5 Social Media Marketing Tips for Authors

5 Social Media Marketing Tips for Authors [Boost Sales]

Are you an author looking to boost online sales for your books? Social media is a great way to do that, however, you can't just post links to your retailer pages on a bunch of different platforms and expect your sales to climb. In this article, I go over 5 social media marketing tips for authors.  

1. Use social media within a broader author marketing strategy

Instead of treating social media as a standalone initiative, view it as one part of your broader author funnel strategy. So, before investing time into social media, first map out your marketing funnel.

In case you're not certain what a marketing funnel for authors is, it's a series of marketing tactics that convert readers who haven't yet heard of an author into loyal book buyers...

Here's a snapshot of the four levels of the marketing funnel:

• Awareness. At this initial level, known as the "top of the funnel," you're focused on making relevant readers, who haven't yet heard of you, aware of the type of books you write. For instance, you post a TikTok video, which reaches many users who read books in your genre, but hadn't previously heard of you. 

 

• Consideration. Here, the "middle of the funnel," you're focused on making readers who've heard of you consider purchasing your books. For example, you might post a video on Facebook about a book. Someone following your Facebook page, who hasn't yet bought any of your books, watches the video, and becomes interested in ordering.

 

• Conversion. We're now at the "bottom of the funnel," where you try to convert interested readers into buyers. For instance, you could create an Instagram story about a Kindle Countdown Deal for a book, which ends in just a few days, urging your followers to make a purchase today.

 

• Loyalty. This stage is also part of the bottom of the funnel. Here, readers who like your books can do two more helpful things - buy additional books and tell their friends about your books, leading to free, word-of-mouth advertising. For example, you announce a new book on Facebook. Existing readers, who follow the Facebook page, not only purchase the book, but share the post on Facebook. 

Do you already have an author funnel strategy in place? If so, you can use social media to amplify the progress you're already making at each stage.

​This article covers organic social posting, which doesn't cost you anything. You can get even more traffic if you also run paid ads for your books on social networks, if you happen to have the budget for it. To learn about that, check out my article on paid traffic.  

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2. Use different social networks for different stages of your author marketing funnel

Try to avoid viewing all social networks as different versions of the same thing. Though certain social apps have a lot in common, they're all fundamentally unique. A post that performs well on one may hardly be noticed if duplicated on another.

Because of these fundamental differences, certain social networks are better suited for certain funnel stages. Below, I'm going to give you an overview of the major social apps used for author marketing, the type of posts to make on each, and the funnel stages each are helpful for.

Facebook for author marketing

Funnel Stages

• Organic Facebook posts - ie, ones that are not ads you pay for - generally only get shown to people who already follow your brand's Facebook page.

 

• People who follow your Facebook page already know who you are. Thus, Facebook is not suited for the top of the funnel, but the middle and bottom.

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Post Types

• Photo and video posts do well.

 

• You can add a description to a post, which is a great place to include a link to your website.

Post Advice
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• Yes, you can promote books to your Facebook followers, with links to order pages on Amazon and other retail sites. However, these "sales" posts should encompass no more than 20% of your posts.

 

• If you're constantly asking readers to buy books from you, and not offering much else, they may unfollow your page. So, in about 80% of your posts, try to build trust and loyalty with your audience, mid-funnel aims. To do that, give them free stuff of value, like tips or engaging content, such as an online quiz. To easily make engaging content, I recommend the tool Outgrow.  

 

• Giveaways are also great to share on Facebook. Choose a prize your followers would be interested in and let them enter a sweepstakes to win it, like bestselling books in your genre. FYI, you can set up a giveaway with a "viral sharing" feature with the tool UpViral. 

Post Example

• Many people who follow my Facebook page are readers of my books.

 

• Since I write crime thrillers, I often host giveaways for crime-thriller books.

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Instagram for author marketing

​Funnel Stages

• Organic Instagram posts are mostly only shown to people who already follow your Instagram page, however, certain ones can surface for people who haven't yet heard of you, especially video posts in the Reels section. 

 

• Instagram can be used for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, however, different formats are better suited for each stage.

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Post Types

• Instagram is a photo and short-video app. The third format of post is a Story, which can be an individual photo or video, or a sequence of them.

 

• Though your profile page can have a link - ex, to your author website - many of the post types on Instagram are limited in terms of links, or offer no links at all. If you want to direct people to an external page, you need to include a detailed call to action (CTA) in your description. You may have to tell them to visit your profile, then click the link there, or to search for a book on Amazon.​

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• Photos and the Reels short-video format are good formats for the top and middle of the funnel, while Stories, which allow links, are helpful at the bottom of the funnel.

Post Advice
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• Like Facebook, "sales" posts should encompass no more than 20% of your posts.

 

• Instagram posts are often focused on people's personal lives. So, not every post needs to be about books.

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Post Example

• Though I do mention my books on Instagram, I often post about things that have nothing to do with them.

 

• For example, me at a ski mountain...

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TikTok for author marketing

​Funnel Stages

• TikTok videos are shown to people who already follow you, however, can be shown to a lot of people who don't already follow you. 

 

• TikTok can be used for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, however, it is particularly powerful at the top, since it may surface a post to hundreds of thousands - even millions - of users who have never interacted with your posts before. 

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Post Types

• TikTok is for vertical videos.

 

• Though you can post longer videos on TikTok, many of the most-viewed uploads are very short, ie, under 10 seconds.

 

• Though your profile page can have a link, posts can't. If you want to direct people to an external page, include a detailed call to action in your description.

