Many authors turn to social media to promote their books and reach a wider section of their target audience. With the social media getting crowded day by day, making an impression is becoming difficult. To promote your book, followers need to be convinced and to make that happen, personal branding is very important.
Authors have been using Twitter as one of the main social media platforms to promote their books. Twitter is easy to use, hassle-free and takes very less effort to make a presence. While many may be just starting out with Twitter or confused at the way it works. Take time to understand the basics of Twitter. Once you get a grip on that, you can start using the below-given tips to mark your presence and use Twitter for book promotions.
Have a clear strategy
Pointlessly using Twitter for book promotions without a proper strategy wouldn’t bring in much result as one may hope. When you want to use Twitter as a form of social media promotion, chalk out a proper strategy.
Answer these questions to yourself.
- Why do I want to make my online presence?
- How can I achieve this goal?
- What do my followers expect?
- What can I give to my potential followers?
- What is the end metric that I can use to measure the success of my strategy?
Once you have found the answers to these questions, you can start with implementing the strategy.
Be clear about why you want to mark your presence on Twitter. Just because your motive is ‘to promote your books and increase sales’, do not jump directly into advertising your books.
First, mark yourself as an author, as a person who is well-versed in the craft of words. Give your followers something in return, instead of just bombarding them with endless tweets of promotions.
Make use of the character limit
When you are using Twitter for book promotions, instead of the usual “Buy now!” tweets, create tweets that are convincing to the readers.
For example, if your fiction book is set in the roads of Hawaii, craft a tweet that speaks about the beauty of the place, offering an insight into a particular landmark location or a tourist spot in Hawaii and take the flow from there to the details about your book.
Twitter has a character limit of 280, which includes the URL too. Any URL shared will be converted to a character length of 23 irrespective of the original length of the URL. Any images shared will not be taken into account towards the total character length. Hence consider these factors and make sure that each and every word counts.
Use proper hashtags
Hashtags make your tweets discoverable in front of people who are not your followers. Many people generally follow a hashtag to view content related to it. So the proper use of hashtags can put your content in front of the right set of audience. Make a list of potential hashtags and search them. Notice the kind of posts available under the hashtags and the engagement. Depending on that, you can shortlist the hashtags that best serves your purpose and is relevant. Use at least 3 related hashtags to the content of your book.
To help you start with, here are some of the frequently used hashtags:
Common hashtags: #freekindle #freebook #kindlepromo #freeebook #freebie #FreebieFriday #giveaway #bookgiveaway #KDP #Kindle #kindlebooks #kindleebooks #reading #readers #read #mustread #goodreads #bestread #bookworm #reviews#bookreview #indie #indieauthor #indiepub#ebook #ebooks #book #books #novel #paperbacks #audiobooks #writing #author #authors #Indieauthors #bookmarketing #bookpromotion #selfpub #selfbub #selfpublishing #publishing #getpublished #booksfortrade #bookiebashing #bookspecials #iamwriting #readwithoutprejudice #authorlife #IndieAuthors #NaNoWriMo #FreeDownload #Paperbacks #Storytelling #WhatToRead #GreatReads
Hashtags for various genres: #fanfic #fanfiction #Fiction #literature #comedy #humor #funny #crime #mystery #suspense #thriller #fantasy #darkfantasy #dystopian #scifi #horror #paranormal #scifi #sciencefiction #urbanfantasy #erotica #histfic #Nonfiction #TrueStories #romance #RomanticSuspense #shortstories #RomanceWriter #SciFiChat #FlashFic #Romance #Horror #FanFic #History #Biopic
Engage on others’ tweets
It doesn’t take much time to favourite a tweet or leave a comment on it. Allocate 5 to 10 minutes a day to read tweets from similar people and from your followers. Leave a thoughtful comment on their tweet, or retweet to show your appreciation and support. Do not just focus on Twitter for book promotions directly. Try to see what you can give back to the Twitter community.
Getting organic reach on Twitter isn’t by increasing the number of followers; it is by making meaningful connections with people who will actually trust you to buy your book.
If you find someone engaging in your posts, make sure to leave an impression on them. Be polite and reply to their comments and thank them for their retweets.
If you find a tweet that goes with the theme of your book or is in any way connected to the content of your book, retweet with a quote by weaving a suitable content to relate the tweet with your book(s).
Leverage the trending hashtags
On Twitter, there is an option to see the trending hashtags based on your location or personalize it with the people you follow. If you choose to personalize it, you will automatically see trends based on your location and people you follow. Or, you can also personalize it based on specific locations. When there is a trend related to books, promotions, authors or writers, or something related to your book, make use of the trending hashtag. Or leverage the other trending hashtags to efficiently use Twitter for book promotions.
You can think of smart ways to include your books or brand yourself with the trending hashtags.
Schedule your tweets (Use AllAuthor’s Book Tweet Scheduler Tool)
Tweeting often is one way to get your followers to notice you. While it will be hard for authors to be constantly on Twitter composing tweets all the time, you can make you use of automated tweet scheduler services to compose your tweets at one go and let it post the tweets periodically from your Twitter handle.
Also, sending out a tweet once is not sufficient. Due to the varied time difference and the habits of people, only a few can see your tweets from the recent tweets feed. Retweet your tweets or send the same content as an original tweet to maximize the reach of your message.
You can make use of Book Tweet Scheduler Tool by AllAuthor by which you can write all your tweets at one go and schedule it with a convenient daily frequency. While sending out the tweets, your book cover and the Amazon buy link of your book will be automatically added. Sign up here and make use of the Book Tweet Scheduler.
Keep the above points in mind while using Twitter for book promotions. Make efficient use of Twitter to promote your books and increase the sales.
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