading what other users—especially, if these users constitute people you've never really associated with on any of the social networking platforms—are saying about you.

The coolest way to find out what sort of image you have created online is by googling yourself. You may have to use a different browser than the one you're used to (search engines like Google often than not gives you cached copies of web pages you've visited on the first page of search results). You might want to use a different system all together. You might be amazed what folks say about you/your blog/website. I have.

You ought to find out whether the image you've been angling to portray—the one which drove you to create a site—aligns with what readers see when they view your platform. In other words, ascertain that the idea you put on the line is what is delivered into their bosom. This is one guaranteed method to help you determine you're hitting your target audience and find out your blog/site tows the same line as who/what you wish to be identified with.

Here, a personal example, I once Googled myself and one of the search results happened to be a website that collects URLS and groups them into different categories based on each site’s primary focus. There were categories of all varieties. It had blogs/sites listed under sports, education, apps and so on. In the midst of these assortments was a section devoted to blogs/sites centering on writing—creative writing. You can guess the one that featured my blog.

Yandex Homepage

I was thrilled to know that somebody recognized my blog for what it stands for. Rather, for the impression I set out to achieve from the onset when I created it. I think it did add some to my writerly ego. You deserve to know what people around the web think and say about you or your site. And that's why you need to open your browser right this minute and get right down to work.

The results might amaze you. Then again, who knows? You might get a really good shake-up which may turn out to be the wake-up call you've needed all along.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Friday, September 20, 2013

2 Paybacks of a Fine-Tuned Setting

Getting to Know You (short story collection)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The geographical location and moment in historical time where and when the events of a story unravels is its setting. In a short work of fiction, this element of story may be disregarded but not in the longer form of short fiction or the novel.

Exquisite, fine-tuned settings that take the reader by the hand into the landscape in glittering details and this woven into a vista of background history of the people might very well be the platform that launches a story from obscurity to fame.

1. Originality:

This may not be as apparent in a really short story as it might be in the long form of the short story or in the plot of a novel. But it might very well be the breather the writer needs to create a unique universe; a place where his characters can readily adapt and become living, breathing people. Real people. A well-developed setting can achieve such a feat.

2. Plausibility:

A setting that shows depth and distance becomes its own peculiar world possessing its own set of rules, which govern the events, and the citizens of that unique state. If you create a sleeping beauty-ish universe then you have to make it palpable how an entire kingdom can stay in a coma defying every known medical code and then rouse itself several years later as easily as a child coming off a midday nap awakens.

Developing the setting for your story is like pulling weeds in your lawn, trimming the plants in your garden, repainting the porch to create a sharper contrast of your entire house. Every curve is placed in proper perspective and every outline is well defined.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Do The Thing You Love That Sells!

We often hear people say, ‘Write to Please Yourself!’ (Which is true.) We are told to choose subjects we are deeply passionate about and I’d like to take this a step further in this write up.

Do the thing you love that actually appeals to other people.

How can you tell people are going to buy into your idea? Well, you can’t. That sounds mean, don’t it? But you can rest in the fact you did the right thing.

Study the market!

Of course, we may not always know for sure, in what genre we will make our big hit. And it’s been said, ‘Do not set a deadline for success.’ I agree with that 100%. I guess I’m one of the lucky dudes who found role models who have made it to the top rung of the ladder from the depths of their dungeons and went one step at a time. The beautiful thing about this is I can relate. I can copy their examples.

Break your talent(s) or gift(s) down to the basics:

What’s that you have in your hand;

What uses can you put it to;

Which of these functions lead upward;

Which aspect appeals to your audience;

What will give you the satisfaction of achievement and trigger the cash flow?

‘Successful art or Commercial art is Self-Expression plus Communication.’

- Steven Barnes

You have to save a little love for the guy who needs what you got to give. You must have enough of that kind of respect for your audience so they know you’ve been looking for them like they’ve been waiting for you to come out of incubation.

Think of it. There’s actually people out there waiting for somebody like you to come along with your stuff. Showing you need them as much as they need you can make all the difference between a hit and an all-out flop.

Seasoned artists are true to their hearts while watching out for the hearts of their readers or audience.

