Social Media Guidance for Technical Writers

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So you're a technical writer or documentation specialist who wants to promote your career on social media, eh? That's cool, because social media offers a multitude of opportunities for technical writers and all IT pros who want to be a part of their respective professional communities, engage in networking, stay current on trends, and find clients and jobs.

However, there are some things you should be embracing and other things that you should strictly avoid if you want to succeed at the social media game.

Social Media: Things to Embrace

A number of rules should be followed and performed on the regular with all of your social media accounts. Personally, I use LinkedIn (LI) and X (formerly Twitter). Facebook lacks the professionalism I'm seeking in a social media platform while at the same time providing too many distractions and angry opinionated rants. Instagram is a waste of time for most serious IT professionals and technical writers. I know many who use only LI.

A focus on no more than two or three platforms will help you to be more effective on each of them. It's easy for us to spread ourselves too thin and become markedly less effective on each network. I'm an advocate of quality over quantity; thus, my strategic choice of only two networks.

Target Your Audience: If you've chosen your LI and other social media platform connections carefully, you've already focused on a particular audience or audiences. For me, those intended recipients are technical writers, HR professionals, job recruiters, and IT professionals. And that's it.

Having a precise definition of your target audience(s) is critical to actually reaching them. If you do not understand the recipients of your communications, you cannot—and will not—succeed in effectively connecting or generating engagement with a call-to-action. You will fail to influence them to do things like read your posts or hire you.

Post Daily: It's important to integrate your social media participation into your daily routine. If you want to build your own community or be a valued part of other communities, daily participation is a must. Some professionals can get away with the bulk of their participation occurring Monday through Friday, blowing off the weekends (it really depends on one's target audiences and their habits). A few posts (plus comments and likes) is more effective than just one. But just one is much better than zero.

Proof Posts: There's nothing worse than a social media post by a professional writer that contains errors such as misspellings, poor grammar, bad formatting, or an inferior image or photo. Technical writers—whether we like it or not—are burdened with an expectation that we don't make mistakes like that.

Just like I would assume that Guy Fieri could grill me a pretty good burger if he invited me to a backyard BBQ, others assume that professional writers of any type produce flawless content. As they should. We are specialist who do this all day long; we should be great at it.

The sad part is that so many of the errors I see in social media posts are easily preventable. Typically, it's obvious that the author simply did not proof the message before clicking Post. A basic (and fast; don't blame your busy schedule) proof of the post will typically find any problems. This is a habit to seriously pursue. Online, we're perceived by what people see. If they perceive a C-, we're not going to get an A+ job or client contract.

Keep Posts Short: On a regular basis, I see posts on LI that are simply too long, IMHO. Longer posts (just like longer articles) typically result in fewer readers. The appeal of a post becomes lower with every paragraph added. Modern professionals are simply too busy for long posts (especially when children or a side hustle is involved).

This is unfortunate, because longer posts often feature great content. But a post isn't the right place for them. Instead, take this content and turn it into an article (LI's article feature, which you're reading right now, allows you to create professional pieces). Articles also garnish a larger audience due to their staying power (posts come and go in the average LI feed pretty fast). Remember to keep your posts short and your time-strapped followers will thank you! You'll naturally attract greater engagement, which will manifest as more likes and comments (including more positive comments).

Comment Frequently & Sincerely: One of my marketing mentors once advised that we should all "comment like a bro" on social media. In other words, comment on the posts of others on a regular basis. This need not be overly complex or time-consuming. Sometimes just an "Excellent article, Janet. Great work!" is enough to deliver a positive win-win of support for a colleague and networking power for yourself.

When commenting, remember to respect the original poster. Don't hijack someone's post that features a link to their article with a comment that leads to your article. If you want to promote your article, create your own post.

Also be sure to compliment people when they post about new jobs, promotions, or other achievements. This positivity is infectious and good for everyone in the equation. When others provide positive comments on your posts, be sure to like and, better yet, comment back with a thank you that tags the complimenter.

