Using social media to build your author platform

If you’ve been involved in the writing community for a while, you’ve probably been told that you need to start creating an author platform. But what is that? How do you even start? Now in addition to being a great writer, you’re expected to be a social media star as well?

It might seem like a lot to take on, and if you try to do everything, you’ll end up being overwhelmed. But there is a reason why part of an author’s job has grown to include social media. And even though it may seem like a lot, it’s definitely doable when you break it down. So today I’m going to do a deep dive into how social media can help you build your author platform.

Why?

Before we get into the particulars, let’s talk about why it’s valuable to have a social media presence as an author. For one thing, it’s not really your choice—unless you’re a big name, most of the responsibility of promoting your book will fall on your own shoulders, not your publisher’s (and of course this is even more true if you’re self-publishing). You can complain about this all you want, but the fact is, publishers have limited time and money, and it’s good business sense to put it into someone they already feel confident in. The good news is that social media makes it easier than ever to connect with readers and other writers at little to no cost to you.

That said, if you approach social media with a “sales” mindset, it’s not going to work. You’re not going to enjoy it, and honestly, you probably won’t make many sales. Social media is more about making a connection and building relationships, not tweeting out links to buy your books a dozen times a day. That will only serve to turn people off, not draw them in. Rework your mindset to view social media as an opportunity to make new friends and meet people you never would have the chance to meet otherwise, instead of seeing it as a burden that you have to do to sell your book.

A final point on the why: it’s not to get an agent. Somehow, there’s this rumor that how many followers you have will affect whether or not an agent will sign you. For fiction writers, this just isn’t true. I’ve heard that for non-fiction, having a strong online following can play into it, but if you’re writing fiction, no decent agent is going to look at your query and think, “This is a great story and writer, but they only have 300 Twitter followers so there’s no way it’ll work.” Possibly, if you have a huge following that is also engaging with you, an agent might be more willing to take you on (Like the booktuber Christine Riccio and her debut novel Again, but Better). But again, this shouldn’t be your motivating factor when it comes to using social media—otherwise it becomes a burden, and that sense of obligation will come through to readers and be unappealing.

How?

Now that you’ve got your motivation in the right place (or, you’re working on it, at least), lets talk about how to actually use social media in a way that isn’t overwhelming. You’re a writer, not an influencer, so social media really shouldn’t be where you spend the majority of your time. Instead, try to find ways to maximize your efforts so they’re the most effective and efficient.

Pick 2-3 to focus on

You don’t have to do everything. Really. There’s too much out there, and if you try to build a platform on every social media available, you’ll barely have time to eat, much less do anything else. So choose one or two main ones to focus on. These might be ones you already have accounts on and decide to transition to a more author-focused account. Primarily, they should be ones you feel comfortable with and enjoy being on. For me, this is Instagram. I love the visual aspect and the fact that I’m not limited to 240 characters, and that there are a variety of ways to interact. My other primary is Pinterest—this is how I get most of my blog traffic, so even though I’m not making a ton of direct connections, I can clearly see how it’s bringing readers into my community, so it’s worth it to me to keep it updated.

If you want to use more than two, consider them secondary accounts, meaning that if you don’t post to them regularly, it’s okay. For me, these are Facebook and Twitter. I already had a Twitter account, so I just focused it more on my writing life, and I made a simple Facebook author page. While I use them sometimes, if I go a week without posting, I don’t beat myself up over it.

When choosing your social media, think also about where your readers are. If you’re writing YA, you might go with Instagram, since that tends to be a younger audience. On the other hand, Facebook has the oldest audience age on average, so that might be the best place to connect with adult readers.

Schedule your time

The one thing that is agreed upon about social media is that it’s all-too-easy to get sucked in and suddenly realize you’ve spent two hours liking photos and retweeting articles. If you’re doing it for an author platform, it’s even easier to justify doing it. But social media is not where your time is best spent. So set a clear limit for yourself and schedule it into however you plan your day. This will prevent you from spending hours scrolling, which isn’t actually that helpful to your platform, and instead force you to make the most of your social media time—commenting, posting, and actually interacting with other readers and writers, rather than just passively viewing.

