Having a strong author social media presence is vital. 

But don’t confuse your online platform with incessant posts about how to buy your book.

That message is the most annoying type of update you can post on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere.

Instead, post information that will engage your readers and prospective readers.

How to Grow Your Author Social Media

Hold Contests

One of the best ways to attract an audience on social media is to create contests. 

You can also attract new readers when you give away exciting prizes, such as a free Kindle.

Incentivizing your contests can bring a broad audience to your social media accounts. Here are a few ideas for contests.

Caption the Photo

Create an image that depicts a scene in one of your books and ask your followers to create a caption for it.

Monthly Lucky Draws

Lucky draws are a popular way to give back to your followers. Followers could like or share your profile and posts to enter the lucky draw. At the end of the week or month, you could pick an entry at random and give them the prize.

Use Visuals to Increase Your Author Social Media Engagement

Always post pictures along with text on your social media accounts. 

The best way to catch your readers’ or prospective readers’ eyes is by posting fun and attractive visuals on your social media accounts. 

You can post a picture related to your books or your blog posts. 

Can’t find free photos? Try these sites:

How to Find Awesome Images

Check out Unsplash (the best free photo source ever) and Pixabay. Those are my two favorite options.

I also use Freepik.com, which isn’t free but is relatively inexpensive.

Shutterstock.com is another option, but it’s expensive. 

Apps to Improve Your Pictures

Looking for apps to improve the photos you take with your phone? Try these:

AColorStory – I love this app. I use the free version, and it’s all I need. You can create filters and effects to improve your images. You can also crop out unintended distractions. Of course, I use this on my iPhone. 

Photo Lab PROHD picture editor – You can create all kinds of crazy and cool effects with this app. You can use it for free or buy it to get rid of the annoy ads for just $10.99. A deal.

Apollo – Apollo enables you to add light sources to your portrait photos. Apollo reconstructs a 3D map of your photo, which you can augment with new light sources in real-time. It’s super cool.

Focos – Here’s what The Verge said about Focos: “Focos has long been one of the most ambitious photo-editing apps on iOS, turning any photo into a ‘portrait mode’-style image with fully adjustable depth of field, no matter what kind of camera you took it with.” Check it out for free. It costs $.99/month.

AfterLight – Now, this is a truly great app. It has 130+ unique filters, 20+ additional advanced tools, 60+ textures and overlays, and frames and borders. After a 7-day free trial, you can pay for it monthly ($2.99) or yearly ($17.99).

Enlight Pixaloop – You Android users will appreciate this app. Bring your photos to life in just a few taps. Create animated pictures, from a flicker of flame to cascading waterfalls – the creative possibilities are endless. Yes, you can upload a still image and convert it into a video with this app.

Share video

Posting videos is a fun and engaging way to attract a new audience. 

Respond to your readers

The key to keeping your audience hooked to your content is to engage with them. It’s best if you communicate with your audience regularly. 

A study suggests that brands that publicize products – in your case, books – on social media have more loyal customers. It also indicates that the maximum amount of engagement on your posts with your audience occurs in the first five hours.   

This implies that you must communicate with your audience online actively in the first few hours of posting content. This engagement rate decreases with time, and so does the interest of your material.

These statistics imply that you need to stay on top of your game. Communicate with your readers quickly and keep them interested in your content.

Create great content that your reading audience will crave

Apart from visual content, you also need content that your audience will enjoy reading. You cannot rely on just the pictures to get you a larger audience.

The text content must be related to your profile and must engage your audience. Try to incorporate humor into your content too. Avoid errors by proof-reading your text before posting.

Use the right hashtags – these are critical on Instagram and Twitter.

Studies indicated that hashtags are the most important tool for your posts online. Your account will be more visible to the audience if you use the correct hashtags. 

This data, courtesy of Buddy Media, is one of the most-cited examples of the effectiveness of hashtags: Doubling your online engagement is a big deal! Imagine going from four retweets to eight or 10 retweets to 20. And all it takes is a simple # or two?

Use Hashtags

The algorithm on these apps supports popular and trending hashtags. So, if you want to increase your audience and the number of eyes on your posts, then get your hashtags right. If you use the correct hashtags, you will successfully gain more followers.

Use humor because people like to be entertained, especially on Facebook.

People are looking for fun and entertaining content on Facebook. It is normal for users to only follow accounts that can give them a good laugh from time to time. So, be sure to publish content that engages your audience and makes them laugh too.

Never Buy Fans or Followers

Buying followers and fans is a strict NO. Apart from this, it is also not beneficial for you to buy robot profiles to follow your account. This practice messes up the algorithm on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. 

