What's Your Social Media Strategy? Tips for Authors
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
