How to have success with social media as an author – my 10 latest tips!
Let me rephrase that – ‘How to have success on Facebook as an author.’ I’m no expert on Facebook but I do know what I learn and discover along the way, either on my own or from colleagues. So this article is mostly about Facebook with some bits that can apply across the board on other social media platforms.
My first four tips are specifically about paid ads on Facebook when you boost posts and the last six tips are about building an author brand.
Tip 1: Don’t say Facebook on Facebook!
The rephrased title is the first tip! Go figure, but Facebook doesn’t like it when you use the word Facebook in posts on your author page. If you do, your post will be hidden from most of your followers and you won’t be allowed to promote it with a paid ad boost.
So because I want to promote this piece on my Facebook page I had to give it a title without mentioning Facebook which will then trick Mr Zuckerberg into letting me boost the post. He’s a clever cookie that Mr Zuckerberg, but come on, we’re authors! Nobody is ‘cleverer’ than us right?
Now that you have tip one, before I go to tip two, I want to know that you’re up to speed on my other Facebook tips because this article builds on my previous articles. So if you haven’t read my previous posts, here’s the link to the second article I wrote that will then link you to the first. See you back here in ten minutes -
http://www.tesswoods.com.au/ten-more-tips-for-building-your-brand-on-facebook.html
Tip 2: Choosing your audience when you boost a Facebook post makes a huge difference.
I’ve been playing around with choosing my audiences a lot lately when boosting posts. I do it all from the Pages app I downloaded on my phone and it’s a great, user friendly app so I highly recommend installing it. And this is what I’ve found with boosted posts:
Tip 3: It’s best to sink money into a post and boost it for one day rather than spread the money out and run the post for a few days.
Unless you’re really going for that marketing strategy of ‘people need to see your product seven times before they buy it’ then I wouldn’t boost any post for a few days again. If I’m desperate to spread a post far and wide I’ll just put more money on it to spread it further that day. Putting $20 on a post for one day will show it to heaps more people than if you spread the same money over a week because what will happen is that many of the same people will be shown the post again over the course of the week. Have you noticed that in your feed? Sometimes you’ll see the same ad day after day. You’ll also find you’ll get less engagement on your post each day and that’s only because it’s being shown to the people who already engaged with it or to those who chose to ignore it but are now getting annoyed because they keep seeing it anyway! So my take on this is go hard or go home! Just put your cash into a big one day ad.
Tip 4: If your boosted post isn’t working or if your own ad mortifies you, you can delete it or hit pause to edit it and you won’t be charged the full amount for the ad.
Facebook only charges you once your boosted post has ended, so if you have a look at your statistics during your ad running time and think, ‘Nope, so not worth it,’ you can hit pause and go in and edit the ad to improve it or you can stop running it altogether by pausing it and keeping it paused until the ad running time is over. You can also just hit delete and the ad will end but it will delete the post as well so best to just pause it.
If you post an ad then find a typo (or if you’re like me, you read over your post and realise that you sound like a right old knob) don’t panic when you go to edit it and you find that Facebook won’t let you. Just hit pause and then edit away.
Tip 5: You don’t need to be on all social media platforms to be successful but if you are on different platforms, for goodness sake make your posts different too!
I have friends who are active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest and still find the time to write their books, be parents, change their knickers every day – amazing! I am not one of those people. I take my hat off to these incredibly efficient women. Authors Rachael Johns and Natasha Lester are two of my besties who are constantly showing me up with how well they master social media and still manage to write kick-ass books! Check out their accounts to see what I mean. For me, Facebook is just about all I can manage while staying (relatively) sane.
However, I have other connections on social media who join all the different platforms and then automatically link the same post everywhere. To me this comes across as lazy and insincere to people who want to follow them on more than one platform and are getting the same content from them four times a day. If you’re going to market yourself on different platforms, tailor your marketing to each one going with the tone/flavour of that platform. For example Twitter has a more relaxed, humorous vibe than Facebook. If you’re on Instagram, make your photos the standout not the text. You can post exactly the same piece of news but just post it in a way that’s original and designed for that particular platform.
Also with Twitter and the limited character count, there’s nothing worse than tweets that are cut off mid-sentence and are obviously meant to be Facebook posts. You’re better off just taking your time, getting the hang of one platform that you feel comfortable with and then putting some time into building the next one.
And it’s okay to lurk around before making a splash on social media. I’m using this whole year to lurk on Twitter, I’m following people and I’m sitting back observing, learning, putting out the odd tweet to stay in the picture but that’s about it. So don’t think once you’re on a social media site, you need to master it in a week.
