Be Social Media Savvy
Social media has rapidly become one of the most effective ways of reaching a large number of people in seconds. For authors, this is great! Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram offer you the chance to join a huge – and growing – online community of readers and writers, to network with people you otherwise wouldn’t reach, to find and share information and, of course, to promote your book.
For many authors, social media is their primary means of marketing their book. They can reach readers to share news, views and information about their new title. They can interact and connect directly with readers and other authors to help build their writer network and readership. They can build their author brand online without having to dedicate the time to building an author website. And best of all? For the most part, it costs absolutely nothing.
Here are our top tips to help you make the most of your online platforms:
Make sure you are discoverable
It sounds obvious, but it’s something that authors often overlook. If you have social media pages, you want people to be able to find them so keep this in mind when you are creating your accounts. You want to be discoverable so don’t pick an obscure username that no one will ever guess or remember. Try to stick to your name or pen name (think @Author_Surname, rather than @4uth0r4739205). Make sure that you include a biography on your pages so new readers can find out more about you and your work. Include a link to your website if you have one, or a link to buy your book if not. You will also need to select images that represent you as the author and your book so make the most of these spaces; high-quality images will help you to create professional-looking accounts.
Be creative
Studies show that social media posts that include an image will reach a larger percentage of your audience. Not only will being creative help you to get more engagement, but it will also make your timeline look more interesting and exciting. Post photos of your book, events and media coverage to help this news reach more people. Also, share behind-the-scenes photos. Are you working on your second book? Have you just received some marketing materials? Perhaps your books have just come in from print? Take a quick photo and share it with your followers. A visual post is more likely to stop people in their tracks
Share news and views
Tempting though it may be, you don’t want every social media post you share to be about your book. Your followers don’t want you to be a ‘pushy salesman’. Social media is all about the conversation; you need to be interactive, informative and engaging. Have you seen an interesting news article? Share it with your thoughts – you might attract like-minded followers as a result. Has someone else’s tweet caught your eye? Retweet with your own comment and add your voice to the conversation. There are lots of different ways that you can get involved, but the main thing to remember is that the more you engage with other users, the more likely you will be to attract followers.
Get trendy with #hashtags
We’re all familiar with the term ‘hashtag’, but what does it actually mean? In social media vocabulary, a hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by ‘#’ which identifies a keyword or topic of interest and facilitates a search for this term. For authors, hashtags can be a great way of getting their posts in front of other users, especially on Twitter and Instagram.
Keep an eye on the trending topics when you log in to your Twitter account – there might be some that are useful to you. By tapping into these trends and hashtagging key terms, you make your post (and as a result, your account) more discoverable to a wider group of people. Eventually, you’ll see which hashtags work for you and which don’t. But don’t go overboard. Studies show that tweets using more than 2-3 hashtags see a fall in engagement.
Offer exclusive content!
Everybody loves a freebie! Think about offering your readers an incentive to follow you. This can be anything from an exclusive chapter from your next book, a seasonal short story, some never-before-seen illustrations from your kid’s book… You could run competitions or giveaways to win a copy of your book. Make the prize more desirable with added extras – signed by the author, a bookmark, and the chance to appear in your next book… This kind of exclusive content is a great reason for people to follow your pages.
Don’t spread yourself too thin…
Not all social media platforms will be a good fit for every author, or indeed every book. Be strategic and think carefully about whether your planned idea will work for the social media site you want to post it to. For example, a recipe book with beautiful photographs will work brilliantly on Instagram where you can tap into both the ‘Bookstagram’ and cooking communities, but it’s more difficult to be creative with a straight adult fiction novel – you can only post your book cover so many times! Perhaps you would be better focusing your efforts on Facebook, where you can encourage a discussion or feedback, or Twitter where graphics and computer-generated content is more accepted.
Concentrate on the social media platforms that work for you. If you’re a Twitter guru, but Facebook is your worst nightmare, play to your strengths. If you know for a fact your readers won’t be on Instagram, is it worth creating an account? Ultimately you’ll find out which social media pages work for you and which you enjoy using most.
