Whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying that in today’s world, social media is an integral part of how information is spread across society—and that very much includes authors who are looking to share their work with an audience. This opens the door for a flood of questions authors should be asking themselves about how to most effectively utilize the social media market.
First things first: Which social media platform is best?
Platforms that focus heavily on interest groups centering around certain topics (Facebook, for example) might be a great place to start. Based on the content of a book, magazine, or other work, an author can easily get the attention of a targeted audience via these types of platforms.
That being said, authors shouldn’t discount platforms like Instagram or Twitter that are more based on succinct posts and/or images—they are often easier read and therefore more likely to reach a larger group of people more quickly. So, when choosing a platform, authors should keep in mind whether sheer volume of consumers or a specific demographic is more important, depending on the specific work. (Source: https://kindlepreneur.com/social-media-for-writers/)
The next big question is how, exactly, an author plans to utilize social media. Will it be used to answer readers’ questions? Will the focus be more on collaborating with those readers? Or, is the main goal to promote in-person events related to the work (such as book signings or discussion groups)? The answers to these questions will dictate how an author’s social media posts will be crafted, along with how often those posts might go up (https://selfpublishing.com/social-media-for-authors/).
And that leads to the next two questions: How much is too much, and how little is too little?
Anyone who follows friends’ personal pages on social media already knows that if a friend only posts, say, once or twice a year, they quickly fall off the radar. But on the flip side, a Facebook friend or Instagram follower who keeps showing up over and over in newsfeed—all day, every day—is likely to become downright annoying, leading to the “defriend” or “unfollow” button being clicked—and as an author, that’s the last thing you want potential readers to be doing.
So, when it comes to frequency of posts, most experts recommend very specific numbers, depending on the platform. For a platform like Twitter, where “Tweets” don’t tend to stay at the forefront of a page for more than 20 minutes or so, 10 posts per day could be the target. But for platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, where information is disseminated at a relatively slower rate, about 2–5 posts weekly might be the ideal goal. (https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-frequently-should-i-publish-on-social-media)
Lastly, authors should ask themselves just how much of their overall promotion/marketing strategy should include social media versus other, less technologically sophisticated (and perhaps more traditional) methods. Yes, social media is a large part of how authors get their information from point A to point B in society right now—but that doesn’t mean it has completely taken over the entire arena. Social media might be the majority of the strategy for promotion of a novel or article, but then again, it might only make up a mere 25 percent of that strategy—again, it all boils down to variables such as the audience at hand and the topic/purpose of the work in question. (https://scribemedia.com/social-media-for-authors/)
Social media can, for sure, be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. And learning how to use it the right way can turn an unknown, struggling author into the next best-seller!
By: Anne Brenner
Anne is an Assistant Managing Editor at Technica Editorial