Tip 6: Separate your personal life from your author brand on social media
I’m talking about your personal profile on Facebook as opposed to your author page (so the profile where people can send you friend requests not just like and follow your page) because lots of authors connect with other authors, readers and publishers on their personal profiles not just on their professional pages.
If you have a pen name it’s easy to separate your personal life from your author life but if you don’t have a pen name – divide your friends into groups and choose your audience for certain posts, meaning that you share some things with family and your ‘real life’ friends, some with your author connections and some with everyone (the public). That’s not to say don’t be personal with the people who follow you as an author, but just realise they may not want to see eighty-five photos of your cat or your child in the same week. And your family may not want to see five status updates a day about your writing progress (actually nobody wants to see that, so just stop it!)
To build a brand on social media you need followers and to get people to follow you need good content so post wisely. Write posts that will inspire, entertain, engage and make sure you add a touch of your personality without getting too personal and oversharing.
Also bear in mind that nothing is ever gone from the internet, people screen shot everything. So don’t post stuff you wouldn’t want your future publisher or readers to see. Things like racist rants, updating your status when you’re really drunk, bitching about your ex or being nasty to others in any way on social media will never do you any favours.
Tip 7: Don’t just share other people’s stuff on your page, be your own person. Be your own brand!
It’s fine to occasionally share things that inspire or move you but you most of your content should be original posts. Otherwise, if you’re just someone who shares everyone else’s stuff, you’ll end up being viewed more as a regurgitator and your own unique voice won’t shine through.
Some ideas for original posts are: to give writing tips, to ask questions from your readers (people LOVE to give advice), to add some photos taken by you or of you, to let readers know where you’re at with your writing journey, to discuss books, art, music or movies you love, to share some insights into your day to day life as a parent, cat/dog owner, your day job, holidays etc and of course don’t forget to share exciting book news like cover reveals and release dates with your followers too.
Remember that you are the brand, not your book, so make the posts something that will draw people to you first, and then they’ll want to find out more about your book. But they’ll only want to find out more about your book if they like you first.
Tip 8: Think about your brand with every post so that every post showcases you in the way you want to be viewed.
Let’s look at some examples so I can show you what I mean. Firstly, take Jenn J McCleod - she writes contemporary small town fiction and she brands herself as “Australia’s small town story teller”. She’s being very clear that her books are all about life in rural Australia, rather than city-slicker reads so that’s obviously how she wants to be viewed. And look at her post for Australia Day this year – who’s she engaging? Who’s she supporting? Aussie farmers! Her readers will adore her even more for posts like this.
My first four tips are specifically about paid ads on Facebook when you boost posts and the last six tips are about building an author brand.
Tip 1: Don’t say Facebook on Facebook!
The rephrased title is the first tip! Go figure, but Facebook doesn’t like it when you use the word Facebook in posts on your author page. If you do, your post will be hidden from most of your followers and you won’t be allowed to promote it with a paid ad boost.
So because I want to promote this piece on my Facebook page I had to give it a title without mentioning Facebook which will then trick Mr Zuckerberg into letting me boost the post. He’s a clever cookie that Mr Zuckerberg, but come on, we’re authors! Nobody is ‘cleverer’ than us right?
Now that you have tip one, before I go to tip two, I want to know that you’re up to speed on my other Facebook tips because this article builds on my previous articles. So if you haven’t read my previous posts, here’s the link to the second article I wrote that will then link you to the first. See you back here in ten minutes -
http://www.tesswoods.com.au/ten-more-tips-for-building-your-brand-on-facebook.html
Tip 2: Choosing your audience when you boost a Facebook post makes a huge difference.
I’ve been playing around with choosing my audiences a lot lately when boosting posts. I do it all from the Pages app I downloaded on my phone and it’s a great, user friendly app so I highly recommend installing it. And this is what I’ve found with boosted posts:
- I get heaps, heaps, heaps, more engagement if I limit my audience to people who like my page and their friends than if I post it to the public.
- Even if I do a public post and choose interests for my audience (for example I could list “HarperCollins” or “Novels” or “Booktopia” as interests, I get more engagement if I don’t bother with any of it and just go the easy option of people who like my page and their friends. (You would have seen that my second article on social media in the link above talked about doing public posts with chosen audiences and interests. But that article was months ago and since then I’ve learned more about audience selecting and I’ve changed my mind. Read on to see why...)
