Online Confidential is a course designed by a writer, for writers. It is a step-by-step guide to utilise the online space to your best advantage. Say goodbye to online tumbleweeds and ensure your online spaces don’t misrepresent you OR your talent.

So how is your Twitter Game? Are you an expert at TikTok? Are you a pro on the Gram? Yep, I expect that makes me sound like the “never really cool, middle-aged father” that I am, but they are questions you probably should be asking yourself as a creative, if you want to create buzz around you, your brand and your “product”. Although I obviously run this website, and have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn accounts, I am not sure I am utilising them to the best of my ability or certainly not making them work for me as much as I could.

I suspect a lot of us are in a similar boat and think we have it sorted, but don’t realise there are still some things we can do to make social media work for us and help “sell ourselves” effectively. And that is where Online Confidential comes in.

Lucy has provided a course that runs over 6 hours across 5 modules and additional bonus materials. It takes you through some of the basics and explores what you can do to make the most of your online presence.

The main 5 modules include:

• MODULE 1 – First Impressions – what do people see of you online, what image do you portray and what message does this send?
• MODULE 2 – Social Media Best Practices – how to make social media work for you
• MODULE 3 – How to get discovered online – this is what we all want – followers and engagement – but how to do we go about it?
• MODULE 4 – Newsletters and Subscribers – the benefits of regular newsletters and engagement with your followers.
• MODULE 5 – Your social strategy – being on social media is one thing, using it strategically as a tool is another.

The bonus materials include video walkthrus, guidance on writing bios and general ideas to help you make the most of your blogging and social media time.

But the burning question…

Is it any good?

I think that will depend on where you are in your social media journey and how well you use it currently. If, like me, you have a website and a social media presence, but no real strategy on how best to use it to promote yourself, then I think you will find much to think about in these modules. They will likely help demystify some of the stuff that is putting you off creating a website and social media presence, if you are not already online, so are also a great starting point for the novice.

If you have been doing this for years and have thousands of followers, a regular newsletter and a robust social media strategy, then you might not need this course. But you never know what you might learn, so never say never.

And I say this because this isn’t a course designed to tell you exactly what you have to or should do, it is a course based around Lucy’s extensive experience online and as a writer. It is presented fairly informally and each video includes a slide-deck to which Lucy talks, but in a conversational, rather than instructional manner. There are exercises for you to follow along with on the slides and each module presents you with examples of how various social media platforms work, how you can use them, how Lucy uses them, and her experiences along the way. It is clear she knows that not everything she has done will work for everyone, but this is about arming you with the tools that will enable you to work out the best approach for you.

The course is currently around £75 for access to all the modules, which can be undertaken in your own time. I thought I knew what I was doing on social media, but I took away a number of new ideas and plans from this course and do think it would be a benefit for anyone new to this or unsure where to go next with their online presence/marketing.

If you are interested, you can read more about it, and other Bang2Write courses HERE.

Lucy V. Hay is a novelist, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy, as well as her writing workshops and courses.

Bang2write has read 20K+ spec screenplays, unpublished novels and pitch material over the last 17 years as a script reader and script editor.

Based on this exprience, the B2W books include Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays for “Creative Essentials”, as well as its follow ups, Writing & Selling Drama Screenplays  and Writing Diverse Characters For Fiction, TV & Film.

Publishing as LV Hay,  Do No Harm, was nominated in 2 categories for The Dead Good Book Readers Awards, 2019. Her latest is Never Have I Ever for Hodder Books. Her debut, The Other Twin, has been featured in The Sun and Sunday Express Newspapers, plus Heatworld and Closer Magazine. Lucy is currently adapting it Emmy-nominated producers Free@Last TV, too.