If you are an author who still believes that readers will make time to drop by a bookstore to choose a good book, think again. The fast pace at which people now live has transformed people's lives so much that a lot of the things they do are now done over the net: research, shopping, food delivery, and yes, even book buying.

Social media can definitely give you an edge when it comes to making your book known to your readers. However, you should also make sure that you are channeling your resources correctly to your target market. Using social media puts you more or less on equal footing with all the other authors who leverage on the social media sites to introduce their books. But what will make it different is the way you take care of your target market.

With regards to target market, the author should be able to identify the platform that his target market is using. Reader groups more or less use the same platform. For the young ones, it could be Tumblr or Instagram. The working class or more sophisticated readers may use Twitter or LinkedIn. What this simply means is that you don't have to stretch yourself tracking your readers on all the social networking sites. Your type of audience would more or less tell you the platform they are using and that will be your guide for the platform you will use.

When you have already established a following, the next thing to do is to keep their interest in your page so that they will regularly check this for updates. Some of your followers may be visual (most probably the early baby boomers who are used to seeing the books in the bricks and mortar stores). To help them with their choices, you may want to set up a page at Pinterest so that they can see your books: short engaging summaries are what work for these people as they would not have the time to sit and read through a lot of stuff. The thing with social media is you have to showcase your book - the equivalent of having a good set up in a bricks and mortar store. And what makes it better is that you get to reach out to your prospective readers all at the same time.

Your style of reaching out to your readers will depend on the comfort with which you deliver your ideas. Some people do well with creating websites that literally "sell" the book. Others are better at sharing their ideas through blogs. It doesn't matter if your reader is reading a blog or website of yours: readers can easily feel if you have put your heart in your writing or have put something into print just for the sake of giving readers something to read. Your readers are good at sensing these undercurrents.

Social networking is a step closer to personalized engagement. Make sure that your interactions with your readers are such that they feel you have their best interests at heart.