Social Media for Authors – Part 2

As promised here is part 2 of the Social Media for Authors post which follows on from part 1, if you’ve not read that one yet, here is the link – Social Media for Authors Part 1.

In the last post I went through some of the ways you can gain fans/followers, and a little about the social media networks available.  In this post I had planned to go into more detail about the networks (which I will), but just this evening I have come across a great article which includes a video for creating a strategy for social media which I really wanted to include in this post.

The article is called 5 Steps To Help You Save Time With Social Media Marketing – the video is about 10 minutes long but it is well worth watching all the way through (you can even watch it right here). In fact this whole blog has some brilliant articles about social media, so why not check out some of the other posts while you’re there.

So I wanted to go over some of the social media networks in a little more detail, and what sort of benefits you can expect from each.

Facebook

Many of the authors I work with have a Facebook page (note I said page, rather than profile), it’s important you separate out your personal profile from your author persona.  It is a very good idea to create a page rather than a profile as you have many benefits, including insights into who is interacting with your posts, people can like your page automatically rather than wait for you to accept a friend request and with a page you can heap lots of personal information into the About section which isn’t quite the same on a profile.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, for me as a business it doesn’t really give me any leads, but for authors I think it’s a great platform to get noticed. I get a lot of interaction on my Facebook page and this is why I still continue to use it even though it doesn’t bring me in any money. Here are some authors who have very successful Facebook pages:

Imran Siddiq – I have just finished formatting Imran’s eBook which is due to be published in February, but as you can see from his Facebook page he has a lot of interaction with his fans and this is imperative if you want to sell books.

Lisa Cherry – Yes it’s Lisa again, but look at the number of people ‘talking about this’ on her page, she really has this down to a fine art!

Camino de Santiago in 20 Days – Slightly different, this author (Randall St Germain) has created a page for his book, but again a very successful page.

Twitter

For me Twitter is the king of social media, I get a lot of my clients from Twitter and I actually wrote a blog post about it last year (5 Ways to Get Clients on Twitter). In fact I will keep my bit about Twitter reasonably short because I suggest you go and read my other post, as most, not if all will apply to anyone, whether you’re an author or not.

Twitter is fast paced and you won’t be able to keep up, my suggestion would be to set-up lists and follow these, that way you don’t get bombarded with a very fast Twitter stream and miss important tweets.

Goodreads

In the last post I said that I wasn’t as familiar with Goodreads as the other social media networks, this is true. I do however have an idea how to get the most out of using it. Firstly if you’re an author you need to set-up an author profile, and add your books to your profile. Ensure your profile is fully up to date and use it to reach readers, Goodreads is full of them.

Join some interesting groups, or even start your own – it’s a great way of interacting with other authors and most importantly readers.

Google+

Another network I am not overly familiar with, but I have started using it more recently. I think in terms of authors on Google+, it’s very similar to Facebook. Although creating a profile, rather than a page might be the better option. Communities have just recently been launched on Google+ and they are along the same lines as groups in Facebook and LinkedIn. I think they could be a really good idea for authors and writers, why not have a browse through the various communities which have already been set-up on Google+? 

LinkedIn

I know a few authors on LinkedIn, but I am now not so sure that LinkedIn is the right place for an author. If you’re a business owner, or someone looking for a job then LinkedIn is the place to be, it’s the ‘professional social network’. Having thought about how it can work for authors, the only real answer I came up with is for the groups. There are quite a lot of groups aimed at authors and writers, I am a member of quite a few of them. But there are groups (or communities) on all social media networks, so in terms of benefits, you’d probably be better off choosing another network – unless you’re also on the look out for a day job.

YouTube

I didn’t mention this in the last post, but YouTube can be a great way of reaching readers. One of my author clients Doug Turnbull uses YouTube regularly, providing reviews for books and reading chapters of his own books, here is his channel – Doug Turnbull

*****

As I have said many times before, the key to mastering any social media network is to interact, provide good content and to be yourself… 3 simple strategies which will work in your favour.

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any other social media tips which you think may benefit authors then please leave me a comment.

Comments

  1. Imran Siddiq says

    So true all you have written
    Being a writer and being part of the social world can be a real juggling act, but if you commit time between writing you can make great friends. And learn a lot. I wouldn’t have found you otherwise!

    It’s great to interact rather than just keep DMing and promoting your book.

    Show people that you are a real person with emotions and a voice.

    Great post.

  2. Thank you for sharing our video! How nice! 🙂

    • No problem Sara, I really enjoyed it and I have added your blog to my RSS reader, lots of interesting articles. 🙂

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