25 Ideas for Social Media Posts

Social media is a key part of every author’s marketing plan. It’s important to check in regularly and post responses and comments. It’s also key to have regular posts. Here are some ideas if you’re looking content ideas for your sites. Readers are interested in you and what you do outside of your writing life.

Post a photo or video of…

1. What you’re reading and get feedback on what others are reading - It’s great to do a shout out to other authors.

2. Your pet (or your neighbor’s pet)

3. Your favorite recipe or a picture of the dish

4. Things you see on your walk

5. Your favorite writing spot

6. Things you see from your writing cave’s window

7. Your desk or your junk drawer

8. Your favorite reading spot

9. Where you’ve been lately and why

10. Your favorite place to vacation

11. Your library or favorite bookstore

12. A request for TV show or movie recommendations

13. Your latest hobby or project

14. Your favorite holiday decorations

15. Your favorite seasonal snack or drink

16. Share a behind the scenes tidbit from one of your book’s locations

17. Share a tip or a hack about how to do something

18. For #ThrowbackThursday or #FlashbackFriday…Everyone has that funny school picture.

19. A sunset or sunrise

20. Things from your garden or flowerbed

21. Your favorite tiny or free library

22. Something that happened on this day in history or in pop culture

23. Places from your hometown

24. Before and after shots of something you’ve changed

25. Your favorite quote

Remember text-only posts don’t do as well. It’s always good to have a photo or a video. You can use a drawing tool to make a graphic to garner more attention for your post.

What other ideas would you add to my list?

How to Increase Your Facebook Following - Tips for Authors

Here are some ways to increase your Facebook following on your author/fan page.

1. Open your personal page and search for your author page. Open it. Locate the ellipse at the top (….) and select Invite friends. You can choose names from the list or search for a specific person. Facebook does limit the number of people you can invite in one day.

2. Watch who likes and shares your posts on your author page. On your author page, click on the like and other icons. A page will appear with a button to invite those who don’t already like your page.

3. Put the link to your author page in your email signature. You’d be surprised at the number of people you correspond with regularly who don’t’ know you’re a writer.

4. On your author business card, make sure to list the key social media sites where they can find you.

5. Make sure you have links to all your key social media sites on your website.

6. Use your author account to like and comment on others’ posts. You want to be social. I was commenting only from my personal site. Now, I set aside some time each day to make sure I do it from my author page, too.

7. When you create your author page/account. Try to keep your name as easy to find as you can. If you use underscores, numbers, or other punctuation, it makes it harder for people to find you and tag you.

8. Check your newsletter and make sure to include links to all your social sites. I use Mail Chimp, and it lets me create the icons and links at the bottom of each edition.

9. If you’re in writing and promotional groups, many will let you post your links to increase your followers. This is a good (free) way to get the word out about your work.

Facebook Takeovers - What are They? What Do I Do?

A Facebook Takeover is when another site (author, book group, etc.) on Facebook lets you control the content for a short period of time to talk about your books and interact with the readers. Usually the administrator of an established group will give you access to the site, so you can post. This allows you to meet an established following, and only members of that group are able to participate in the event. (This means you can’t invite your friends and fans unless they join the group.) Sometimes, takeovers are set up as Facebook Events, and you can usually invite your friends to participate because they are open to anyone who is interested.

Facebook takeovers are promotional tools to help you market your book and meet new readers. I love to interact with people on social media, so I’m excited when I get to introduce my cozies to a new group. Here’s what I’ve learned about takeovers....

• It’s usually a good idea if you’re part of the group or community and that you are familiar with the members and their interests. If you’re not a member, join and visit ahead of your takeover, so they get to know you.

• Follow all the instructions the administrator provides you for posting. Many want you to do a series of give-aways, and they provide guidance about dates, length of the event, prizes, and ways to interact.

• Find give-ways that you can easily mail. Remember, most of these sites have a worldwide audience. If you have restrictions on your contest, you need to specify it up front. (It’s really expensive to mail a book or a mug to another country.)

• Make sure all links work and you have access before your takeover begins.

• Once you agree on a date and time, make sure to create a reminder for yourself, so that you’re not late. Also verify the time zone with the host.

• Check out other takeovers on the site to see what the readers are expecting. Bright, fun graphics and short posts are usually best. I use Canva or BookBrush to create graphics that are sized correctly. I also like to have them branded with my book and website.

• I open a Word document ahead of my event and post a copy of my graphics. and the text that I’m going to use. This allows me to proofread it and make sure it covers everything I want to highlight. Then during the take-over, I just have to copy the block and post the graphic.

• The event is a place for you to introduce yourself and your book. Many authors talk about themes or places in their books and ask questions for the participants to answer in the comments. I make my questions related to an upcoming holiday and my book. (I talk about my sleuth’s job or hobbies and have a contest question about that. There is always a fuzzy sidekick in my book, so I do some kind of question/game with pets. People love to tell you about their pets and show pictures. Clothes, styles, food, and pop culture make great conversation starters.)

• The idea is to have fun and get people to respond to your games or questions. Don’t over-complicate things with too many rules or conditions.

• Some takeovers have multiple authors, and you get usually only one post, but you can add more information and links in the comments. Other events allow multiple posts. Remember, if you do twenty posts, you have to respond to all of them. For a take-over that lasts several hours, I usually do an activity or give-away every 30 minutes.

• This should be a fun time for the participants where they can interact with you. Don’t just post and return only to select a winner. Check in periodically and make sure you react and comment.

• If given a choice, I like to leave the contests open until the next day. This gives people in different time zones a chance to play.

• Let the participants know where they can find you and your books.

• Always thank your hosts and your participants. I usually create a “thank you meme.”

• Check with your host; sometimes they announce the winners. If not, I make a graphic with all the winners. I also post it on my author page and tag the winners.

• Remember that most of these sites or groups are administered by volunteers. Be a gracious guest and not a demanding diva.

Adding Followers - Tips for Authors

Building your social media following, a key part of your author platform, is a lot of work. It takes time and a presence on these sites.

An author asked me recently how I find readers and book bloggers since he’s getting ready for a book launch. My advice is to start WAY before you have a book coming out. “Social” is the important part of social media. You will have more success building a following if you take part in conversations, share information (not just buy my book), and celebrate with others. Here are some of the things I’ve learned through the years.

• Figure out how much time you can spend on your sites. You should have a daily presence on the key ones (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). I still have a day gig, so I get up early in the morning, I check on sites at lunch, and I spend some time in the evening. I visit Pinterest, BookBub, Goodreads, and LinkedIn about once a week. Remember, you still need to write your next book and do the hundreds of other things you do each day.

• You need regular, interesting content on your sites. One day a week, I schedule the next week’s worth of Instagram and Twitter posts. I use Creator Suite (in Facebook) to schedule Instagram, and I use TweetDeck for Twitter. For whatever reason (Facebook’s algorithm gods), I’ve found that scheduled Facebook posts on my author page don’t work as well as daily posts, so I do those manually. You need to find what works for you. I typically schedule two posts a day. For Twitter, I schedule a third in the wee hours of the morning when I’m sleeping. From my analytics, I learned that I picked up different followers in other time zones.

• People want to learn things. Every post shouldn’t be buy my book or here’s where you can buy my book. Share news, pictures, adventures, and funny stories. Figure out topics that interest you (e.g. cooking, boating, traveling, etc.) and share those types of items. Pets are popular, too.

• You need to interact on these sites. That means liking, commenting, and sharing content. You also boost the exposure of a post when you respond to the comments. Tag people in posts and comments. People like to be a part of things and to be recognized.

• Don’t make someone else’s celebration about you. Be genuine. I can’t tell you how many book launch or other posts that I’ve seen authors try to hijack by posting comments like, “If you like his book, you’ll like mine, and here’s the link.”

• You don’t have to follow everyone who follows you. There are a lot of bots and lonely hearts out there. It’s tempting to accept every invitation, but be careful. While it may look like you have large numbers with all the bots and fake accounts, these aren’t real people or readers who you want to interact with.

• Make sure that you view your analytics on these sites to see what is working. The analytics page has a lot of good information. You can see what posts and what times work the best for the most interaction. For all of my sites, week day mornings and week day afternoons seem to be when the majority of my followers are online. Twitter is a little different, I see a lot of activity in the morning, early evening (my time), and after midnight. I schedule my posts for these times.

• For Facebook, you can invite your friends to follow your page. You can also click on the icon that shows who liked/reacted to your post, and a pop-up appears for you to invite these people to like your page.

• Look at writers who are similar to you. Click on who they follow and who follows them. Go down the list and add people who look interesting.

• Search hashtags of topics you’re interested in. (e.g. #books, #reading, #dogs #cooking, #blogger, #podcast, etc.) See who also follows these topics and add the interesting ones.

• About every month or so, I use tools to clean up my Twitter (Twitonomy) and Instagram (Analyzer Plus) followers. There are a lot of accounts out there that follow you and drop you when you follow them back. I go through the list and unfollow ones with no activity or that don’t follow me back.

Building a following takes time. You can’t do “hit and runs” where you post and disappear, and all your posts can’t be a sell. I spent almost a year ahead of my next series launch doing things each day to build my mailing list, blog following, and social media spread. It’s worth it. You will see steady growth. When I started, I had three Twitter followers.

The Social Part of Social Media - Tips for Authors

Authors and workshop presenters will advise their audiences to be authentic or genuine on social media. It sounds simple, but I’m not sure everyone understands what that really means. Here are some ideas to help.

Buy My Book - Your 5,000 followers are not going to translate into 5,000 book sales. These sites are great ways (free or low cost through ads) to promote your books, celebrate with others, and interact with readers. They help you expand your audience. Limit the number of “Buy my Book” posts. If someone finds you and sees a string of hard sells, they lose interest.

Be a Good Citizen - Being real or authentic means to be a good citizen of the site. You like, comment, and share on others’ posts regularly. Join groups and contribute.

Celebrate Others - Make sure that you celebrate with others (whether it’s birthdays, shout outs, announcements, etc.). And don’t make their announcement about you. (We’ve all seen that one author who posts a comment to someone’s announcement. “Hey, if you like this type of book, check out mine. That’s a leech.)

No Hit and Runs - Don’t post something and never return to comment on the responses. You need to interact with the folks who comment. The more interaction your posts have, the more the platform will show it. Popular, active content rises in the algorithms.

It’s All in the Numbers - Each platform has its own way of displaying posts. There are algorithms for how often and what is shown to your followers. These change often, and you never quite know how they work. Posts with videos or graphics tend to get more attention.

Invite Participation - When you create a post, look for ways to ask a question or invite comments. Occasionally, I’ll post what I’m reading and ask what everyone else is reading. This sparks good discussions, and I find more books to add to my TBR list. You can always find a related meme or picture for the question you pose.

Share - Your readers want to know about you. Decide what you are comfortable sharing about yourself. If you have a hobby or pets, they are always good content and photo topics.

The social part is key to building and expanding your platforms on social media sites.

Spring Cleaning: Your Social Media Sites

Spring is coming to Central Virginia, and I can’t wait! We’ve been working on indoor projects, and the weather has been cold and messy this winter. I’m definitely ready for some outside time after the spring cleaning. Make sure you add the clean up for your websites social media sites as one of your tasks this season.

The Follow - Unfollowers: There are so many folks who follow you and then unfollow you after you follow them.

• About once a quarter, I use the free version of Analyzer Plus (phone app) to remove unfollowers on Instagram.

• I also use the free version of Twitonomy to clean up Twitter.

Audit Your Website: Go through and look at all the pages on your site.

• Update or delete anything that’s outdated.

• Check all of your links and forms to ensure they’re still working.

• Is it time to update the photos?

Review Your Bios: Look at all the bios on your social media sites.

• Make sure they’re current.

• Make sure you check on the ones that you don’t visit very often.

• Make sure any links still work.

New Headshot: Does your headshot still look like you?

• We change (especially after a year of quarantining).

• You want people to be able to recognize you online (and one day, in-person).

All Your Books: Are all of your publications on your sites?

• Are your most recent publications listed?

• Check all of your links to make sure they still work.

Where Are You?: Check it out.

• Google your name or penname and see where you are on the big, wide web.

• You may find some places you forgot about. Make sure your bio and information are current.

Happy Spring!

Do You Know Where Your Posts Have Been? Basic Analytics for Authors

It’s Friday. Do you know where your posts have been or where they’ve been seen? Do you know who your target audience is? Your website and social media analytics can help you hone in the demographics of people who visit your sites.

Website - Your website should have an analytics tab or page. (Mine just came out with a mobile app that I can track the information on my phone.) You should be able to see things like what posts (blog) or pages are getting the most attention, what countries are visitors coming from, what days/time are most popular for viewing, and how are they getting to your site (e.g. browser search, from another social media site). This is all helpful information. . It shows you how they’re getting to you. This lets you know if promotion or advertising on a social media site is working (or not).

Facebook Business/Author Page - After your likes increase on your business page, Facebook gives you access to Insights. There is an overwhelming amount of information on this page. I monitor likes and performance of posts. It shows how many people liked, commented, or shared. This gives me an idea of what my readers are interested in or respond to.

