Your Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Authors

At a writing conference recently, I was speaking about the importance of strong social media strategy. A woman in the front row raised her hand and said writers should do what they want, and that it’s not necessary to be on social media or to promote their work at all.

I said she was right.

Writers who don’t care about selling their work, who write for their own amusement or growth, or to share with a small group of friends, and who are happy in that situation, don’t need to be on social media. They don’t need to promote their work.

The rest of us…need to be on social media. Some of us are already on there, active and effective Booking our Faces and Twitting our Tweets. Some of us are on social media, but not getting traction. Others haven’t really started, but don’t know how to start.

In this article, we’ll go over the basics and best practices for setting up and making good progress with your social media, starting with…

The Social Media Prime Directive

Steven Covey tells us to begin any project with the end in mind. Social media is a process, not a task that ends, but you still have to do everything on it with a single, simple goal in mind. This is that goal:

Turn strangers into friends, friends into followers, followers into readers, and readers into advocates for your work. 

The degree to which your social media does this is the degree to which it’s doing it’s job and the degree to which you’re not wasting your time on Facebook rabbit holes and Instagram image binges.

Got it? Good. Now, let’s talk about how.