Work on what you love and spill your passion over into what the market wants. There’s no greater gig on earth than getting paid for doing something you’re truly in love with.

To be straight up about this, it’s not an easy job. Finding something you’re good at and turning it into what sells are on opposite sides of the coin. Sometimes, you might look to the money instead of the art. But if you keep at it long enough, at some point, you will exhale!

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Saturday, August 25, 2012

20 Payoffs of Social Bookmarking

Hi, well met, Reader!

I’d like to discuss the seemingly infinite dividends of social bookmarking with you, if you got the time.

Social networking has caught and held on like a bad case of cold, on the web, these few years. Almost everyone who’s had anything to do with the computer and the internet (especially, the internet) is a member of one or more social networking site(s) (SNS).

Social bookmarking thrived in the wake of social media platforms like MySpace, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, twitter and between 300-500 other sites. Many internet surfers are yet to dig into the treasure trove of this wonderful web tool even though, it offers a variety of goodies which are often as free as air.

You’ll possibly glean bits and pieces of the stuff I got up here on many websites and weblogs but heck, why can’t I do it as well if I can?

The following lines of sentences are my take on essentials of social bookmarking if there ever was one. You might find I did a rundown of some points but believe me, those are better off as stand alones and don’t need me gilding them over.

So, if you’re ready, here I come:

1. Up Your Visibility –

If you blog or own a website, this is for you. This is one way to be seen and heard, of sharing your blog/site across a wide and diversified platform brimming with readers waiting for your content.

2. Human Powered Search Engine –

People-generated search provides answers instead of bots running the show.

3. Find People in Similar Fields –

Some media platforms like Twitter, suggest people for its users to follow based on that user’s tweets and interests. An avenue to link you up with skills/talents operating on the same wavelength with you, in other words.

4. Develop an Authoritative Voice –

Whether we realize it or not, the more we share stuff across the web, the bolder we become in constructing descriptive titles. This can boost you up if you’re a writer/blogger. You learn to believe in the power of your words especially, if the posts shared are from big name media sites.

5. Rub Minds with Big Shot Media Gurus –

Top media groups and publishers host Q&As or interactive sessions on SNS platforms. That means you get to meet folks at the top rung of the ladder in your field of expertise easily.

6. Boost Your Site Traffic –

This one is ooh so obvious. When you share your posts, more people find it. Easy.

7. Information at Your Fingertips –

That’s what social bookmarking is all about. Social media are like information banks because millions update links every second.

8. Links, Links, Links –

Millions to choose from and explore!

9. Maintain Your Online Presence –

Well-meaning bloggers might frown at this one. But, there are days when it feels like you’re drowning in offline work and barely have the time to write. Micro blogging backed up with resourceful links might be the only technique available for keeping up your online appearance.

10. Fast Indexing of Blogs by Search Engine Bots –

Social networking sites submit your links to search engines. So, every time you share your site content, you’re practically, setting up your blog for fast indexing in search engine bots.

11. Boost Search Engine Ranking –

Surfers migrate to your blog increasing your blog’s popularity and shooting you up search engine rankings.

12. Increased Fanbase –

13. Site Branding –

Well, if you keep whacking people on the head with what you’re up to, your face will pop up every time they think about that product.

14. Find Skills for Hire –

People sharing their posts are basically, telling us; “Lookit here! See what I can do. Hire Me!”

15. Market Your Talents –

You can put your books and other products out there where the buyers are. It’s another way of advertising.

16. Accessible on Multi-platforms –

Your PC, smart phone and tablet browsers will take you to your social bookmarks anywhere you go in the world as long as you’re connected to the www.

17. Add Keywords and Tags For Search Optimization –

Keywords and tags give you an edge in searches.

18. Generate Instant Backlinks –

Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance. Google's description of their PageRank system, for instance, notes that Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. – Wikipedia.

19. Spread News and Information Faster –

20. Increased Awareness –

This is a matter of popularity. So many social networking sites, so many channels to display your wares to millions of fans. It’s like a window into a world of limitless opportunities.

What are the odds?

Bleed your pen!

Akpan