Set goals for your usage

This is related to the end of the point above. If your reason for using social media is just a vague sense of obligation, you’ll end up wasting your time. Instead, brainstorm a few specific goals for using social media. Maybe you want to find a writing community, learn what readers are looking for, connect with agents, or something else. Whatever it is, let that guide both which social media platforms you use and how you use them.

Do your research

Possibly the most annoying thing about social media is that each platform is unique. This means that once you choose your site, you need to do specific research about how its algorithm works and how to make the best use of your time and effort. There are plenty of resources if you Google your chosen platform, so I’m not going to get into specifics here. It may seem overwhelming when you first start researching, but really, getting this information should be empowering. It means instead of throwing out a post into the social media void and hoping people find it, you are equipped with the information of what posts work, when to post, how to increase engagement, and more. And if you ever do feel overwhelmed by trying to figure it all out, it’s okay to take a break!

Remember writing is the most important thing

Social media platforms were designed to keep us on the website or app and suck all our time away. And, again, if you’re using it for author reasons, it’s easy to justify. But all the social media connections in the world won’t help you if you don’t have a book! Keep writing as your priority, no matter how tempting social media is.

Bonus tips

I said I wouldn’t go into particulars of social media platforms, and I don’t want to. But I do have some tips to get you started that come from what I’ve learned from using each platform.

Twitter chats

To connect with other writers, join weekly and monthly chats that allow you to discuss writing in general or you WIP. It’s kind of the only thing keeping me on Twitter, but they’re a ton of fun. Some of my favorites are:

Story Social, hosted by @kristen_kieffer every Wednesday evening

Story Dam, hosted by @StoryDam every Thursday evening

Humble Writer Brag, hosted by @chelseamberlynn the last Monday each month

IG stories/DMs

Another reason I like Instagram is that it’s very easy to get to know people one-on-one. It’s hard to develop a friendship by just commenting on posts (not impossible, but it definitely takes longer) so instead I focus more on replying to people’s Stories. This automatically starts a direct message chat with them, allowing you to have a more normal conversation. Again, you’re trying to make connections, not sales. Whenever the first thing someone sends me is a link to their book/product/service, I immediately block them. But when I post a picture of the book I’m reading and someone replies that they loved it, that’s a natural conversation. Or there are plenty of templates that allow you to post fun facts about yourself—I love it when I see someone with the same strange fear or fun quirk as me, and we connect over that. If you don’t want to be one-on-one in a chat, keep an eye out for digital book clubs or buddy reads, which are a group chat about a book you read together.

Schedule pins

Pinterest can be time-consuming, but there are lots of third party sites that allow you to schedule pins ahead of time. Tailwind is my favorite, and I just use the free version. This free email course is a great starting point for using Pinterest, and this blog post goes more into how to use Tailwind for free.

Facebook groups

The best way to make connections on Facebook isn’t actually by starting your own author page, but by joining other groups. Facebook may be dying, but groups in them are thriving. Just be sure to read the guidelines before you post! Some are only for readers and ban any sort of self-promotion, while others only allow promotion on certain days. If a group consists solely of posts with links and promotion, don’t bother joining—it’s a waste of time. My favorite groups include Create If Writing, Ask a Book Editor, Your Write Dream, and Fiction Writing.

Okay, are you still with me? I know that was a long post, and if you’re still reading, kudos! The very fact that this post is way longer than most of my others may intimidate you when it comes to an author platform, but I promise, it doesn’t have to be scary! Just do one task at a time, even one task a day if you need to. Choose your platform. Create an account. Post your first post. Turn it into bite-sized pieces, like any other big goal, and it’ll get done sooner than you think. Most of all, don’t pressure yourself. I’ve definitely let myself get caught up in the numbers game, and it makes it not fun. It’s okay to take a break when you need to, and if you keep bringing yourself back to the goal of making friends and connections, not getting the most followers or book sales, you’ll be fine.

Which social media platforms do you use the most? Has it helped you connect with writers and readers? Let me know in the comments!

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Featured image by Robin Worrall.