What will my social media strategy be now that I’m back on social media?
Will I be using the same social media platforms that I’ve used before?
Or will I be using something completely different this time?
If you’ve been reading my blog all this time, my changed stance on social media may come as a surprise to you.
So, what is it that made me decide to use social media for book marketing again?
Is it because I love the dopamine hit that social media always gives me?
Believe it or not, I can do just fine even if social media suddenly disappears from the face of the Earth.
If anything, my reason for coming back to social media has nothing to do with me wanting to experience the dopamine hit again.
But rather, it has more to do with how much the marketing landscape has changed over the years.
It’s not like what it used to be
Imagine running Facebook Ads for your online store only to realize that the ads have zero conversion.
That seemed unheard of years ago, but it’s not unusual to hear stories like that these days.
And then there’s the BookBub Featured Deals and newsletters swap.
The results weren’t as stellar as they used to be, with readers now being more selective about the books they want to read.
Free or discounted books don’t seem so enticing to them anymore when they have piles of free and discounted books they haven’t read.
It’s hard to believe when all the things that many authors swear by are no longer working.
But the good news is not all of them are bound to suffer the same fate as paid ads or any other form of paid marketing.
One of them is content marketing, which is always here to stay.
And then, there’s social media, which is a perfect source for user-generated content.
User-generated content is what we’re after
When we think of user-generated content, you probably think it must be something like people gushing about your books on TikTok.
Or it can be something like readers having heated discussions about your book on Reddit.
Well, you’re not wrong about that since they’re all user-generated content.
But we all know this type of user-generated content tends to be beyond our control.
You can only hope this person who bought your book will gush about how amazing it is on TikTok without you having to nudge them to do so.
And there’s nothing much you can do to initiate discussions related to your books on Reddit, unless you take the initiative to create a Subreddit just for that.
While those are certainly powerful indicators, there are some things you can do on social media that can garner similar effects like the ones on TikTok and Reddit.
And the best part of all?
You don’t need your social media posts to go viral just to get these effects.
Even a simple action like reposting and clicking the link in your bio can have a ripple effect beyond the platforms themselves.
But those actions can also signal to AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to cite your website or recommend your books.
That sounds amazing, until you realize that not all of them are created equal.
We already know how powerful Reddit and TikTok are.
But these two are equally amazing as well, not just in the setup phase.
It even helps your book marketing effort for the long term.
My social media strategy revolves around these two social media platforms
So, what are the two social media platforms that I’m using in my social media strategy?
Well, they’re none other than Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Here’s what makes both of them remarkable for authors specifically.
Having your pins indexed by the search engine and is effective at driving traffic to your website for the rest of your life.
There’s no reason for you not to like Pinterest when the rest of the social media platforms out there will lock you within their platforms.
Take Facebook, for example, where it gives you a warning when you leave the platform after clicking on a link, as if you’re clicking on something malicious.
Pinterest is nothing like that.
People can just click on the links without getting a creepy warning from Pinterest.
And then the user behavior is nothing like those on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
While doomscrolling is a sport on these platforms, Pinterest users, on the other hand, are there to find inspiration, plan for fun stuff, or simply look for solutions to their problems.
If it feels like the visual version of Google, it certainly is.
And if you’re using WooCommerce or Shopify to sell direct?
You will have a dedicated section on your Pinterest profile just for showcasing your books, with the rich pins enabled to show details like price and availability.
On the surface, Pinterest may look like it will benefit fiction authors more.
But Pinterest can do wonders for nonfiction, too.
To be honest, I don’t really have much expectation from LinkedIn.
I had my LinkedIn profile for a long time, and I just kept it, considering how hard I worked just to make my profile discoverable.
That is, until I heard from Neil Patel how LinkedIn can boost your SEO.
In what way can it boost your website SEO, you wonder?
It’s through the LinkedIn newsletter that you can boost your website SEO, it seems.
The next time you publish a new post on your website or Substack, don’t forget to do the same on your LinkedIn newsletter as well.
That’s what I’ll do once I revamp my LinkedIn profile.
While LinkedIn tends to benefit nonfiction authors a lot more, you can do the same if you write fiction by sharing behind-the-scenes stuff.
After all, many fiction authors are on LinkedIn, too.
And they’re just as nosy as your next-door neighbor when it comes to your writing process and inspirations.
Honorable mention: X/Twitter
I won’t deny that X can be a time-suck if you try to pander to the X algorithm for visibility.
So, rather than trying to please the X algorithm and the posts you made on X literally expire after 48 hours, I only use it when I have something to say.
It can be something like an upcoming release of my new book or if I have anything new on my online store.
I don’t expect it will have an impact, if any.
But your post can go far and wide if it gets some kind of reaction, like comments, bookmarks, or reposts.
As I said, I don’t put much hope in it, which is why I’m not so gung-ho on X that much.
Should you adopt the same social media strategy as I am?
Now that you know how I tackle social media, should you adopt the same strategy as I am?
Of course, the answer is no.
If you like Facebook and Instagram and they work like gangbusters for you, continue using them.
You don’t have to use the same social media platforms as I do.
But what if you’re on the fence about social media?
Give it a try for three to six months and see if it has any significant impact on your author business and well-being.
From there, you can choose to keep going or just stop doing social media altogether.
And if you choose not to be on social media?
That’s okay, too, since there are many ways to get more people to discover your work.
Social media just happens to be one of them.
Whatever strategy you use, be consistent with it, and the results will follow soon after.