Using Social Media to Market Your Brand

Authors have the unique opportunity to create a platform and generate buzz for their book by accessing an engaged and passionate demographic of readers through social channels like Facebook and Twitter. As social media continues to evolve and new platforms are introduced, it can be daunting to figure out which social channels you should adopt to develop your brand. We give an overview of the current social media landscape and recommend the following points be taken into consideration for authors entering the digital social space.

Facebook

Facebook has become the industry-standard for social media; however, recent changes to Facebook news feed means that you may not be generating meaningful impressions with your audience.

Follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of your posts should be interactive content that compliments your book or ideas and encourages fans to engage so that your updates are more likely to appear in their news feed in the future. The remaining 20% should focus on direct promoting and marketing of your book—too much of this can drown out your voice and lose engagement with your audience.

Twitter

Compared to Facebook, Twitter is a leg-up when it comes to building online relationships and engaging with followers because of its simple, quick layout.

Be wise with your words: Because you only have 140 characters to get your point across, be open to attaching links to interesting articles that compliment your brand, create images to maximize a message’s visual appeal and length, and consider using video to engage with your audience.

Connect with others to grow your platform: Build a community around your platform by following similar thought leaders and users who are active that share a common interest. This can allow for higher engagement in terms of @mentions, Retweets, and favorites within your posts.

LinkedIn

With a user-base of millions of professionals, LinkedIn allows you to interact with others through introductions, referrals and recommendations, and connecting with other thought leaders.

Join the wagon: Request to join groups on LinkedIn that compliment your professional interests. Groups serve as a professional community to allow you to “listen” to what new ideas and trends are relevant to your brand. Also, being an active contributor in groups increases your visibility and interactions with relevant professionals in your field.

The golden taken away: Having an account on social media just isn’t enough. Frequent engagement and interaction builds the number of impressions you can have on your audience to help build your brand as an author.