Social media is about being sociable.
by Frances Caballo.
Dan Zarrella, author of The Science of Marketing, said in his book, “I’ve long been interested in the idea that engaging in conversation is the single most important function of social media marketing.”
He’s right. And so is David Alston, a startup advisor and TEDx speaker. He said this about social media: “The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.”
And Dallas Lawrence of Levick Strategic Communications said: “Monitor, engage, and be transparent; these have always been the keys to success in the digital space.”
Need I go on?
Where’s the Beef?
In the 1980’s, everyone was quoting the popular catchphrase, “where’s the beef?” (Which originated in an iconic hamburger commercial….Anne)
The phrase the socially wise should be repeating these days is “are you building relationships?”
Social media is about readers, colleagues, friends, and influencers, not you. And it’s about their books, their blog posts, their funny memes, their gifs, their images, their videos, and not yours.
Oh, sure, you can use some of that digital space to promote your books and blog posts but the majority of time you spend on social you’ll be promoting others, helping others, and engaging with others. You know, talking with them, maybe sharing a dream or vacation plans or ideas on point of view.
Or you might share some book marketing advice.
Once everyone catches on that you’re a great person – maybe even funny or fun to hang with – and learn to trust you, they may buy what you’re selling. But don’t push sales or just talk about yourself.
Don’t be That Guy
You know what happens when you go to a cocktail party (do people still have cocktail parties?) and meet the guy who loves to talk about himself? You’re get bored of that guy who drones on about himself, right?
Then you may spend a good portion of your time warning others to stay away from that guy over there.
The same thing is true for social media. Don’t just talk about yourself and your stuff. Readers will find other writers who are far more interesting.
That is why it’s so important to schedule time in the afternoon or early evening every day to converse with your readers, friends, colleagues, and influencers in your sphere.
If you don’t allocate time to get to know your readers and colleagues, answer questions, initiate conversations, and share posts that you enjoy, you’re missing the point of social media and failing to understand that the essence of social media is socializing.
To engage in social media and not allocate time for getting to know people, well, it’s antithetical to the very premise of social media.
Take Twitter, for example. It began as a texting platform. Sure, it’s matured, evolved, and changed.
But at its essence, it’s still a medium for conveying messages. For connecting with others.
This premise is true with other social media platforms as well.
Which takes me to those 3 basic rules of social media I promised to discuss.
Three Basic Rules of Social Media
1. Be a social butterfly…
…in the best sense possible. Social media was never designed to be a broadcast messaging system the way radio and television are. Conversations are the backbone of social media and that is what distinguishes it and that is what has fueled its dominance in marketing.
The beauty of social media for authors is that it allows you to converse with your readership in a manner that was never possible before Facebook was created.
Indie authors have a powerful medium with which they can market their books, converse with their readers, answer questions in a matter of minutes, and further their relationships with their loyal readers and prospective readers, even though it’s all done virtually.
Don’t attempt to be the prom queen; strive to always be authentic and to care about others.
2. Play nicely.
If you have a friend who posts cute kitten photos ad nauseam, don’t leave a sarcastic remark; ignore them and leave a comment when she later posts substantive information that you like.
There are examples everyday of people resorting to name-calling and blasphemy on Facebook and other networks, especially now that Trump is president.
Someone once called me a phony on Twitter. I didn’t block him or reply with a nasty note. I merely moved on to the next message, a friendly one from a reader.
3. Ignore some people.
You aren’t going to like all the messages that you read on social media and you may even find some to be obscene or not aligned with your political views. There were plenty of political posts during the recent presidential election.
It’s best to not react negatively and to instead set an admirable example. In other words, ignore the negative politics or statements you don’t agree with. Always strive to be sincere, generous, and tolerant.
Schedule Your Social Time
These days we have more items on our to-do lists than we can possibly accomplish in a day. However, we can take just 10 to 15 minutes to schedule our updates for the day.
In the afternoon, spend another 15 to 20 minutes to check your newsfeeds, Like your friends’ Facebook posts, leave comments, retweet and reply to your readers’ messages, and review other social media newsfeeds that you use.
You can do this on a mobile device while watching a movie at home, waiting at your doctor’s office, letting the color set on your hair at your stylist’s salon, waiting for a friend to arrive at a coffee shop, or while standing in line at Costco.
Whether you have an iPad, iPhone, Android or other device, you can socialize online whenever you have some idle time. If you don’t have idle time, then it’s important to schedule some in.
