Social media is an essential part of marketing for self-published and aspiring authors. I've been working with writers and other business owners for 5 years to improve their social media strategies. Over the years, I've noticed a few common mistakes that writers especially seem to struggle with.
Inconsistent Posts
This is definitely the biggest problem I see writers have on social media. If you look back through their history, you can see that they'll post regularly for a week or two, then be silent for a month,then come back and repeat the cycle. The inconsistency can lead to poor engagement and unfollowing. Remember, most social media outlets allow you to schedule posts in advance so you can stay more consistent.
Forcing Their Voice
Everyone knows that having a strong voice is essential to social media. You can be educational, casual, dry, comical, informal, conversational. There's lots of options! The problem is, that people usually decide what voice they want, instead of figuring out which voice comes to them naturally. For example, everyone always wants to be the humorous twitter author because it will get them more followers, but they may not be a naturally funny person so they force it. Readers can see through this forced voice and may be turned off by it.
Being Too Personal
While big name authors can get away with posting whatever they want, including personal photos of friends and family, anecdotes, and random musings, for the average writer too many of these personal touches can be off putting for readers. There's definitely no problem with putting a human touch on your professional profiles, especially if its part of your brand, but be care not to make your professional outlets more personal than they should be.
Over Self-Promotion
Social media is a great way to promote a writer's work, either by sharing links to blog posts, announcing upcoming events, promoting publications and more. But authors who only share their own content without posting articles, tips, quotes or other posts that fellow writers and readers may be interested in. