In the past, book promotion relied heavily on the traditional press. The success of the book promotion depended on getting it reviewed by the right publications. It meant spending thousands of dollars on PR companies with established contacts with the best publications and making press releases that hopefully would be noticed by the targeted audience.

At present, authors have a great advantage. There are millions of bloggers whose audiences are larger than the traditional press. There are also millions of consumers who are just one click away from sharing their books with their friends on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

If you can make it simpler for people to share and get excited about your book, you don’t have to spend a lot. Here are some helpful techniques to make your book go viral using social media.

Add a retweet button in the free chapter of your book. Most of us love a free sample. Adding a retweet button in strategic parts of the free chapter will enable people to share the book with their friends on Twitter easily.

Create a Spread the Word page. To help your book go viral with social media, you need to make it easy for your readers. Creating a special page on your book promo site can help. The page contains a short letter from you asking for people’s help. You can create some tweets for your readers to share with the click of a button, and instructions on how to share the book on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Create a Facebook photo contest. There is nothing like a friendly and fun competition to attract people to your book. And to get things rolling, Facebook is the best platform. You can conduct the contest several days before the book launch. A creative photo contest about your book is a good idea. At the start, you might have around 50 Facebook fans, but the number can be doubled easily through your social media sites.

Add Social Media Share buttons. Adding social media share buttons to your webpage is a powerful marketing tool. These buttons let people share your page easily on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Also, they provide powerful social proof for first time visitors to your page. If someone sees that there are lots of people that shared your book with their friends, it triggers the thought that it is a good page to share and they will also do the same. The good news is that you can embed Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn share button on any page.

Include Facebook Comments. You can add a Facebook commenting system to any web page. This is very effective since you can make a book page look like a blog. The Facebook comment system lets your readers comment on how amazing your book is. Other readers will be encouraged to check out the book and maybe they will make the same comment.

There are many ways that you can benefit from using social media. It is not just to promote your book, reach your target audience and generate sales, but also to establish your name as a writer.