Maybe you’re the type of person who needs to schedule the time into your day. A perfect time might be 4 or 4:30 pm, when your energy is waning. Take a break from your regular work, go online, and interact with your readers.
Social media is all about nurturing relationships. Did someone retweet one of your messages? Find a tweet that they wrote that you like and return the favor. Send a note of thanks to those who shared your tweets.
Tips for Being Social
Is there an agent or editor on LinkedIn with whom you’d like to connect but can’t because they are a 3rd degree connection? Ask a friend to introduce you.
Did a colleague just publish a new book? Let your friends and connections know about it.
Socializing on social media involves these three steps: meet, connect, and repeat. You are constantly meeting new people, connecting with them, and then repeating the process with someone else. Be friendly, be positive, and be open to meeting new people.
Five Best Practices
1. Don’t engage with people who send you negative messages.
Take a deep breath, move on to another task, and forget about them. (This tip is gold! I need to remember this myself….Anne)
2. Don’t play games.
You will inevitably receive invitations to play Farmville, Word with Friends, and other Facebook games. Unless you find these games relaxing, you won’t want to use these diversions because they tend to consume time you could instead use connecting with your Facebook friends or writing your next book.
3. Don’t fall for this trap!
Do you feel pressured to use every social media network available to you? Don’t fall for that trap.
Only use those social media platforms where you readers are. Attempting to use every social media network available to you is a waste of your time.
Refer to the Pew Research Center’s newest data on social media use in the United States to determine where your readers are hanging out online. You’ll need to understand who your reader is (gender and age) to use this information wisely.
4. Remember you are your brand.
It can be difficult for new authors to think of themselves as a brand but you are your brand and your readers are watching you. Keep your messaging consistent. If you write about traveling abroad on $30/day, give tips throughout the year.
Say your novel takes place in Italy. Then pin some of your travel photos from Rome, Venice, and Milan. If you wrote a novel about a single mom, post information about single mothers, women entrepreneurs and maybe efforts to penetrate the glass ceiling.
And if you wrote a cookbook, share recipes and photographs of your latest creations.
5. Don’t use your book jacket or your dog or cat as your avatar.
People want to see the face behind the book so put on some blush if you’re so inclined, brush your hair, take off the sunglasses, and smile for the camera.
Keep your bios professional as well. Readers don’t need to know that you love Frappuccinos but they do need to know about your books and your giveaway with a link to your email signup.
So keep it social, show your face, and build some relationships.
***
What about you, scriveners? Are you following these social media guidelines? Do you get snagged by negative people on social media? Are you able to ignore them? What are your social media pet peeves? Do you have any social media questions for Frances?
About Frances Caballo
Frances Caballo is an author and social media manager for writers. She’s a contributing writer at TheBookDesigner.com and has written six social media books for authors including Social Media Just for Writers and The Author’s Guide to Goodreads: How to Engage with Readers and Market Your Books.
Her focus is on helping authors surmount the barriers that keep them from flourishing online, building their platform, and finding new readers. Her clients have included authors of every genre and writers’ conferences. You’ll find her at SocialMediaJustforWriters.com.
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Good advice, Frances, but it’s easy to get bogged down and spend hours on social media.
I’ve set up lists on Facebook and Twitter:
https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists
[YOUR MAIN TWITTER URL] /lists
They help.
Thanks for changing the Twitter link, Anne. It looks perfect now.
Great advice. Thanks, Frances!
You’re welcome!
Excellent advice. I’m still working on my social skills in the analog world. I know a lot of introverts who find social media liberating, but for me, it’s exactly like being at that now-imagined cocktail party. I don’t seem motivated to do anything but stand behind the tree fern & sip my sparkling water.
Just jump in. Answer questions. Ask questions. Thank people. Take little steps every day. Start with one social media network first and focus on that one. Then expand to another after several months. Soon it will be easy for you.
Thanks for the insightful post, Frances.
You’re welcome, Ingmarhek!
Excellent advice Frances! I’ve heard from other authors who really dread their social media engagement time, but I find Facebook is about perfect for the post size and occasional photo I want to send out. I’ll check your link above for the Pew and see if perhaps there are others. I’m hopeless with Twitter (too short, against my religion!). But I always have to keep an eye out, I suppose for new possibilities.
You may eventually find the brevity of Twitter liberating. I know I do. And now you can write up to 280 characters in a tweet. At first, I didn’t see the point in Twitter but it quickly became my favorite social media network. That might happen to you too … eventually.
