Learn How To Promote Your Book on Social Media
Congratulations! You’ve written a book and gotten it published, but now comes what we call “the hard part”: figuring out how to market your book on social media (and everywhere else).
If you’re feeling lost, trust us, you’re not alone. We’re here with some helpful tips for how to promote your book on social media and start planning your book launch strategy.
Before You Get Started: What Are the Best Social Media Platforms for Authors?
With your book launch getting closer every day, you’re probably feeling pressure from your publisher (and especially yourself!) to start promoting your book on social media. But before you get started, it’s important to know where to begin.
When we start discussing a book launch strategy with our clients, we first help them identify which social media platforms best fit their voice, brand, and audience. Let’s quickly go through the six primary social media platforms.
Facebook, owned by Meta, is the world’s largest social media platform and is widely used to connect with friends and family, community groups, local news, and businesses. You can post any kind of content, from a simple written message to a long-form video, making it easy to share whatever media you want.
Close behind Facebook in terms of users is Instagram, also owned by Meta. However, Instagram is visually driven above all else, focusing on Reels (vertical videos under three minutes) and photo carousels. Instagram creators focus on lifestyle, aesthetics, and humor, creating catchy content that quickly grabs their audience’s attention.
TikTok
Like Instagram, TikTok loves visuals, but it centers on short, engaging videos. People turn to TikTok for entertainment, to catch up on trending events, and to explore helpful tutorials.
LinkedIn is a great platform for professional networking, where people share career updates, companies look for new team members, and industry leaders share valuable insights.
X
X, formerly Twitter, is all about real-time conversations in short-form written posts, images, and videos, with people commenting on current world events and discussing breaking news. Industry leaders in business, news, politics, and sports have to keep up with conversations on X to understand how people perceive them.
P.S. Although X still has a large user base, many professionals are moving away from the platform because of its controversy. Do your own research before you decide whether or not you want to invest your time on X.
YouTube
YouTube has been the go-to platform for video streaming for years, with long-form videos, Shorts (similar to Instagram Reels), tutorials, and live streams offering versatile options for sharing all kinds of video content.
Pick 2-3 Social Media Platforms: Don’t Stretch Yourself Too Thin
Seeing all those platforms listed, you may feel nervous because you feel pressure to be active and engaged on all of them—but that’s not the case! The best approach to social media is to pick two to three platforms that interest you most and where you feel your book can reach its best audience, then start posting. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself at the beginning of your book launch strategy by overcommitting to too many platforms because you run the risk of getting burnt out before you can develop the audience you need.
For example, if your book offers practical, down-to-earth concepts you can share in short videos or graphics, Instagram or TikTok may be the best option to begin promoting your book. Or, if you’re talking about business concepts from your book or discussing case studies, LinkedIn and Facebook would be great places to reach an audience that connects with your book.
Becky Robinson, Weaving Influence Founder and Owner
“Being consistent with your presence on your chosen channels is more important and more valuable than having profiles everywhere and posting inconsistently.” – (Reach, page 86.)
The 80/20 Rule
One of the most frequent comments we get from our clients when they’re trying to learn how to promote a book on social media is “I don’t want to just post about my book all the time. People will get tired of me!” Our response is “You’re right! You shouldn’t just post about your book all the time.”
This is where the 80/20 rule applies. When you create your monthly social media calendar, only 20% should promote your book or brand. The other 80% should be helpful information, interesting events from your life, responses to thought leaders in your industry, etc. When you think about it like that, it becomes a lot less intimidating, right?
After all, once you build an audience that is interested in what you have to share about your industry or specialty, they’re more than likely going to be interested in your book as well!
Get Inspired for Your Social Media Posts
When you sit down to write social media content, you may feel stumped about what to say. But you wrote a whole book! You obviously have plenty to say about your area of expertise, and you should share your thoughts because what you have to say is important.
To get you started, here are some freebies to get your creative juices flowing.
- Do you have any upcoming author events?
