Social Media Sites Need Care and Feeding

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Social media is all about networking, connecting, and relationships. Some authors create their sites to build their platforms and then ignore them. It’s important to have a presence in a lot of different places, and it’s time-consuming to keep them up to date and active. You need to be able to respond to comments and conversations. You also need time to like, share, and comment on others’ posts.

Here are some tips that help me balance writing, the social media monster, book marketing, and all the other things that life throws at me.

  • Create a routine of when you check your sites. I check during breakfast, at lunch, and at the end of the day. in the evenings, I multitask and check on my social media sites during TV time.

  • Schedule posts on your sites. This helps you to get ahead and have regular posts even when I’m not online. I schedule tweets after midnight for time zones other than the U.S.

  • Create posts that stimulate comments or conversations. Ask your followers what they’re reading or what book they’d recommend. Talk about favorite characters, sleuths, and movies. Conversations and shares help expand your reach.

  • Share information that is helpful to your followers.

  • Make sure that you like, comment, and share others’ posts. Some authors forget that it’s not all about them.

  • People love to be recognized. If you’re at an event or with others, make sure to take a picture and tag them. And look at the photo before you post it. Make sure that it’s flattering. No one wants to be the one with the goofy-look on her face.

  • On a lot of social media sites, there are bots posing as followers. When you follow them back, they often drop you. There are applications (some free and some that have a cost) that help you see who is no longer following you. I go in and clean up my Twitter and Instagram followers about once a month.

  • Look at your posts. They shouldn’t be all “buy my book.”

  • Make sure that you’re not posting the exact same post on all your sites.

  • Every quarter, check your biography on your sites and make sure it's current. The artwork, photo, and color/font schemes should be similar. This is your brand, and you want it to be cohesive. Make sure that you have a photo, banner, biography, and link to your website on all your social media sites.