Creating a Social Media Strategy
Establishing your online presence should be one of the first steps in your marketing plan. Creating a strong social media and web presence provides a great outlet to promote your book everywhere. There are millions of consumers who are just one click away from sharing your book with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. And you can take steps to make it even easier for them to make that click.
There are many different social media platforms – but you should focus your time and efforts on sites that will be most beneficial for you. Rather than attempt a presence on all sites, it’s better to start with two or three of them. Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads are usually an appropriate start for authors – but you should determine where your audience spends most of their time to establish which sites are most beneficial for you.
There are a few things that you can do to make your social media efforts successful and worth your time. Here are some helpful tips:
- Start Early – Start your social media efforts at least a few months before your book is scheduled for release. Don’t wait until last minute – it takes time to build an audience.
- Be Consistent – Use your author name as your handle for all social media accounts. Include a photo of yourself rather than your book on your profiles so your readers can identify with you as a person.
- Stay Current- Be sure to stay current and regularly post to all of your accounts.
- Post Relevant Content – Add relevant and informative posts to your accounts that aren’t constantly pushing your audience to buy a copy of your book. Sharing news articles about your book topic or something interesting about the literary field in general are great posts. You don’t want to flood your audience with posts only about your book.
- Make Purchasing Easy – Be sure to include purchase information and a link in the ‘about’ section of your social media accounts.
- Use Facebook Events – Create a Facebook event for upcoming book events or public appearances. This will ensure that your audience gets all of the important information that they need.
- Give an Inside Look – Share chapters or special excerpts of your book – this is a great way to give your audience an inside look, enticing them to purchase and continue reading your book.
Social media is a very important part of your marketing strategy, but it is not the only form of web presence that you should have. Read our next post on how you can promote your book using a blog, including what type of content is best to share.
