Social media is a powerful tool to create excitement and interest in your book, but authors are often confused about which social platforms will deliver the best results. Many social marketers recommend maintaining a presence on all social channels. That may work for large corporate brands, but for an individual thought leader it’s not always feasible, nor is it necessary. A targeted, strategic approach to social media can deliver strong results without becoming a full-time job.
First, it’s important to identify the target audience for your book. Different people prefer different social outlets. If you have a children’s book, but you’re doing most of your content sharing on LinkedIn, you’re likely not reaching your potential readers. It’s crucial to share content with your audience, not just to share content — which means showing up where your potential readers are in the social landscape.
Second, identify the social platforms that energize you. You’ll be much more effective on social media if you enjoy what you are doing. Sharing content is about marketing your book, but it’s also about creating connection and community. If interacting with people on Twitter feels uncomfortable for you, odds are you’ll tweet less frequently, fail to connect with potential followers, and end up wasting your time.
We recommend getting started with at least two social platforms and dedicating time and energy to learning best practices, creating high-quality content, and engaging with fans/followers to build energy and excitement around your work.
Still struggling to decide where to start?
4 Platforms We Recommend
Facebook has the largest number of users worldwide, and is constantly rolling out new functionality. While it’s difficult to grow a Page on Facebook without advertising or boosting, it is an important platform for authors. Nearly any audience you want to reach uses Facebook at some point, plus you can do some very granular audience targeting via Facebook ads. Additionally, creating a Facebook group around your topic can be a powerful way to build community and support.
LinkedIn is a terrific platform for business and leadership authors and experts. The audience here is primarily professional and interested in growth, learning, and development. If that’s your area of expertise, sharing content and regularly posting blogs here will help grow awareness and interest in your brand.
Twitter is a place where an author can build a sizable audience with some speed, but it is sometimes less effective than Facebook and LinkedIn for book promotion. That being said, Twitter resonates with certain audiences and can be a powerful place for interaction. Creating conversation around an engaging subject, with a hashtag, can help quickly widen awareness and buzz around your work. Humor works on all platforms, but can really take off on Twitter.
Instagram is where you can often reach younger audiences, but it can be a challenge for someone who is, at heart, a writer. This is a visual platform. If you have a book with beautiful artwork or if you are comfortable bringing an audience into your personal world, Instagram can be very powerful and a great creative outlet.
Pinterest, SnapChat, and YouTube can also be leveraged to support your book, but we don’t recommend them as primary book promotion outlets.
While it only takes a few minutes to set up a social account, investing the time to really understand where you can be the most successful will ultimately help you minimize your time investment and maximize your results.
Where are you focusing your book marketing efforts?
Christy Kirk, Vice President of Client Services, is a social media strategist, writer, and former television journalist, who’s done everything from launch a news department to create social content and strategy for Fortune 500 companies and brands including Pampers Diapers, Pantene, Luvs Diapers and Carlson Rezidor Hotels. Now, Christy manages marketing projects for Weaving Influence, with an emphasis on social media marketing. She is also a wife and mother of three children, one dog, and one cat. She loves reading, baking, running, hiking and exploring new places.