Participate in Groups: LI features a great selection of groups for most industry segments and professions (X's groups are called communities and are typically less robust than those on LI). I'm a member of several technical writing and documentation groups on LI and post to them regularly every week.

Share Your Work / Humblebrag: Most technical writers produce deliverables. When possible, share excerpts from these deliverables. Or write an article about them. Or produce a podcast episode. All are ready opportunities for you to share your successful projects, mentor others, and humblebrag. Those of you unfamiliar with humblebragging can learn more from my article "Master the Art of Humblebragging ."

Social Media: Things to Eschew

There are as many things to avoid in managing your professional social media as there are to embrace. These may seem relatively common sensical, but they are flagrantly violated on a regular basis on networks like LI and X.

Remember that social media has been shown to be a slippery slope for many, eliciting embarrassingly immature and unprofessional emotional outbursts and sometimes leading to too many hours in front of the keyboard, creating a poor work/life balance.

Avoid Politics & Highly Controversial Topics: On a daily basis, I see technical writers and IT people acting as haters or fanboys of politicians (always more common in an election year, of course). This is foolish for one simple reason: It seriously criticizes and literally repels those who believe the opposite. It helps to remember that you're a technical writer, not an activist.

Similarly, taking a firm position on any highly controversial topic should generally be avoided. Student loans forgiveness, abortion rights, religion, any president or VP, and a host of other topics and celebrities serve only to delight half of your audience while angering the other half (sometimes so severely that they unfollow you).

Limit Time Invested: I'll admit, I enjoy social media. From the networking opportunities to the real-time news to the research and learning benefits, I could spend a lot more time on social media. But I don't.

Why? Because social media offers a huge slippery slope into spending too much time promoting oneself and not enough time on actual work. Or the kids. Or exercise. Or sleep. Or other work/life balance issues that can have a serious impact on our mental and physical health.

Don't Rant or Belittle Others: Just like drivers with road rage, lashing out at others on social media serves only to make one look like a rude idiot. Cursing, angry outbursts, pompous proclamations, derogatory and hateful comments simply make social media participants appear immature, unprofessional, and, well, like jerks. Nobody wants to network with or hire a jerk. Part of managing social media is an effort to appeal to others so they will be open to your communications. You should strive to get people to like you (or at least not dislike you).

Avoid Account Neglect: The opposite of posting and commenting daily is social media is neglect. It's when you "forget" to log into your account for a week or longer. If you care about your career and take social media promotion seriously, learn how to efficiently integrate it into your daily routine.

Some spend 10-30 minutes on social media in the morning over coffee. Others jump in throughout the day for just a few minutes at a time (kind of like a work break cigarette, just without the brown filter).

Many professionals utilize article and post scheduling to help them never miss a beat, even when they're on vacation thousands of miles from their workstation. This is a valuable feature of social media networks like LI and X and allows for consistent publication of a daily or weekly article or podcast episode.

Good Luck

While you should be prepared to make a strategic and significant investment in your social media communications and online business networking, self-check and be wary of spending too much time in this task. I live next to a 1,000-acre forest full of deer and exotic woodpeckers and other cool creatures. It helps remind me to set aside social media and spend some time with the trees.

Another social media opportunity for technical writers is signing up for a premium account. Available on both LI and X, spending a few bucks every month can expand your following, eliminate ads (in the case of X's most expensive plan), and more quickly lead to a job or new client.

Also, instead of complaining about negativity and trolls on social media, remember that you have the ability to unfollow (LI) or mute (X) any account. And there's always the block feature for those really serious cases. Kvetching about the poor quality of the accounts you're following is really just an admission that you're not very good at choosing which accounts to follow.

But that's just my opinion. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

— Curt Robbins, Senior Technical Writer

P.S.: I'm currently taking on new clients. I enjoy helping companies with their documentation and communications strategy and implementation. Contact me to learn about my reasonable rates and fast turnaround.