According to experts, social media is not transactional. For authors who use social media to market their articles or books, they need to understand that it does not simply generate sales; there is much more to it. It is not that social media cannot generate sales, but it needs a long-term commitment and has more benefits than you actually realize. It requires time to build momentum. To achieve the best results with social media, there are things that you need to put in place.

A Clear Target Audience: Your work should speak to your audience. It should provide a solution, and the purpose should be clear. If you write off-topic content and discuss  other things unrelated to your purpose, then it might confuse your audience.

Continuous Content Generation: For authors or writers, you will get the best results from social media by providing consistently great content. Blog twice per week or more. Additional content, like podcasts, videos and sample book chapters can also help. The objective here is to establish yourself as a leader in your field, and one of the best ways to do this is to deliver great content.

Dedicate Time to Social Media Activity: Lots of people fall short in this area, and then they wonder why social media is not generating better outcomes. You need to invest time if you want social media to work for you. It means tweeting several times per day and posting updates to other social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest at least 3 to 5 times each week. It includes responding to comments, and reaching out to build your networks by connecting with your audiences who are interested in your topics.

If you put the strategies mentioned above in place, social media starts to work its magic. The following are some benefits that social media has to offer.

Boost Website Traffic: This benefit of social media activity is under-appreciated. If you share powerful content continuously, your website traffic will increase from those who discover your content through social media. Your audience will find your content when you share it, and also when others like it, re-post it or reTweet it.

Improve SEO: Social media affects your overall search engine optimization strategy. Every time you share a blog post that generates a lot of attention, like multiple reTweets, search engines like Yahoo and Google will notice it. The social activity factors in Google’s algorithms for that post means that Google will position you higher because it was popular in social media. All other primary social media outlets are likewise indexed by Google, so your website ranking can improve, which results in more traffic.

Build Brand Awareness: As an author, you will be an authority in your field, and social media will help intensify that. By simply following the tips here, you will start building a bigger, better, more loyal fan base and you will be known as an expert in your field.

Social media is very powerful, particularly for authors who are also service providers or business owners. Just don’t expect it to be instant. You need to dedicate more time if you want to use it as a long term strategy to generate more traffic, increase the size of your networks, and avail yourself of other opportunities over time.