How to Build Your Social Media Following

No matter if you’re indie or traditionally published, you’ll be required to build your social media followings and market your books. Here are a few tips that worked for me to add to my following:

• The social part is key. You need to be active on the sites. Block off some time each day to comment, share, and celebrate with others. I found that if I log on early in the morning, at lunch, and after dinner for about 20 to 30 minutes, I have time to be active throughout the day. It also gives me time to respond to comments and inquiries in a fairly timely manner.

• Post interesting content (e.g., things you’re doing, your hobbies, your pets, your travels, tips and tricks, etc.) Don’t be the person who only posts “buy my book” posts. If you’re funny and interesting, people will find you, and they’ll share your content.

• I schedule posts once a week for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X. I look at my analytics and determine when my audience is most active, and I schedule them for those days and times.

• For Instagram and Facebook, take the time to create an author page. Meta offers tools and opportunities for business sites that are not available on your personal one. It takes time to build a new site and a following, but the analytics, tools, and reach are better. I use the Meta Business tools to schedule posts. (If you’re using a personal page, you cannot boost posts or create ads, check analytics. Friend pages also have a cap on the number of friends you can have.)

• Pick one of your socials that you want to work on and commit to following 15-20 new people each day for 2-3 weeks. Look for those who follow authors like you. Look for readers, librarians, and book sellers. When you get new followers, look at their followers and follow the interesting ones. If you adopt this has a regular process, you’ll build your following. (My husband likes to watch sports on TV. I use this time, to work on my socials.)

• For business (author page) in Facebook, the platform offers you an option to send an invitation to people who have liked posts on your page. You also have the option to invite friends to like your page. In both cases, you can send invitations to groups of people who are interested in you and your page.

What would you add to my list?

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.

Building Your Following - Tips for Authors

Building a following on social media (or building your author platform) takes time and patience. Here are some things that have worked for me.

• Pick one of your social media sites to work on for a month. Follow 10 new people each day.

• Set aside some time every day (even if it’s only 10-15 minutes) to be engaged on social media. (This is the social part.) Make sure that you like, comment, and share others’ posts. Join in others’ celebrations. Make sure to tag people when you mention them.

• Decide what kinds of followers you want to focus on. Are you looking for bloggers, podcasters, bookstagrammers, readers, librarians? Take a few minutes to look at bios and follow those you have a shared interested with.

• Look at author accounts that are like yours (e.g. your genre). See who follows them and follow them.

• When someone follows you, look at his/her followers. Choose ones that have things in common with you to follow.

• Make a list of themes in your book. For my current series, mine are glamping, vintage trailers, tiny houses, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Search for those topics to find people and accounts interested in your book topics.

• Make sure that you post to your major social sites regularly at whatever interval works for you (e.g. daily, weekly, twice a week, etc.).

• Look at the content of your posts. People are looking for entertainment and information. Your posts shouldn’t all be “buy my book.”

• Use your analytics page to see what posts and what times of day are getting the most attention. Then post (or schedule your posts) during those timeslots.

• Pick one or two of your socials that you want to work on and add the link to your email signature. You’ll be surprised at the people you correspond with that don’t know you’re a writer.

I started out with three Twitter followers. It took a while, but with some care and feeding, it was worth it to watch the accounts grow.

20 Bookstagrammers You Need to See

#Bookstagram is a phenomenon of Instagram. It’s a popular hashtag used to showcase books in pretty settings and arrangements. There are all kinds of themes and challenges. If you’re a book lover, check it out. Bookstores, libraries, readers, reviewers, interior designers, and others feature their latest reads and reviews with so much creativity. Here are 20 of my favorites.

In no particular order:

• @ElleryAdamsOfficial

• @SocraticKicks

• @Bookishly_Overdue

• @Kamis_Korner

• @OverflowingShelf

• @The_Reading_Beauty

• @Amandas.Bookshelf

• @neelhtak

• @CozyMysteryCorner

• @ashleyisbookish

• @neverlandbooks

• @teryn_books

• @whatsbethanyreading

• @alysonbookishthoughts

• @Books_and_Benches

• @NeverLoweonBooks

• @berkleyrosereads

• @inked.in.pages

• @escapetothebookshelf

• @wiltedpages

Bookish Hashtags for Authors

Hashtags, Pound Signs, or Octothorpes (#) are ways to tag topics of interest on social media. While Facebook doesn’t lend itself well to them, some of the other sites do. It’s always a good idea to use as many as you can on Twitter and Instagram to widen the reach of your posts. Here are some popular book ones that you may want to check out.

• #AmReading

• #AuthorsofInstagram

• #AuthorsofTwitter

• #BookAholic

• BookChallenges

• #BookCommunity

• #BookDragon

• #BookFollow

• #BookHive

• #BookishAesthetic

• #BookRecommendation

• #BookLover

• #BookNerd

• #BookNerdLife

• #BooksGalore

• #BookShivers

• #Bookstagram

• #BookWorm

• #BooksandWine

• #BookStack

• #BookShelf

• #FaceinaBook

• #IGReads

• #MysteryBookSeries

• #PrettyBookPlaces

• #Shelfies

• #TimetoRead

What's Your Social Media Strategy? Tips for Authors

It’s always good to have a plan or a strategy, especially for your social media posts. Here’s what I’ve learned.

What Works

• Watch your analytics on your sites for a couple of months. Figure out what types of posts are getting the most attention. Do more of those. Do less of what is getting ignored.

• Look to see what time of day you get the most interactions. Schedule your posts during these times.

• Less than 20% of your posts should be “buy my book.”

• Ask questions to get your followers to interact with your posts.

• Make sure that you respond to comments and tags. (Don’t forget the “social” part of social media.)

• When I have a book launch, I create a calendar (3 months of either side of the big day). I record guest blogs, blog tours, interviews, and events, so I don’t forget to share and comment on them. It also helps me keep up with deadlines and what I owe for interviews. A calendar also helps you to not overload certain days with posts.

• Vary the types of posts that you do for book events. I usually do a “save the date’” post to announce whatever it is. Then I post a graphic or share one from another site later as a reminder. The morning of the event, I’ll do a “I can’t wait for XX” post and tag people I know who are going. Then during/after the event, I post pictures and tag people.

• All of the sites are powered by their unique algorithms that change frequently. If you notice that your interactions change radically, you may want to look at your analytics and vary your posts.

Twitter

• I use Twitter to drive traffic to my blog (on my website). Each day, I schedule one post for the current blog post and then I schedule a retro one. I make sure that half of these posts are scheduled for the after-midnight crowd. I picked up followers in different time zones when I started this.

• Each week, I schedule two tweets about my books at times when my readers are most active on Twitter.

• I also schedule 3-5 funny tweets a week.

• Then when I’m skimming my Twitter feed, I comment and retweet interesting tweets.

Facebook

• Facebook has a new Creator Suite for organizing and managing your posts. I found that when I scheduled a set, I didn’t get the traffic that I normally did, so I went back to creating the posts each day.

• In a given week, I post about funny things going on and any adventures I’ve had. I try to do at least one post a day during times that my followers are active on FB.

• I post 2-3 book posts a month unless I have an announcement for a launch, sale, or event.

LinkedIn

• I primarily use this site to interact with professionals related to my day gig.

• I do post a link to my writing advice blog once a week. This introduced my blog to a new audience.

Instagram

• I’ve found that two, scheduled IG posts a day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) get more attention than 3-5 a day (that pesky algorithm thing).

• Since IG only offers you one clickable link, I made my website link go to the blog’s home page to see the latest post.

• I schedule 14 funny posts a week ( one each morning and afternoon).

• I’ll schedule 2-3 book posts a week (usually in the evening on weekends) when my readers are active.

• If I happen to take a picture of something interesting that I’m doing or my adorable dogs, I’ll post these ad hoc.

These ideas have worked for me. If I notice that something changes, I’ll do some research and adjust. Try what works for you and change it up if it doesn’t increase your interactions. It helps me to schedule the majority of my posts, so that I can use my social media time to interact and network instead of creating and planning content.

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.