- Recently I had a video done with Better Reading that I really wanted people to see because, you know, Better Reading! So I boosted that post for a few days, at first to people who liked my page and their friends and then I had a play with the general public choosing my audience (females aged 25-60) who were interested in Australian novels and followed sites like Booktopia and authors like Liane Moriarty. I decided to try this to get my name out there to more people. For the day I did that, the video had loads of views (around 300) but only two likes and no comments. I thought that just getting my face and my book in front of more people and having more video views was the way to go. However, seeing that only 2 of those 300 people who watched the video hit like, I changed it to only boosting the post to people who liked my page and their friends and bam, instantly the number of likes and comments went up.
- What I realised with this experiment was that it doesn’t matter how many people my ads reach, what matters is how many people my ads reach who may actually be interested in what I have to say and furthermore may be interested in buying my book. And undoubtedly, these are people who see that their friends have already liked or commented on the post or they’re people who see that their friends are my followers. (Because you’ll notice on your own newsfeed that’s how ads come up with ‘your friend Mary Johns likes this page’ as a heading for the boosted post.) People place much emphasis on personal recommendations so, in my opinion, ads are more successful when you’re marketing to people where you already come with an endorsement from someone they know who’s your follower, rather than just aiming for mass exposure.
- The next thing I noticed is that when I limited my audience to people who liked my page and their friends but I only selected women be targeted, I had way more engagement again. Hey men, what’s up with you?? When my posts were going out to men and women, I had on average a three percent engagement from men even though my precious money was being spent promoting to them. Perhaps it would be different if I wrote books that were more marketed towards men, but with my very few and very lovely loyal male readers aside, most men have less than zero interest in engaging with my posts. So I’m making sure that none of my paid posts are landing in men’s newsfeeds, taking away potentially engaged women from me. This doesn’t mean men won’t see my posts, they still will if their female friends like and comment on them. It just means Facebook won’t put my ad at the top of their newsfeeds regardless of whether their female friends comment or not.
Tip 3: It’s best to sink money into a post and boost it for one day rather than spread the money out and run the post for a few days.
Unless you’re really going for that marketing strategy of ‘people need to see your product seven times before they buy it’ then I wouldn’t boost any post for a few days again. If I’m desperate to spread a post far and wide I’ll just put more money on it to spread it further that day. Putting $20 on a post for one day will show it to heaps more people than if you spread the same money over a week because what will happen is that many of the same people will be shown the post again over the course of the week. Have you noticed that in your feed? Sometimes you’ll see the same ad day after day. You’ll also find you’ll get less engagement on your post each day and that’s only because it’s being shown to the people who already engaged with it or to those who chose to ignore it but are now getting annoyed because they keep seeing it anyway! So my take on this is go hard or go home! Just put your cash into a big one day ad.
Tip 4: If your boosted post isn’t working or if your own ad mortifies you, you can delete it or hit pause to edit it and you won’t be charged the full amount for the ad.
Facebook only charges you once your boosted post has ended, so if you have a look at your statistics during your ad running time and think, ‘Nope, so not worth it,’ you can hit pause and go in and edit the ad to improve it or you can stop running it altogether by pausing it and keeping it paused until the ad running time is over. You can also just hit delete and the ad will end but it will delete the post as well so best to just pause it.
If you post an ad then find a typo (or if you’re like me, you read over your post and realise that you sound like a right old knob) don’t panic when you go to edit it and you find that Facebook won’t let you. Just hit pause and then edit away.
Tip 5: You don’t need to be on all social media platforms to be successful but if you are on different platforms, for goodness sake make your posts different too!
I have friends who are active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest and still find the time to write their books, be parents, change their knickers every day – amazing! I am not one of those people. I take my hat off to these incredibly efficient women. Authors Rachael Johns and Natasha Lester are two of my besties who are constantly showing me up with how well they master social media and still manage to write kick-ass books! Check out their accounts to see what I mean. For me, Facebook is just about all I can manage while staying (relatively) sane.
However, I have other connections on social media who join all the different platforms and then automatically link the same post everywhere. To me this comes across as lazy and insincere to people who want to follow them on more than one platform and are getting the same content from them four times a day. If you’re going to market yourself on different platforms, tailor your marketing to each one going with the tone/flavour of that platform. For example Twitter has a more relaxed, humorous vibe than Facebook. If you’re on Instagram, make your photos the standout not the text. You can post exactly the same piece of news but just post it in a way that’s original and designed for that particular platform.
