OK, I’m Starting to Get the Hang of This Social Media Thing
When I first joined Instagram and Twitter, I had no idea what I was doing, posting pictures and videos facing the wrong way and not tagging people correctly. Now, I still don’t really know all the rules, but I’m getting better at playing the game.
The thing is, social media is necessary for marketing ANYTHING these days. Now that I’m following tons of authors and have joined several author communities (adding Facebook groups in there) I’m seeing the amount of content they put out and it is impressive! Is it effective? No idea! But it shows me how much I have to do just to keep up with trends.
Take Bookstagram, for instance. I’ve never seen that many pictures of different book covers, yet that’s a very popular thing with lots of likes on that profile. I’ve spent a week now trying to be creative with all the ways my book cover could be photographed and am researching different backgrounds I can use (like the one used for this blog post). I hadn’t planned for this particular marketing tactic, so I’m definitely playing catch-up. But as a creative endeavor, it is fun.
Another Instagram strategy is author trains. An author or reviewer or marketer lists 30-40 profiles that you either follow or follow and like a certain amount of their posts. You say on the original post that you participated, and everyone on the list follows you back and likes an equal number of YOUR posts. Not only does it increase your numbers, an important metric on social media, but it also expands your audience and your reach within the author community. You can check out what other authors do to promote their stuff. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Twitter has been a different experience altogether, which makes sense because it’s more about words than pictures. Not that pictures or videos or gifs aren’t included in any posts, it’s just not the point of that medium. On Twitter, it’s all about asking and answering questions about writing from other writers and doing #ShamelessSelfPromos and #WriterLifts with whatever links you want to drop. My number of Twitter followers (which was single digits for a LONG time) has more than tripled over the last week and it’s all because of engaging with other writers, the link drops and the retweets.
It's funny, because when I first started with my newer social media profiles, I was connecting more with people on Instagram and found it easier to have photographic content with my hikes, book launch swag and various author shots. But once I started engaging with other authors on Twitter, I finally had more to say and more to post on that platform. It always takes something like that to remind me just how much I enjoy talking with other writers about the craft, the struggle, and the eventual reward.
Now, is any of this contributing to a great rise in sales? Nope. Not yet anyway. In fact, sales have pretty much dropped off after the initial buzz from the book launch. That’s why the next important step for promoting my book is gathering reviews. The more reviews, the more reliable an indie book or indie author appears in an endless sea of other self-published prospects who may or may not have edited their work. Even though the situation is improving, people are still skeptical of those not traditionally published. And I get it. You know those books have gone through a rigorous process to get to where they are. So for an indie author, reviews are often the golden ticket for legitimacy and increased sales.
For those who have already bought and read and/or are reading/plan to read my book, thank you so much for your support! Please feel free to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and any other place that accepts them. More thanks goes out to my email subscribers, another list I’m desperately trying to grow. And anyone can use social media to help promote their favorite authors by posting pics of book covers and sharing the author’s posts to their feed. That expands the amount of people setting eyes on their work, and that can only be a good thing.