Promote your book with Social Media

Promote your book with social media. Sounds easy right? It can be when you know some useful hints and tips and the pitfalls to avoid that I’ve listed below.

If you enjoy this post, please do like and share – you can do this at the bottom of the page 🙂

Where should you start?

I am always very surprised when I post an Author Interview here on Book-Boost.com when the author tells me that they don’t use social media. Particularly Twitter. So this guide is focused on using Twitter as a valuable tool for writers. Social Media is one of the most valuable tools for an author to reach out to, build, and maintain a readership. Authors don’t always have the luxury of traditional book store visits, book reading, or signing events or have the funds to support traditional media adverts in papers, magazines, or online.

Using social media is not only free, but incredibly simple to use and grants the author access to potential readers, as well as introducing them to other writers who in turn can provide guidance on how best to interact with newly found readers, gain more, and help maintain relationships with those who follow you.

Using Twitter to build your readership

Many people say they avoid Twitter as there are already many writers using it to promote their books. If we think about it another way for a moment and change Twitter to Book Store.

There are many authors using book stores to sell their books.

How do these authors get a spot in a book store? Well if there is demand, the store will stock the book. How do you get the demand? Well, you make your book more visible by promoting it. Again, traditionally (especially with traditional publishing) investments are made in advertising the book. With self-publishing this expenditure may not be an option, so the alternative is to make your book as visible as possible. Using Twitter can help build a readership base.

How do you best use Twitter to build a readership and Promote your book with Social Media?

Well first make sure you have an account. Here is the link to signup on Twitter: https://twitter.com/signup

Twitter is a fantastic tool for posting images, gifs, and short messages, called Tweets (280 characters or less.) So it’s great for posting short snippets of your book (along with your book cover and link to buy) You can see the tweet I was in the process of writing for this page. The blue links with the #Hastags, which I will discuss shortly.

Using Hashtags #

Hastags are a way to add text tags to your Tweet. These tags can then be search for by other users or show up in trends. For instance if you wanted to says you had a new book out, you could use the hashtag #NewBook.

I often use the hashtags:

• #WritingCommunity
• #BookBoost
• #IAmReading

Using the @ Sign

When you use the @ Sign this is adding another Twitter users ID to your tweet. They will get a notification that they have been mentioned. When I add an author interview on Book-Boost I will always add the author’s Twitter ID to the title of their page. This means anytime the page is tweeted they will be mentioned on the tweet. This helps create a connection to the author’s Twitter account and can help build readership.

So if you wanted to add me in a mention you would add @YourBookBooster

How do you get Followers?

When you first sign up to Twitter you should start following a few other people with similar interests. Other authors, book reviewers, even your friends and family. Of course, you can also follow me, I always try to follow back too. Here is my Twitter account link: YourBookBooster

Don’t go crazy trying to follow too many people in one day (or any day for that matter) as there are limits on how many people you can follow. If you regularly follow too many people at once, your account can get a follow pause or suspension.

Try to grow your followers naturally. You can do this by attracting interest in your account. Regularly post on your account, try for at least once a day. As you get more followers, you’ll get more interaction from these followers. They may like, comment on, or retweet your tweet.

Others ways to grow your following:

Don’t be afraid to follow those who follow you, even if they are other writers. Writers often help each other out on Twitter. After all, it is a #WritingCommunity. When these writers follow you, they may retweet your tweets, which means their followers will see your tweet. In turn, this could lead to them following you too.

Post content that is different from your book. You don’t always have to post content about or from your book. Try posting your thoughts, a poem, photographs, what you are reading. When you do this you are helping others understand who you are. People follow people 🙂

What sort of message should you post:

• Use snippets from your book
• Post descriptions of the characters in your book (great if you have pictures of them too)
• As mentioned above, post content that is different from your book. You are not only trying to promote your book, you should be trying to promote yourself. Make yourself more appealing, open the doors, and let people know you.
• Try running a competition. Offer free copies of your book, £10 gift vouchers ( i know I said free promoting on social media, but a small competition token can really get interaction)
• Always try to add a picture and a link to your work, it makes your tweets more appealing and interactive.

Things to Avoid (The Pitfalls) when you Promote your book with Social Media

• Don’t be disheartened if you don’t have 100 followers in a day. It takes time. It should not be rushed. You want followers who are interested in you and your work, not just to have extra numbers.
• Avoid always posting content about your book. Your normal (non-book tweets) should outweigh your book tweets. Especially when you first start using Twitter. Your non-book tweets are the ones that will help people get to know you. When they get to know you then they will want to know more about you and your work. Which can lead to that follower becoming a future reader of your book 🙂
• Don’t go crazy trying to follow a lot of people at once on Twitter. This can lead to your account being locked so you cant follow people for a while or even suspended. Plus you should only follow people you’re interested in or have a common interest in topics. Like other authors, readers, book reviewers.
• Post infrequently. You should always try and post a few times a day, or at least a week. This helps build momentum and interest from potential followers. If you post once a month or even less, people may lose interest in you and start to unfollow. Post 3-4 times a week at least.
• Post too frequently. Avoid overposting – if you are posting too many messages a day people might get lost in your communication and feel spammed. This can lead to bing unfollowed too.

If you enjoy this post, please do like and share. Perhaps you could share it on Twitter. Don’t forget to add me in. @YourBookBooster 🙂