Publishing a best-selling book is more about book publishing and less about book writing. Many quality books underperform in the market only because they don’t capture the attention of enough, relevant readers. You don’t want that fate for your book, do you? How can you ensure that your book reaches the recommendation list for all or most of your target readers? You employ the best book promotion services. You don’t stop there but get involved in everyday promotion efforts carried out by your marketing team.
Many first-time authors can’t afford to hire book marketing services. These authors have to rely on self-promotion to get the word across. They can use several online and offline marketing techniques including networking, giveaways, paid ads on search engines or fellow writers’ websites, and social media marketing.
Here are some tips that will help you gain traction for your book through social media marketing.
Author Page
The backbone of your social media book marketing efforts is your author page. You will need one author page for every social media platform. This page will give links to your author’s website, share posts that relate to your genre, share insights from your book and build an engaged readership.
Of course, you will need to set up this page when you start writing the book. Some authors wait until they complete their manuscript to start promoting it on digital media. It’s okay only if you plan to give around six months or more to book editing and formatting tasks.
Note that building an author page on social media platforms is the first step you will take towards your social media book marketing efforts. It’s important that you take this step at least six months before the publishing date.
Writer Communities
Make as much use as you can of writer communities. These communities are filled with writers and writers are those fellows who love reading books so much so that they have decided to repurpose their imagination to create their own. You will build a great percentage of your readership from these communities.
Now now, don’t get your hopes up. Writing communities are not meant for finding your perfect readers. Instead, these communities will best support you in creating a masterpiece that is worth selling with specific and general advice or book writing. Also, you will strike a few metaphorical chords in this community with your writing, prompting fellow writers to take your project seriously and spread the word in their circles about it. In short, these communities can act as online networking events for you if you know how to use them well.
Social Media Content
Social media is about getting social and you cannot be social without expressing yourself. So, express yourself and your book using content. Social media platforms put forth specific requirements for content brevity. So, you must ensure that you present your nuggets of wisdom concisely.
When you write or create social media content, you need to keep two types of readers in mind. First are people who will benefit from your book and the content related to it. The second reader you should be aware of is the algorithm of these platforms. You need to create content that inspires your people and prompts them to engage with it. At the same time, leave hints for the algorithm to categorize your content correctly and present it to the right audiences.
Visual Experience
Most authors have learned from experience that their videos and images perform better than their text-based content. What can you do about this insight as a writer? Try presenting your selected scenes with relevant yet captivating images. You can also use a set of images to make a video with story narration going on in the background. Try to mix up different types of content to reach a wider variety of social media users. If you are unsure of the right mix of content types, hire professional book promotion services to help you create your content.
Call to action
You can help the algorithm by including a call-to-action (CTA) statement at the end of your social media posts inviting them to comment or share your post. This way, the algorithm will pick up your post as engaging and useful making it visible to more people. Also, be aware of keywords related to your work and use them organically or as hashtags in your posts to help the algorithm categorize the post into the right topic.
Paid Ads
If you can spare some money to market your book, you should start with paid ads. These ads are the perfect solution for those people who cannot spend multiple hours a day promoting their work on different online channels. Note that if you want to make your marketing efforts streamlined and effective and avoid guesswork, you should hire dedicated book marketing services to eliminate another commitment to your time.
Still, if you cannot afford comprehensive book promotion services, you should consider increasing the visibility of your key content using paid social media ads. Interestingly, these ads can work with the smallest budgets. So, you can run your social media promotional campaign on autopilot by spending as low as $1.
Here, you must have a clear vision of your ideal readers. You will need this information to select your target audience for the ad you create. These criteria need to include the age, gender, geography, and problem and interests of your ideal readers.
Brand Collaborations
Another great way to build your readership through social media is to connect with fellow writers and employ them as your brand ambassadors. You can do this by asking them to announce your book’s value and interest to their reader or they can invite you to an interview where you can open up about your project making their readers interested in your work as well. They can also recommend your book to their followers.
In exchange for this service, you can offer similar services. You can promote their book through your social media accounts or you can conduct a mutual event where you both share your ideology about one book or another.
Note that if you don’t have a following, you may have to pay for these collaborations. Depending on your budget, collaborate with more than a couple of brands to effectively promote your book.
Wrapping Up
Social media is an effective marketing tool available to book authors. You will find a complete service of this type of marketing included in the book marketing services you hire from your publisher. Self-publishing authors have to develop and execute their customized social media marketing strategy. This post discusses what constitutes an effective marketing campaign on these platforms.
