One statement we can all agree on is that authors maintain busy lives. In fact, that’s probably an understatement.
Amidst writing and editing and editing some more, authors can often feel a little burnt out by the time we get to the pesky little marketing step that requires having a social media presence. It’s easy to think that posting a few cute photos or graphics of your book is all that needs to be done for the week (which certainly helps!), but today we’re here to discuss five reasons why you shouldn’t overlook an often underrated portion of marketing yourself and your book: social media engagement!
5 Reasons Why Social Media Engagement is Important for Authors
-
In our ever-changing digital world, it’s difficult to keep up with what sort of content each social media platform’s algorithm is pushing.
In this current season, you may already know to focus on Reels on Instagram, to use Long Tail SEO on TikTok, and keep up with relevant trends on Twitter, but sometimes all of these methods combined don’t boost our organic reach (how many people see your posts without paid advertising) as much as we’d like. Putting in a little effort to interact with other accounts often leads to them checking out your content and increasing your own engagement.
-
Counting self-published authors, there are nearly 4 million books published every single year!
This means that, while there are plenty of people who are your ideal audience, they may never sift through all the books available to them to find yours of their own accord. By interacting with and following readers and influencers who seem to like books similar to yours, you are increasing the likelihood that they will discover your book. If they love it enough to post about it on their feed, you may have gained some free advertising as well!
-
While finding fellow readers is a huge pro of social media engagement, it’s also vital to build a community among fellow authors in your genre/sub-genre.
You’ll often have similar target audiences, and even sharing or promoting their books in your stories can have the potential positive impact of their readers finding they love your story as well! You can find these authors by regularly looking at the hashtags you use to promote your own books.
-
Having plenty of book sales and high organic reach is important, but so is building a community.
While you can interact with and compliment others just in hopes that they’ll buy or promote your book, showing genuine interest in other authors’ books that excite you, or other readers whose content you love to see, makes creating content more of a thrill! Friends will always be more likely to look for your content, even when an algorithm decides to bury it.
-
All of this to say…
Liking and commenting on others’ posts, sharing photos you like, and interacting with others’ stories, inevitably echoes back to boost engagement on your own platform without you having to monetarily boost posts, join sketchy engagement groups, or beg your followers to interact with you.
Do you recognize the importance of social media engagement, and want to boost your own platforms, but simply don’t have the time? We understand. At Valkyrie Visionaries, our team offers weekly and monthly plans to engage on your social media platforms for you. Find out more info here.