- Are there any thought leaders who inspire you?
- What’s one valuable quote from your book?
- What are some misconceptions about your industry/expertise?
- What’s the most surprising thing you learned when researching your book?
- Has anything changed your perspective in the last year?
- Are there any current events that resonate with you?
- What is one applicable framework from your book?
Guess what? If you want to post twice a week for the next month, we just gave you your first month’s content calendar.
Build the Right Audience for Your Book
Now that you have chosen two to three social media platforms and have some ideas for social posts, you need to build the right audience for your book. Start by thinking about your “ideal reader.” What are their interests? What questions are they asking online? What communities/podcasts/thought leaders do they follow?
Considering these questions will help you define the major themes to focus on in your content so you can connect best with your audience. For example, if your book is about trail running, you could post:
- How to effectively plan runs
- Your favorite high-carb recipes
- Comments about national or global running events
- Success stories from your favorite runners
- The biggest struggles of trail running
As you post about topics that are valuable to trail runners, they will see and engage with your content. Then, when you post about your book during the 20% of monthly promotion, they’ll be sold on your value as a thought leader and ready to make a purchase to get more of your insights.
Be Yourself and Find Your Voice
In the oversaturated world of social media, where it can be difficult to parse out what’s real about people’s appearance and opinions, it is becoming increasingly important to be your authentic self. People want you to be genuine and vulnerable about your values, perspective, and experiences.
We’ve seen the value of authenticity firsthand with one of our podcast guests, Ginelle Testa, the author of Make a Home Out of You: A Memoir. Her book is a deeply personal journey of overcoming addiction and finding self-love, and showing up authentically in online spaces helped her grow her social media presence and reach new audiences with her important message.
Instead of hiding her struggles, she used them to connect with an audience that wanted to hear what she had to say. What vulnerabilities of your true self would resonate with your audience? How can you be your most authentic self when posting about yourself, your life, and your book?
P.S. You can learn more about Giselle and her social media journey by listening to our podcast.
Consistency Is Important, But Choose Quality Over Quantity
Consistency is one of the most pivotal aspects of social media success, but that doesn’t mean posting every day or even every other day. It just means finding a posting cadence that works for your life and sticking with it. Maybe that’s three times a week or maybe that’s once a week. The quantity of what you’re putting online doesn’t matter nearly as much as consistently contributing valuable content that your audience wants to see.
How do we know consistency works? We’ve seen it time and again with our clients. Alison Fragale, the bestselling author of Likeable Badass, attributes her success on social media to staying proactive and consistent to keep her audience engaged. As she says, “Consistency leads to growth.” Hear everything she has to say on our podcast.
Review What’s Working—And What Isn’t
Once you’ve gone through all the planning, posting, and engaging with your audience, you have to do the scary thing: find out if it’s actually working. At the end of every month, go back through your posts and see what did the best (a.k.a., which posts had the most likes, comments, and shares). If you notice a particular format (photos, videos, or graphics) or a particular theme is performing the best, experiment with more of that in the next month.
Don’t be offended and discouraged by posts that didn’t perform well. Social media is all about putting yourself out there and discovering what people relate to the most. It’s a learning process, so stay open to learning, growing, and meeting new people along the way!
The Bottom Line
Leveraging social media to promote your book and amplify your brand is an important step in your book launch strategy. However, before you get overwhelmed, focus on two to three platforms, set a consistent posting schedule that fits your life, post topics that resonate with your audience, and be your authentic self. If you do that, you’ll be well on your way to building an online presence that you can enjoy—and hopefully sell some books along the way.
Take Action
We hope our guide on social media for authors helped you feel a bit more confident about launching your book strategy online, but if you’re still feeling uncertain, you don’t have to do it alone.
At Weaving Influence, we are committed to helping nonfiction authors amplify their books online through social media promotions, email marketing, public relations, and so much more. We would love to partner with you to share compelling content and connect with the audience that most needs to hear your message. Get in touch with us to schedule a free consultation!