Also with Twitter and the limited character count, there’s nothing worse than tweets that are cut off mid-sentence and are obviously meant to be Facebook posts. You’re better off just taking your time, getting the hang of one platform that you feel comfortable with and then putting some time into building the next one.
And it’s okay to lurk around before making a splash on social media. I’m using this whole year to lurk on Twitter, I’m following people and I’m sitting back observing, learning, putting out the odd tweet to stay in the picture but that’s about it. So don’t think once you’re on a social media site, you need to master it in a week.
Tip 6: Separate your personal life from your author brand on social media
I’m talking about your personal profile on Facebook as opposed to your author page (so the profile where people can send you friend requests not just like and follow your page) because lots of authors connect with other authors, readers and publishers on their personal profiles not just on their professional pages.
If you have a pen name it’s easy to separate your personal life from your author life but if you don’t have a pen name – divide your friends into groups and choose your audience for certain posts, meaning that you share some things with family and your ‘real life’ friends, some with your author connections and some with everyone (the public). That’s not to say don’t be personal with the people who follow you as an author, but just realise they may not want to see eighty-five photos of your cat or your child in the same week. And your family may not want to see five status updates a day about your writing progress (actually nobody wants to see that, so just stop it!)
To build a brand on social media you need followers and to get people to follow you need good content so post wisely. Write posts that will inspire, entertain, engage and make sure you add a touch of your personality without getting too personal and oversharing.
Also bear in mind that nothing is ever gone from the internet, people screen shot everything. So don’t post stuff you wouldn’t want your future publisher or readers to see. Things like racist rants, updating your status when you’re really drunk, bitching about your ex or being nasty to others in any way on social media will never do you any favours.
Tip 7: Don’t just share other people’s stuff on your page, be your own person. Be your own brand!
It’s fine to occasionally share things that inspire or move you but you most of your content should be original posts. Otherwise, if you’re just someone who shares everyone else’s stuff, you’ll end up being viewed more as a regurgitator and your own unique voice won’t shine through.
Some ideas for original posts are: to give writing tips, to ask questions from your readers (people LOVE to give advice), to add some photos taken by you or of you, to let readers know where you’re at with your writing journey, to discuss books, art, music or movies you love, to share some insights into your day to day life as a parent, cat/dog owner, your day job, holidays etc and of course don’t forget to share exciting book news like cover reveals and release dates with your followers too.
Remember that you are the brand, not your book, so make the posts something that will draw people to you first, and then they’ll want to find out more about your book. But they’ll only want to find out more about your book if they like you first.
Tip 8: Think about your brand with every post so that every post showcases you in the way you want to be viewed.
Let’s look at some examples so I can show you what I mean. Firstly, take Jenn J McCleod - she writes contemporary small town fiction and she brands herself as “Australia’s small town story teller”. She’s being very clear that her books are all about life in rural Australia, rather than city-slicker reads so that’s obviously how she wants to be viewed. And look at her post for Australia Day this year – who’s she engaging? Who’s she supporting? Aussie farmers! Her readers will adore her even more for posts like this.
And here’s another one, Deborah Disney. Her book Up and In is a comedy so what are her Facebook posts like? They’re funny! She uses Facebook to consistently demonstrate to her readers that she actually is a really funny chick in real life too which gives her authenticity.
Tip 9: Your friends and followers on Facebook are real people. Remember that!
When I was building my author platform on Facebook, I reached out to loads of other authors. I sent them friend requests saying I was new and that I wanted to make connections and feel like a part of the author community. And the response was amazing - authors gave me advice on which groups to join and without being prompted, many openly shared what worked for them and things I should be wary of on social media too.
So don’t be afraid to send out friend requests, because that’s how you’ll build a writing community around you. Authors, especially Aussie authors, are incredibly supportive – make the most of them! Join groups and make friends.
But when you do send out those friend requests, think of your Facebook friends as real people, not as potential sales for your book. It’s through building real relationships with others that you’ll benefit most.
I know I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again. Put back into your friendships and support other authors and bloggers. When your readers comment on your page, always, always reply and make them feel important. When you learn something valuable, share it - don’t keep it a secret. There’s room for everyone to be successful, so if you look at other authors as your colleagues rather than your competition, you’ll get much further ahead. When you look at your readers as wonderful supporters who deserve to be acknowledged rather than with dollar signs in your eyes, they’ll see that and love you for it.
