When you’re first starting out as an author, there are many social media platforms to consider. To manage your time effectively, you’ll need to choose which ones to focus on. Start by identifying your audience and where they hang out. Also consider your time, your skills and your motives for building a community.
However, if you’re a reluctant social media user, here are the benefits on offer:
- You can build a community. Get readers’ feedback on your book or future ideas, share teaser information about your next book, write about topics you care about and invite them to share their views.
- You can promote your website content. If you’ve spent time building a website (yes, we think every author should - see here to find out why.) and writing blogs, you can tell people about the content and encourage them to visit it more regularly. By using hashtags on your posts, you can alert people who are interested in those topics. This helps you reach a wider audience.
- You can sell more books. Social media isn’t usually a place for direct sales. However, you can post buy links to your book occasionally or send readers to another piece of content that has a buy link as a 'call to action’ on the page. Having a set of followers means they’ll be first to know about your latest books and you can use your content to get them excited about buying their copy.
Which social media platforms will help you grow your readership?
The answer to this question is simple: it depends on your audience. If your book is designed to appeal to young readers, you might need to focus on YouTube content, because they’re all used to searching for fan videos of their favourite games. Teenagers tend to be on TikTok or Instagram but not Facebook. The format of posts on Instagram is very visual, however, you still need to say why you’ve shared that image - to prompt comments and feedback. Twitter is a great format for starting debates about the themes in your book. The platform may be in decline, but there are still 330 million active users and it is popular with mainstream authors, book bloggers and journalists. Instagram is increasing in popularity and is a very creative platform. Facebook offers room to post more text and reaches a slightly older audience; it also has the best 'groups’ feature. Many small and large businesses have built groups which relate to their products and services. If your book is a particular genre, you might want to search for Facebook groups or use hashtags on all the social platforms to find conversations relating to your books. LinkedIn is the perfect place for professional content, if you’ve written a business or self-help book. On LinkedIn, your followers will appreciate you sharing your expertise in shorter posts and longer articles.
What content could you share on social media?
Whether your book is a business or self-help book, memoir or novel, you’ll have plenty of visually engaging content to share on social media. Here are the top five ideas from our authors:
- Share snippets of your book, leaving readers in suspense to find out more. Photograph the pages or take a screenshot of your interior layout.
- Photos of your books in different locations: the local bookshop, your library, on a sun-lounger at the beach; why not ask your readers to send you their snaps too?
- Pictures of your holidays, travel, writing locations, or garden because anything which inspires you to write will be interesting for your readers, provided you tell them a mini-story about the photo.
- Landmarks from the settings in your book; if you have written a book based in a particular city, county or country, get some stock photos or take some snaps of the local landmarks to share with your followers.
How often should you post on social media?
If you’re looking to build your community and attract new readers, you’ll need to be active regularly on your chosen social media platforms. There are no rules, but the algorithms do control how many people see your content, so you need to test different types of posts to see which get the best engagement. Posting at least three times a week means your page looks active and if you’re feeling inspired, you can pop something up there every day!
Want more in depth information on this topic?
To help authors navigate social media and build a plan to grow their readership on social media, we held a 'lunch and learn’ masterclass with guest speaker, Renée Wallen. Renée also offers one-to-one coaching sessions so please check out her website if you'd like to get in touch. Please do mention that you learned about her from SilverWood Books!
Want to know more?
If you would like to know more about publishing your book, please drop us a line here.
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