There’s a lot of hype about social media, often promoted by people who don’t really understand social media, i.e., that people who are using it do not want to be marketed to. New authors are common victims of the “go start building an audience” directive without any guidance.
If you want to know how to use social media effectively, start by understanding that other people do not want your spam. They don’t want to be bombarded with promotional messages. They don’t want to be your fan on Facebook; if they did, they’d go find your fan page and join it. They don’t want to follow a blog that consists of nothing but “buy my book”.
Social media is not about direct sales, it’s about relationships. What social media does for you is it allows you to make connections and become part of a conversation.
Becoming part of the conversation online is exactly like joining a conversation in the real world. You don’t interrupt. You don’t hog or hijack the conversation. You’re polite. You listen as well as talk. You understand that listening to others doesn't obligate them to return the favor.
Blogging is a wonderful platform for sharing your ideas and finding likeminded people. Twitter lets you share news, links and images on the fly. Facebook lets you keep in touch with mini posts or longer ones and play games and share pictures. Yesterday I used Twitter and Facebook to collect book recs for my kids.
My general rule of thumb for posting is that I try to make it worth somebody’s while to read what I have to say. I try to entertain or inform or be thought-provoking or do all three. I can’t be entertaining or interesting to everybody, but by focusing on what I find entertaining or interesting, I’m appealing to people who are interested in the things I’m interested in.
Well, then, how does it help sell books? Bump factor, for starters. Bump factor is the sales term for that thing that happens when somebody comes across your name multiple times. Eventually they notice your name, and remember it, and when they’re standing in a store and they see your book, they think, “Hey, I’ve heard of that writer.” And that might be the thing that prompts them to pick your book up.
I put links to my website on my Facebook and Twitter pages. A pretty high percentage of my website visitors come from Twitter, and they stay for several minutes. Long enough to check out my backlist, my current books for sale, who I am and what I have to offer. My main page has “buy” links to current titles so I make it easy for somebody who wants to buy a book to do that. But I don’t bombard visitors with “buy” messages; I provide them with information so they can shop if they want to. If they don’t want to, they’re still free to follow me on my blog, on Facebook, on
Twitter, to look at my Flickr images and read about what I’m reading on Goodreads for as long as they find me interesting or entertaining.
What about those authors who aren’t active online? There are people who buy my books who never visit my website or find me via social media. Social media is not the be-all and end-all of a writer’s existence. My advice to the author who has been told to blog/tweet/get on Facebook is to go ahead if they want to and have the time and energy for it, understanding that it’s not a handful of magic beans. But it is pretty cool to be part of the conversation, and you never know when somebody you follow on Twitter might need a book to fill a publishing slot or a story to round out an anthology. If you're listening, you can catch those opportunities.
Hey Charli, well said. I have
Hey Charli, well said. I have been online, socializing, for almost 20 years, and what I've found in that time is that there are people who are drawn to it, who are "natural" to it, even, and we enjoy it and will do it for that reason alone. I would be on lists, email, Twitter or FB even if I weren't an author -- my primary purpose is social and always has been. So, when I use that social platform to promote, I think that's okay, since it's the smaller part of my contact with people and they don't mind me pushing a book or a blog. Not everything I say is entertaining or value-added. I'm not strategizing, I'm socializing. I think people know I am there, I care about them, I am an active part of the group, so the little nonsensical details, like if I am going to the dr or having a bagel are fine.
I think the idea of people remembering your name is a nice side-effect, but I also think you have to be in that primarily social role first -- they won't remember you if, like in any relationship, you don't take part. Social media is a place to build relationships, and those relationships take time and investment.
There's a part of me, though, that thinks being a social online person is like being a person who is comfortable in bars -- either you are or you aren't. I am not a bar person, I tend not to go to bars to socialize, and I'm not entirely comfortable in that setting. Same for people who aren't comfortable socializing online -- if it's not a place they enjoy being and socializing they are probably better off not bothering, because they may just come off wrong.
I find online communities and how people find each other fascinating -- you develop instincts for online communication over time (who creeps are, which people you will get along with better than others, etc) and online communities are very savvy about membership. I also think different online communities can be fitting for different people -- FB and Twitter are completely different social environments, as is an email list or a MOO or MUD, but I love it all. :)
Great blog,
Sam
Sam, I was chatting and
Sam, I was chatting and playing games on bulletin boards 24 years ago, so yeah, being online has been something I've done all my adult life. You do need to be social first and comfortable with it. People who aren't comfortable can start by just listening, watching, seeing what other people do and how they use it. It's not going to be everybody's thing, and that's just fine. And since work is a big part of life, it's natural to talk about your work along with everything else; hobbies, pets, whatever.
Personally I like to see your quilt projects along with knowing it's time to look for your latest book in stores!
Ah, these make my head hurt.
Ah, these make my head hurt. *ggg* ;)
It's so much kinder and
It's so much kinder and gentler than suggesting anatomically unlikely options to people who want me to be their fans. *eg*
I like how social media is
I like how social media is gradually ridding me of so much competition for jobs. Everyone's so exhausted from trying to keep up with promoting their books on Twitter and Facebook and whatnot they don't have time to write new books anymore. Which eventually will mean lots more publishing slots for me to acquire. :)
Seriously, when I met my new editor this week I told the poor man upfront that I don't have the time, energy, manual dexterity or inclination to do any of this social media stuff. I do believe it's better to tell the editor what you're willing to do rather than disappoint later on. I also expressed my honest opinion of Twitter, which I think is the worst thing that's happened to the online writing community since memes. He was fine with me being "only" a book writer and a blogger, and he's not a fan of Twitter, either. So there is still hope for all the writers who like me do *not* want to twit, facebook, socialize or whatever.
Lynn, it can be a complete
Lynn, it can be a complete waste of time and a negative, it depends on what you do with it. And I'm not going to be competition for your number of marketing slots as long as I have kids at home. *g* Next year, though, I'll get in my starting blocks.
It is better to be up front about what you're willing to do. I hope you and your new editor have a loonnngg and happy association producing lots of new books! I'd rather get books than tweets, that's for damn sure.
It's so much kinder and
It's so much kinder and gentler than suggesting anatomically unlikely options to people who want me to be their fans. *eg*
I could go back and emphasize
I could go back and emphasize that writers should be writing books and not obsessing about twitter, but I figure that goes without saying. If it doesn't, well, you have bigger career problems than figuring out how not to annoy people with social media.