Social Media Marketing: Increasing Visibility for Authors

I get it, we’ve said it a million times but it does bear repeating once more. You must treat your book like an entrepreneur would treat their business. Social media marketing is one of the easiest ways authors can use their skills and story to increase their visibility. Make sure your book reaches as many people as possible; by sharing your story on social media platforms your audience will see you.

Social Media Marketing Questions

Before you begin your social media onslaught it’s important to answer a few questions about yourself, your business, and your book. Doing the prep work for your social media allows you to best utilize your time on social media. Also, if you choose to work with a social media or marketing team they should ask these questions or similar ones and be aware if someone doesn’t! 

1. Who is your ideal audience?
2. What are your goals for sales? 
3. Where does your audience spend their social media time? 
4. When do you expect results? 
5. Why did you write your book? 

If you take the time to truthfully ask these questions you will already have a great start to marketing your book. These questions are by far the most basic questions to ask. You can always ask deeper questions, if needed. However, remember to truly and honestly answer these questions to understand what you need to know to begin social media marketing.

The Five W’s of Social Media Marketing

As you can see above, the five questions to ask yourself are the 5 W’s commonly asked: who, what, where, when, and why. While these 5 W’s are not all you can ask, they are the questions you need to ask. In fact, I suggest answering the 5 W’s before you begin any large scale project. Why are these questions important you might be asking? 

Who 

This answers the most fundamental question: who is your audience? In other words, who do you expect will by your book? Do not be afraid to be specific and niche your audience. In the long run you will end up attracting a much higher quality of customer. 

What

Here is where you need to understand your goals for marketing. You can have multiple, and they will change overtime but having SMART goals is critical to your success! A few ideas for your goals would include sales goals, followers goals, page visits, etc. 

Where 

This question can only be answered if you understand your audience. If you are writing your book about your professional life, you might find your audience on LinkedIn. If you are a foodie or other traveler, Instagram might be a good place to begin. There are many places you can begin posting on social media but you must know your audience and then research where they spend their time online. 

When

Another important question to understand is your when. It is important to know you will more than likely not see giant successes come in a week or even a month. We suggest you stay active on a channel for a minimum of six months before you begin to change your plans of attack. A goal might be to have 100 book sales in three months. 

Why

This question is important because you need to be clear on why you are writing your book and why you want people to read your book. You can be simple and say because you want to make money. However, we suggest you take a deeper look. For example, why are you writing your book? To share my struggles with other entrepreneurs so they can learn from my mistakes. 

Social Media Marketing and Visibility

When you truthfully answer the 5 W’s above you can begin to market on social media. When should you start? As soon as possible! 

When you do begin to work on social media implement a plan of attack. Do research, speak with professionals, and see what others are doing. Do you need to post once a day? Five times a day? Do you use photos? Videos? 

There are many places you can do research but I enjoy reading Hubspot, Hootsuite, and others. A quick Google search for social media practices will bring up many great resources for you to read. 

The idea behind social media marketing is to increase your visibility. Create a plan of action which will increase your visibility and help you reach the goals you set. 

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