You will be hampering with the authenticity of your profile if you choose to buy followers. It would be best if you let your account grow organically. This way, your growth will be sustainable, and you will have an authentic audience.

The growth of followers on social media is a rocky road. The key to having permanent followers is keeping them interested in your content.

You need to keep up with the times and post trendy content to keep increasing your audience base. One of the best ways to do so is by following the tip mentioned above. 

Grow a permanent and authentic audience on your social media by using these strategies.

Frances Caballo is an author and social media consultant. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online and building their platform. She also provides content writing and email marketing services. Find out how you’re doing on social media.

I hope you like this edition of the Indie Author Weekly Update as I do.

I love the social media tips this week. I really do. In particular, I like the Twitter tips posted at Social Media Today.

Jane Friedman never disappoints, does she? Be sure to read her post on audiobooks.

Enjoy the list and your weekend!

Indie Author Social Media Tips

12 Instagram Hashtag Hacks + Tricks You Definitely Want to Try by Later: This is a wonderful post that is packed with useful tips. By the way, if you’re looking for an Instagram scheduling app, Later (not an affiliate link) is a wonderful application to use. Yes, I use it and love it.

Twitter Shares Some Simple Tweet Copy Tips to Improve Campaign Performance from Social Media Today: This blog writes for businesses but these tips apply to authors as well. And since Twitter is important to writers, especially those seeking a traditional publisher, you need to incorporate these tips in your tweets.

Copyright

How to Copyright a Book (Written by a Lawyer) from Kindlepreneur: This is a good post. Also refer to Joel Friedlander’s book on copyright and Helen Sedgwick’s excellent book Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook. Helen’s book is comprehensive and every indie author should own a copy.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Audiobook Publishing and Distribution: Getting Started Guide for Authors by Jane Friedman: This is an excellent guide on audiobooks that every author should read.

Fiction Content Marketing

The Quick and Easy Guide to Fiction Content Marketing from Alliance of Independent Authors: Self-Publishing Advice Center: Wow! This is a phenomenal post. My only criticism of it is that I didn’t write it. 🙂 If you only read one post today from this list, this is the one to read. This post is packed with lots of ideas. Follow them and enjoy your success.

Quote of the Week

Frances Caballo is an author and social media consultant. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online and building their platform. She also provides content writing and email marketing services. Find out how you’re doing on social media.

This weeks’s Indie Author Updates has some phenomenal posts. Wow!

Do not miss Anne R. Allen’s blog post on publishing scams. There are a lot of them out there so beware.

Mike Shatzkin also wrote an excellent post. His topic is how to make more money from your books. Love that topic!

Contests on social media are fun and really help to ramp up one’s following. So check out Convince & Convert’s excellent post on that topic.

Enjoy the posts and your weekend.

Beware of Publishing Scams

10 New Publishing Scams to Watch Out for in 2020 by Anne R. Allen: This is a stupendous article on all the many scams that an indie author can fall prey to. One of those scams is the Goodreads paperback giveaway. (Yes, it is a scam these days.) So read this post and heed Anne’s advice. She’s a pro!

Indie Author Revenue Makers

Two pretty easy ways to add revenue that most publishers are missing from Mike Shatzkin: This is an excellent post on all the ways authors can make more money from their books. Read this post.

Grow Your Following with Contests

How to Run Online Contests and Giveaways Like a Pro from Convince & Convert: A great way to grow your following on almost any platform, but especially Facebook and Instagram is to hold contests. This is an excellent blog post on how to do just that.

Indie Author Book Marketing

Subscription Marketing for Authors: A Primer by Anne Janzer and from Jane Friedman’s blog: This is a fascinating article. In particular, I love this thought: “If you want to growth-hack your way to success, work on attracting the right readers from day one. Demonstrate and nurture your readers’ perception of value, and they’ll do the marketing for you.”

8 Ways to Make Your Book’s Press Release Work Harder from TheBookDesigner.com and by Sandra Beckwith: It’s difficult, these days, to be successful at marketing to local and regional media. This is a good article on how to make press releases work in today’s world of restricted newsroom budgets.

Author Websites

How to Build an Author Website: Getting Started Guide by Jane Friedman: This is an excellent primer on author websites. Jane basically holds your hand and explains all of your options and what you need to build your website. (Why didn’t I write a post like this?) Yes, I’m jealous but not really. Jane Friedman is awesome!

Amazon

Amazon Book Promotion and the Perils of Also-Boughts by Penny Sansevieri: What Penny writes about in this post was completely new information for me. Apparently, “also bought” lists on Amazon don’t represent books that were purchased. Read this post to learn more about Amazon’s feature that can be misleading.

