A surprising number of authors still don’t understand how to use social media. Many authors are still using their Twitter and other social media accounts to promote and try to sell their books, a move that is ill-advised. Promoting on social media is understandable because authors think they can turn their social media accounts into personal bookstores, but this is difficult to achieve. The truth is that social media is great when used to interact with fans and it can also be used to improve sales but not in the way many authors think. There are several tips that all authors should know about how to use social media.

Use them to connect, not to present

Authors should learn how to concentrate on the ‘social’ part of social media networks rather than the ‘media’ part. It is better to talk about something personal that is unrelated to your books instead of marketing books. You will realize that people are more likely to respond to posts that they can relate to instead of promotional tweets.

Social networks are great for growing your community

To increase the number of readers, an author has to consistently write great books. However, that is not the only way to increase readership. An author has to build a community of people he knows personally to spread the word about his book. An author cannot build an effective community if all he does is to constantly advertise his books; it is built by making meaningful connections with the audience.

Promoting books on social media is not by any means a mortal sin. An author can promote books but it must be done together with personally engaging followers in conversation. For example, if an author wants to promote his books on Twitter, he should limit promotional tweets to less than 10% of all his tweets.

Engagement boosts word of mouth recommendations

When an author encourages some well-known people to buy his book and shows genuine appeal, people are more likely to recommend the book to their friends. Authors should know that when marketing their books they should put their potential buyers first every time. They should appeal to potential readers’ self-interest instead of marketing the book as third parties.

Authors should not expect sales figures to grow significantly in a short period of time. Despite many marketing campaigns, sales should be expected to grow one reader at a time. Word of mouth is still the most popular method of book discovery. An author can strategically use friends and loyal followers to spread the word about his book to gradually increase his audience.

Leveraging the power of social ripples

Authors need to completely change the way they use Twitter and other social networks. As the number of an author’s followers grows, the impact of his posts on social media also grows. For example, if an author has 100 followers on Twitter, even if he talks about a highly controversial topic that is guaranteed to spark heated discussion, the post will not be picked up by many people. However, if the author had 100,000 followers, his posts will have greater impact. His followers will pick up the post and start re-tweeting it. The post will quickly get noticed by people who are not followers of the author and might even earn him more followers.