And here’s something I learned when my book hit the shelves and the internet went mental. If you cultivate meaningful relationships with your readers and your author colleagues, when it’s time for your latest book to be released, you’ll barely need to market it yourself because you’ll have everyone who cares about you shouting about it from the rooftops. But if you’ve just been on social media blowing your own trumpet and not engaging with others, then when it’s book release time, everyone will be so sick of you by then, that nobody will want to help you promote it.
Tip 10: Don't be that cousin!
You know how everyone has that one friend or that one cousin that when they call you and their number comes up on your screen you roll your eyes, mutter the F-word under your breath, and screen the call because you know the only time you ever hear from that person is when they want something from you? Or those emails you get from that one particular cousin who sells protein shakes or wants to tell you about Jesus being Lord where you automatically hit delete because you know it’s going to be another one of “those” emails? Don’t be that cousin! Don’t make your social media platforms all about you asking for things – read my book, review my book, look how great my other reviews are, hey have you read my book yet, look at my ranking on Amazon, aren’t I just so fabulous and successful?
People will follow you on social media because they like you, because they’re interested in hearing what you have to say and because they feel like you bring something unique to their lives that makes their lives better. People will never, ever follow you because they want to do things for you. So instead of asking things of your followers, instead of bombarding them with requests to buy your book, read your book, review your book, tell their friends about your book – have a mindset of giving and making people’s lives better because you’re in it.
Your followers want you to entertain them, to teach them something they didn’t know, to make them laugh, to offer them a distraction from the daily grind. So with your brand, give them something unique, something only you can give by putting your own personality into your brand. Ask yourself, “What special and unique element am I bringing to enrich the lives of my followers?” And that special and unique element that you can offer people is giving of yourself - it’s you, it’s not your books.
Peace out.
When I was building my author platform on Facebook, I reached out to loads of other authors. I sent them friend requests saying I was new and that I wanted to make connections and feel like a part of the author community. And the response was amazing - authors gave me advice on which groups to join and without being prompted, many openly shared what worked for them and things I should be wary of on social media too.
So don’t be afraid to send out friend requests, because that’s how you’ll build a writing community around you. Authors, especially Aussie authors, are incredibly supportive – make the most of them! Join groups and make friends.
But when you do send out those friend requests, think of your Facebook friends as real people, not as potential sales for your book. It’s through building real relationships with others that you’ll benefit most.
I know I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again. Put back into your friendships and support other authors and bloggers. When your readers comment on your page, always, always reply and make them feel important. When you learn something valuable, share it - don’t keep it a secret. There’s room for everyone to be successful, so if you look at other authors as your colleagues rather than your competition, you’ll get much further ahead. When you look at your readers as wonderful supporters who deserve to be acknowledged rather than with dollar signs in your eyes, they’ll see that and love you for it.
And here’s something I learned when my book hit the shelves and the internet went mental. If you cultivate meaningful relationships with your readers and your author colleagues, when it’s time for your latest book to be released, you’ll barely need to market it yourself because you’ll have everyone who cares about you shouting about it from the rooftops. But if you’ve just been on social media blowing your own trumpet and not engaging with others, then when it’s book release time, everyone will be so sick of you by then, that nobody will want to help you promote it.
Tip 10: Don't be that cousin!
You know how everyone has that one friend or that one cousin that when they call you and their number comes up on your screen you roll your eyes, mutter the F-word under your breath, and screen the call because you know the only time you ever hear from that person is when they want something from you? Or those emails you get from that one particular cousin who sells protein shakes or wants to tell you about Jesus being Lord where you automatically hit delete because you know it’s going to be another one of “those” emails? Don’t be that cousin! Don’t make your social media platforms all about you asking for things – read my book, review my book, look how great my other reviews are, hey have you read my book yet, look at my ranking on Amazon, aren’t I just so fabulous and successful?
People will follow you on social media because they like you, because they’re interested in hearing what you have to say and because they feel like you bring something unique to their lives that makes their lives better. People will never, ever follow you because they want to do things for you. So instead of asking things of your followers, instead of bombarding them with requests to buy your book, read your book, review your book, tell their friends about your book – have a mindset of giving and making people’s lives better because you’re in it.
Your followers want you to entertain them, to teach them something they didn’t know, to make them laugh, to offer them a distraction from the daily grind. So with your brand, give them something unique, something only you can give by putting your own personality into your brand. Ask yourself, “What special and unique element am I bringing to enrich the lives of my followers?” And that special and unique element that you can offer people is giving of yourself - it’s you, it’s not your books.
Peace out.