Excellent point, to remember that you are your brand. It’s so easy to get pulled into political rants on platforms like Facebook. But if that’s where your readers (and Publisher!) follow you, remember why you’re there. Lots of good advice here – thank you!
You’re welcome, Melodie, and thanks so much for leaving a comment.
Enjoyed this. It’s so true and I think it works well in the long-run if you follow these guidelines.
Thanks, Linda!
It’s all very well to say engage with your readers on social media, but I’ve found that on Twitter the persons who follow me are usually other authors who presumably want me to follow them back. That’s okay, and I will follow them back, usually if they write in the same genres as I do. I don’t find many readers who have Twitter accounts. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places
If you’re looking for writers, Joanna, use the Twitter search bar to search for hashtags such as #amwriting, #writer, #poet, etc.
You could also check out my Twitter followers. (Just search for my name.) The majority are writers, poets, and bloggers.
Great advice, Kathy! One of my strategies is to look for best selling authors in my clients’ genre and then go to that author’s Twitter account and look for readers who follow that author. It may be a strategy that can work for you. I also think that following and building relationships with other authors is also important for co-marketing opportunities.
This is so perfect and great advice. Social media is for socializing. That’s about it. I love being on Facebook because I can share pictures and stories and I don’t mention my books unless I have a new one coming out and then I post once. I found that when I was posting more than that I received very few “likes”. I understood what THAT meant. Pushing people to buy my books backfired. Thank you for this post.
You’re most welcome, Patricia!
Great tips, Frances.
I would put #4 at the top, since it seems too many authors forget that writing their book is only the beginning to the whole business of selling their book.
I don’t use the M-word with my author-clients as it usually sparks instant despair. Instead, I talk about their message, how they want to be perceived as an author, who their audience is and where they might gather, what topics related to the author’s book(s) might also be followed by their readers, etc.
To me, speaking out in social media platforms should always be from your professional voice. If you must ‘do’ FB, then set up a separate business account for you, as author, and your books. Invite your regular folks to visit, if they want, but remember, if your friend is a sculptor, has a studio in-house, and always pulls you into the studio to see their latest work — do you dread visiting them? :O)
Wherever you go in social media, be professional, show readers the things you think about that turn into books, ask for their ideas/thoughts/fan fiction — have fun with them.
Oyes — not sure why afternoon is the time frame being pushed. I work with globally-placed clients and there is no time of the day when the majority might be online. I do the bulk of my social check-outs and check-ins first thing in the day (my day), then move on to other activities. I check again around sunset. This practice usually allows me to respond in a very reasonable amount of time.
I suggest people find a response rhythm that fits naturally with most days and maybe set a timer (watch/phone/oven/microwave – lotsa timers in the house) to control how much time you spend checking social media.
I think ‘marketing’ should be struck from the book-selling lexicon — the majority of writers don’t follow the actions of what ‘marketing’ used to mean: ad campaigns, slogans, catchy jingles — it’s all quite a bit more mercurial now, and word-of-mouth, regardless of how it’s propagated, is still the hottest, most reliable sales driver. Of course, there is Mr. Patterson, who pokes a stick in it all with his prime time TV ads and such…
Again, thanks Frances, for common sense tips and — that great Pew link!
Maria D’Marco
You are so right on, Maria! Thank you for sharing your tips!
Well done. One point that I might add. Writers need to control themselves from constantly posting that their new book is now free. I see so much of this on Twitter – and really – if I don’t know you – there is very little chance that I’m about to download your freebie. Instead – try to be a friend – and pay attention to the posts happening around you that seek engagement.
You are right, Brad!
Lovely to see Frances here today with her always good advice Anne. All my posts are auto sent to my social sites but through the years I have learned where most of my engagement is and with not enough hours in a day, we certainly don’t have time to spend everywhere. Also, what works for some may not work for others. For me, Twitter and Facebook are where my social time is spent sharing mine and other’s posts and engaging when I can. 🙂
It’s so smart of you to focus on two social media networks. It’s not necessary for authors to be “everywhere” … an impossible task. Be where your readers are and you’ll eventually have success. Narrowing your focus is always a good idea.
Thanks Frances. Love your smart advice. 🙂
Hi Everybody! I don’t know what’s happened to Frances. She may have gone on vacation and forgotten to mention it to me. I hope she’ll be available soon to respond to comments. I really appreciate her great guest post!