Post Advice​

• You may be wondering how you can get a TikTok video shown to a million people. Though there is no exact method for doing this, three factors play a part - topic popularity, watch time, and engagement.

 

• TikTok's algorithm can understand what topic a video is about, based on text on the screen, words spoken, and other signals. It will try to show a video to users who have already expressed interest in a topic by watching similar videos. If the topic of your video is already popular on TikTok, your "ceiling" for views is extremely high. If your video's topic is not already popular on TikTok, your ceiling would be low. Thus, creating videos about popular topics will significantly increase your chance of wide visibility.

 

• Just because a video is on a popular topic, doesn't mean TikTok will show it to millions of people. At first, it'll show it to just a few users and see what percentage of it they watch. The algorithm strongly prefers videos with a high "watch time" - if a lot of people watch your video all the way through, versus swiping away, TikTok assumes the content is good and will show the video to more people interested in the topic. If those people watch a high percentage of the video, TikTok would show it to an even larger segment, and so on.

 

• Engagement - which refers to comments, likes, saves, and shares - also plays a role in TikTok determining if your content is good. The more engagement, the better. However, watch time, versus engagement, appears to play a larger factor in TikTok's determination of quality.

   
Post Example

• A lot of people go on TikTok to hear about books. So, most of my posts are about a book of mine.

 

• Often, I include some text on the screen related to the plot, then show the cover...  

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YouTube for author marketing

​Funnel Stages

• YouTube is similar to TikTok in a lot of regards. However, though their short videos can get many views, longer YouTube videos often get many views, too.

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• Videos on the site, regardless of length, are shown to people who already follow you, however, can be seen by a lot of people who don't.

 

• YouTube can be used for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. For authors, it may not be as effective for the top of the funnel as TikTok, however, since YouTube videos are often much longer than TikTok ones, plus can have a link in the description, YouTube can be more effective than TikTok at the bottom of the funnel. 

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Post Types

• YouTube is for videos. The main type of video on YouTube is a horizontal one, which typically range from 5 minutes long up to over an hour. YouTube also has a Shorts video format, which are brief, vertical videos, like the kind on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

 

• Your profile can have a link, as can each of your horizontal videos, however, Shorts cannot.

Post Advice​

• The YouTube algorithm is similar to the TikTok one. It can push videos to a lot of people if they're about a popular topic, generate a high watch time, and lead to a high level of engagement.

 

• VidIQ and TubeBuddy are tools I recommend that'll help you identify popular video topics on YouTube, related to your genre.

 

• Many YouTube users discover videos via search, ie, they'll enter some keywords into the search bar, see a list of results, and click a video that catches their attention. As a user watches videos, YouTube will gain an understanding of the type of uploads the person prefers, and begin recommending related ones.

 

• When videos show up in search results and recommendation areas, their title and thumbnail image are very important. Users tend to click on videos with curiosity-provoking titles/thumbnails.

 
   
Post Example

• I have trailers for my books.

 

• Here's one I posted to YouTube...

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Pinterest for author marketing

​Funnel Stages

• A lot of Pinterest's value for book marketing is in its search capability.

 

• Like YouTube, people often search for keywords on Pinterest and click on results that come up. Pinterest will make recommendations to users based on previous content they've interacted with.

 

• Pinterest Pins can contain links, making them effective at the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.

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Post Types

• Pinterest is primarily for Pins, ie, vertical images. 

 

• You can post short videos on Pinterest, too.

Post Advice​

• Try to create Pins that are targeted to keywords people search for on the app. To find popular terms, and compare them, you can use the Trends feature within the analytics dashboard.

 

• Pinterest appears to heavily value saves as a determinant of Pin quality. If many users save a Pin, when another user searches for a keyword related to that Pin, it will appear high in the search results.

 

• Pins that get a lot saves tend to be well-designed. They also often, though not always, offer at least some valuable information directly within their image, ie, a user does not need to click on a link and go to an external website to learn something. 

   
Post Example

• I've created several lists of recommended thriller books.

 

• For each, I made a Pin, which links to the list.

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3. Use your author email list to grow your social following

An email list is a major part of an author marketing platform.

To get subscribers, I suggest you create a landing page, where you can offer readers something for free in exchange for signing up for your messages.

Once people are on your list, you can send them an automated email sequence. One of these messages can encourage readers to follow you on social networks. If someone is already on your email list, that person is likely to be interested in following you on social media.

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4. Approach different post formats individually

Growing a following on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest very rarely happens overnight. You'll likely need to put in a good amount of time to get solid results on any platform.

​Instead of trying to grow all of your accounts at once, I'd recommend you prioritize them, and focus on one post format at a time. Yes, you can definitely make accounts on all of these platforms right away, however, in terms of dedicating time to creating posts, focus on certain formats individually.

Though the different networks have their own nuances, certain types of photos and videos can be repurposed across them. For example, let's say you decide to focus on TikTok first. Videos you create on TikTok can definitely be cross-posted to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Cross-posting posts of the same format only takes a few minutes.

Once you get a hang of posting short videos, for example, you start focusing on building up a following with a different type of post format.        

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5. Establish a social media posting schedule

You should avoid posting on the fly. Instead, consider funnel stages, topics, and post types, and plan ahead.  I recommend you create posts and schedule them to go live in the future.

You can view your scheduled posts on a calendar, quickly see if you have too few, or too many, of a certain kind, and make adjustments.

Posting frequency and consistency will help you grow your following on each network. Ideally, you'd post once a day on a platform if you were trying to build your following there, or at least three days a week.  

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Want some help with your author social media?

My book-promotion company Galdi Media can create great social-media posts for you 

Learn More

This post contains affiliate links.