As an author, you know the importance of marketing your book. Whether you’re self-published or traditionally published, there are several different ways that you can promote your book. One of these is through social media. However, many authors don’t know how to use social media effectively.
In this article, we will go over some of the most common mistakes authors make on social media and give you tips on how not to make them yourself.
7 Social Media Marketing Mistakes That Authors Need to Avoid
1. Posting Too Often (Or Not Enough)
One of the biggest mistakes authors make is posting too often or not at all. If you post every day, people are going to get sick of seeing you. And at the same time, if you post sparingly, people can forget who you are and this means, losing out on your interested audience.
It’s better to space out your posts and keep them interesting so people don’t lose interest in what you have to say.
It can be tempting to post about your book multiple times a day. But the truth is this will annoy your followers and turn them off from following you in the future. You need to find a balance between posting too often and not enough.
Even if you have a large following, it’s important to remember that people don’t like being bombarded with constant messages from their favourite authors.
2. Not Engaging with Your Readers
One of the biggest mistakes authors make is not engaging with their readers. It’s important to interact with your followers, especially if they are asking questions about your book or sharing it with their friends. If you don’t respond to them, they may feel ignored and stop following you altogether.
Don’t just post your book links and expect people to buy them. The only way you can sell books is by engaging with your readers and building a relationship with them. This will help you establish yourself as an authority in your niche and increase your credibility with potential buyers.
If you’re not engaging with your readers on social media, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity to build valuable relationships with them. These relationships can help increase sales and also give you more ideas for future books.
3. Beating Around with the Same Promotional Images
Most authors post the same promotional images over and over again on social media. This same image of your book cover is going to get old really fast if you use it over and over again. Instead, try using a variety of different images that will each attract different audiences. You can try AllAuthor’s Magic Tool to create different promotional images customized for your book.
Also, another mistake that authors make is using the same promotional image on every social media platform. Sure, your book cover might look great on Facebook and Twitter, but it won’t be as effective on Pinterest or Instagram. If you want to reach different audiences on different platforms, then you need to create images that are tailored for each one.
4. Promoting ‘Only’ Your Work
It might seem like a good idea to promote only your book at first. However, if you want to build a loyal following then it should be about more than just getting people to buy one book — it should be about building relationships with people who enjoy reading in general.
Also, if you’re only promoting your own book, then you are missing out on a huge opportunity to reach a larger audience. When you promote other authors’ books, they will often promote yours as well. This is known as co-marketing and it’s an easy way to expand your reach without having to do more work than necessary.
Through co-marketing, you can partner with other authors who have similar audiences and offer them something valuable in exchange for promotion on their social media accounts. This could mean sharing each other’s posts, including links to each other’s websites or providing free copies of your books as gifts for fans. By doing this, you’ll be able to reach different audiences and build relationships with other authors who are also promoting their books. This will help you get more exposure for both yourself and your co-marketed books!
5. Missing Out on the Pre-Launch Promotions
If you wait until your book is live to promote it, then you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. Pre-launch promotions can help you build up hype around your book before it’s even available for purchase. This will make people more interested in buying it once it does go live!
You can do this by offering a free copy of the book to your email list or running a giveaway where people have to enter their email addresses in order to qualify for winning. Doing this will help you gain more subscribers and followers who will be interested in buying your books when they come out!
6. Failing to Monitor the Metrics
You need to be monitoring your social media metrics and studying them so that you can improve as an author brand.
You should also be watching what people are saying about your book on social media, who is talking about it and how often they are talking about it.
You should monitor important metrics like the reach of the posts with respect to the likes, comments and shares. By doing this, you can see where you need to focus your efforts in order to improve them.
7. All Your Posts Talk Only About Your Direct Book Promotions
Don’t just directly promote your books in all your social media posts. It can get boring fast and your followers will no longer be interested in you.
To avoid this mistake, create a mix of posts that include book promotions and educational content to build your personal brand while providing value to readers. If you read an article or blog post that you find valuable, share it! Came across interesting news that you have an opinion about? Talk about it!
You can also use your books as an opportunity to promote other books or authors who have helped you out along the way. This will help keep your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say. Make sure every post should be valuable in some way, whether it’s through direct promotion or indirect promotion of your book.