I’m here! I was away all day on Sunday. Sorry!
Based on the research section, I should be using Twitter more as apparently most of my readers are young adults. But I prefer to write adult fiction, that happens to have teens as MCs. But I much prefer Mastodon as a platform. I had a toot to mastodon set up, but tweeting through that is a bit on hiatus, because of Twitter’s generally greedy nature.
On consistency, I’m not so sure. Would anyone really want me talking about blood, guts, and decapitation all the time? I mean it’s my brand right. At some point common sense trumps marketing image to me.
On the other severed hand, you have these people that do nothing be tweet their books. At least use the pinning option.
Over marketing your book is never a good idea. You’re right about that.
Oh Anne, this was one of your best posts ever! (Of course it could be because you are verifying that I am on the right path, thank you so very much 🙂 ) Over the past 5 years I have created very close friendships with nearly 3300 lovely people who follow and comment on my blog. As you stated, nurturing and creating relationships is the key. I am pleased that I have never once received a nasty comment, only encouragement or praise. (and to God be the Glory as I remain humble, ha!)
Thank you for your wisdom and encouraging other writers. You truly have one of the top blogs on the internet and I always retain your posts in a file. Blessings back,
I agree that Anne’s blog is one of the best on the internet. And good for you for developing good relationships with your readers through your blog. That’s not easy to do so kudos to you!
Oh Frances, you have so much class – please forgive my mistake at not acknowledging you as the author of this post. My only excuse is that I am on painkillers as I recover from a broken ankle and overlooked that important detail, (first mistake in 20 years, 🙂 ) I am grateful she used your thoughts here, for I have become another fan and follower of yours (if I can figure out how to do that.) Thank you for your kindness, <3
I’ve always enjoyed social media as a giant global conversation! And it’s so easy to keep up in all those ‘dead spots’ during the day. I do a lot of tweeting while I’m standing in queues…
Great idea to check on your social media while standing in line. I often check my social media while getting allergy shots or getting my hair done. It’s easy to fit it in. Great point!
Great stuff as always, Frances. Nice to see you guesting here. Between you and Anne, I feel like I’m at a family reunion!
I use a couple of automation tools for when I don’t have time to be on social media, but I also try to interact with folks quite a bit. It takes time, but it really helps. In the end, it’s all about relationships.
You’re so right, Mike, it is all about relationships. Thanks for leaving a comment. Always enjoy hearing from you.
I’m pretty good with the tips there. Though I use a “likeness” for my avatar.
I’ve seen other people use a “likeness” for their avatar as well. I always prefer a picture of the author. Pictures let your readers see what you really look like. If they love your books, and I’m sure your readers do, then they want to get to know you.
I follow the rule of not talking about my book more than once every four tweets and even less often on Facebook. I do hate wading through all the political posts and there is so much negativity on Twitter. I find some of the platforms depressing.
Susan: I rarely see any political posts on Twitter, although I know they’re there. Just re-evaluate who you’re following and don’t hesitate to unfollow people whose tweets you don’t appreciate. It’s harder to avoid the political posts on Facebook. I know. But you can either unfriend people or just pass them by and move on to posts with more positive information. There is positive information out there. Just look for it. I hope this helps!
Good and succinct article, though I don’t agree with all of it! I agree absolutely with the picture of yourself as avatar – so important! And about how little time it takes – you’re so right about using those 20 minutes here and there to keep up
But…the bit about keeping your bios profressional – au contraire, I think people DO want to know about the ‘you’ apart from your books and links. Otherwise it looks as though you’re only on social media to flog your stuff, however many fascinating articles and pictures of Milan you post!! I have over 90K Twitter followers but only follow about 20% back each day, and they tend to be the people who look like PEOPLE, not salespersons. You can do all the links to your book giveaway in your posts.
The other thing I would disagree with is the bit about always being ‘nice’ and agreeable. Of course, you never want to get into ghastly internet arguments, but if you’re only ever ‘nice’, it can all get a bit vanilla. Phony, even. You can say what you think, even disagree with people and maybe be controversial now and again, without doing yourself a disservice. And so many people just go down their Facebook newsfeeds and ‘like’ all their friends’ posts that it’s all getting a bit meaningless, and I believe users are starting to feel this. I think it’s more important to be polite, yes, and interested, but, most importantly, GENUINE.
But hey. That’s just me!