If you drill down on the Posts link, you can see what time of day people visit your Facebook page. Pre-pandemic, I had a lot of after midnight visits from other parts of the world. Now during the stay-at-home orders, I have a lot of US visits during day hours.

Click on the People link to see demographic information on your visitors (e.g. gender, age, language, and country/city of origin). This gives you detailed information on who is visiting your page.

This information is helpful if you plan to boost your FB posts or purchase ads. It can help you target countries, days, and active times.

Twitter - Their analytics are buried under the More link. They show a dashboard of each month’s performance, and the information is updated daily. The current month’s numbers may look off if it is reporting on a partial month (meaning it’s only tracking days or weeks for the current month to date). Keep scrolling to see previous, completed months.

You can view your most popular tweet and most popular mention. There are totals for followers, tweets, and mentions. You can also see totals for impressions.. An impression is how many times a browser has showed your content (in this case, your tweet). This doesn’t track clicks or shares; just the number of times it was shown.

Other Tools - There are lots of apps you can use for free or buy for your computer or mobile device to track analytics on your social media pages. There are also plugins and Google Analytics that you can add to your website for additional visitor information.

It’s a good idea to track your posts and followings at least at a high level to ensure that all the hard work that you’re doing on your website, blog, and social media sites is reaching your intended audience. I wouldn’t get too hung up on likes and unfollows. They do tend to fluctuate daily and weekly.

I Need an Author Website. Where Do I Start?

Authors (Prepublished or Published) need a website. This is your home base. This is where readers, librarians, reporters, and bloggers find you.

When you go to create your site, research other authors in your genre and see how they present their brand. Look at layout, page content, and colors. Your look and feel defines your brand. It should match your writing style and your books. For example, you don’t want a sweet, romantic look if you write horror. Your content and design need to be neat and polished.

You should purchase a URL with your name. Some authors who use pennames have multiple sites, and others combine them into one. If you create multiples, make sure that you can maintain all of them.

You want guests on your website, blog, and social media sites to recognize you. The name should be the same (or similar), and the picture should look like you. If your photo is a flower, it’s hard for readers to make sure they have the right site.

Decide whether you are going to pay someone to design your page or create your artwork. It can be expensive. Make sure you have clear requirements and get estimates. Also make sure you understand what you’re paying for (e.g. just the site, site and maintenance, hosting, etc.) and when you’ll get it. There are also a lot of services out there that have build-your-own websites for different prices. I’ve used Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress. There are lots of how-to instructional videos on YouTube if you want details on a specific service.

You need to keep your website current and find ways to drive traffic to it. Your social media sites are great, but if you’re blocked or the company shuts down, you have no way of contacting your followers. Your website should work in conjunction with your email list and social media sites as part of your marketing strategy.

If you do not have a lot of published works, you may consider starting a blog on your site. This will give you fresh content and drive interested readers to your site. Blogs also let you showcase your interests or elements of your books (e.g. cooking tips, crafting, writing tips, book reviews, traveling, etc.). You should have a regular schedule for posting. Blogs can be a lot of work, but they can help you keep readers returning to your site.

Here’s what you need to get started:

1. Make sure that you have a professional headshot that you can use for your promotions and books. Selfies don’t look professional. Save those for casual candids in your social media posts.

2. Make a Press Kit or About You page. It needs your photo, contact method, and a short biography. Make sure you keep your biography current. Many website templates have forms that guests can fill out, and it will send you an email notification without publishing your email address or contact information on the website.

3. Make sure your social media links are on your site. Most webpage templates have an option to include them on every page.

4. If you have published books, make sure to include them. Some authors put their latest on the home page, and then create a book page that shows their books in order by series.

5. Most website templates have a feature that you can add to allow readers to subscribe to your newsletter. If you have an email list, you need to include this on your website. (When you configure the feature or widget, you’ll need to connect it to the site that contains your email list.) I use MailChimp.

6. Most websites allow you to have a tab or link to multiple pages. Make sure the links are in the order that you want them and that the labels are understandable to readers. You also want to keep the labels short. Many readers are accessing your site with a phone or mobile device.

7. When you’re done with your site, check it out on your laptop and mobile devices. Most website templates are mobile friendly and will adjust to fit the screen the person is using. You want to make sure that yours does since most users access websites with mobile devices that have smaller screens.

8. Test all of the links and forms on your site. Make sure they work. You don’t want to miss email subscriptions or contact requests, and broken links frustrate users.

9. Put your website URL and your social media links in your email signature. You never know who will be interested enough to check out your site.