Quote of the Week

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Frances Caballo is an author and social media consultant. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online and building their platform. She also provides content writing and email marketing services. Learn more about her.

How do you use social media? Many authors start out uncertain of themselves because they don’t have a social media strategy. To develop one, read this post. It’s easier to do that you might think.

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Gone are the times when authors could work on their book, hand it to an agent, and relax. 

Back then, publishers would handle book covers, social media marketing, speaking gigs, and book placement in big-box bookstores. 

Yes, agents can still reach publishers, and you can always opt for traditional publishing, but guess what? 

You still need to prove that you have an audience for your book by establishing a following on social media.

In today’s world, authors need to connect with the readers, colleagues, and influencers in their niche.

A Social Media Strategy Is Essential

There is no doubt that social media has taken over the internet and has a significant impact on the publishing industry. 

Therefore, when it comes to marketing, advertising, or creating a connection with readers, there is no better tool than social media.

But, you can’t proceed blindly or willy-nilly. Social media marketing requires an effective strategy for your books and for you as the author. 

This blog post will guide you through the basics involved in creating a strategy. Keep reading to understand the concepts better.

#1 Understand your goals and reader demographics

This is the foundational step toward interacting with your reader demographic. The idea is to make small goals so that you can have a better focus on your big picture and achieve it systematically.  

First, who are your readers? What demographic do they typically belong to? Are there any particular likings that they have in common?

What age are they? What gender? Where do they live?

Understanding your potential readership is crucial. 

It would help if you also built an attractive profile, ensure brand visibility (as an author, you are your brand), and launch new content at the right time. 

Always remember to focus on one or two goals. Once you achieve them, move on. 

#2 Be wise in choosing the right social media channels for yourself

Here, the idea is to start with one social media network and slowly build your profiles. 

This step will follow the previous one as you need to have an idea about your reader demographics to be able to choose the right channels. For instance, if your readers are young adults, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumbler would be your best choices. 

If you write cookbooks for gluten-free children, your impetus is to make life easier for the kids and their parents. 

If you write romance novels, you want to provide your readers with a few hours of escapism and enjoyment, right? Facebook and Instagram are ideal platforms for these books.

Now, if you write historical fiction novels, you want to provide a fantasy escape for history lovers. If you write graphic novels, you might want to write a book that will expand the minds of your young readers, help them to explore new worlds, and encourage reading. 

Now you understand why the first step – determining who your readers are – was so important. Right?

#3 Create engaging content

In the end, the idea is to build connections with your readers, engage with them, and learn from them. 

Once you have a profile that showcases who you are and what you write, the next step is content creation.

Create images along with niche-specific quotes and quotes from your own books. Also, share your blog posts and posts from other authors in your genre.

Sometimes, you could even opt for a survey to determine your readers’ preferences.

Remember, social media is all about creating connections with your readers and colleagues in your genre. That’s why a social media strategy that is vital.

#4 What is your social media strategy return on investment?

Now that you have spent time in setting the goals, choosing the channels, and creating content, what next? Studying your readers’ level of engagement with your content, also known as return on investment (ROI).

Are you getting successful results from what you are doing? Is there any improvement, or are you becoming stagnant with your images? 

It is crucial to monitor your results and understand how you can improve upon them. Therefore, it is essential to keep an eye on your ROI at all times so you can adjust your social media strategy.

#5 How well are you engaging with your readers?

This is the most critical question.

Only posting a lot of attractive content is not a strategy. What about engaging you’re your readers? 

Check the number of reactions you get. Are people commenting on your posts? Do they ask questions? Do you reply to their questions?

Interact with your readers as much as you can.

#6 It is all about clicks and shares!

Social media isn’t about you. And it’s not about your books. 

Book marketing is about your readers and prospective readers.

Share content from other authors and influencers in your genre. Also, share content from your readers.

Track the number of times your readers click your links and share your content. Knowing these numbers is critical to building an effective strategy.

Try to create content that your readers and others will share. Why? Shared content is the holy grail of an effective social media strategy.

Having an online presence via social media is a must. It’s not difficult to establish a social media strategy, although it is time-consuming in the beginning.

But without a social media strategy, how can you possibly proceed?

Gaining an insight into your effectiveness on social media will help you to improvise your strategy and make adjustments along the way.

How Are You Doing on Social Media?

To determine who well you’re doing on social media, sign up for a social media audit. I’ll give you a detailed report that explains what you are doing correctly and where you can make improvements (and how). Read what people say about my audits.

Frances Caballo is an author and social media consultant. Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online and building their platform. She also provides content writing and email marketing services. Learn more about her.