I hope my headline caught your attention. Although I am not sure these 5 ideas are secrets, they are important and noteworthy.

If you want to use social media to promote your book, these five ideas will help you achieve the success you desire.

Consistency Matters

If you want to promote your book online, you have to be online consistently, sharing valuable and interesting content to create a community of people who are interested in your ideas. Building a community of connections takes time, and showing up consistently is critical.

Small Bursts Of Content Make A Big Difference

When you share your content in small bursts, you create interest in your larger body of work. Short-form social posts may seem insignificant or thrown away, but small bursts shared consistently will whet your audience’s appetite to read your full body of work (your book).

You Don’t Have To Do It All

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the many social media channels available for spreading your audience. The most important priority is to focus on the center of your social media strategy — your own website. Create and share content there, and use your social media profiles to make connections and invite people to your site. If you don’t have time to add value on every channel, choose one or two channels and devote your time to those.

Book Promotion Is Not Self-Promotion

Many authors feel uncomfortable using social media to share their books because they think they will seem self-promotional. Focus on sharing content and adding value and suddenly you are not promoting yourself anymore, instead, you are promoting your book and ideas.

It’s Not About The Book

If you plan to invest significant time, energy, and money to promote your book, you must realize that you will most likely never match those investments with financial return through book sales alone. If this is about money for you, it can’t be about the book, but only for the credibility and recognition the book will bring to you and the work you will find as a result, speaking or consulting. If it’s not about money for you, then you must be so compelled by the desire to share your ideas and message that money doesn’t matter.

How will those five secrets change the way you use social media to promote your book?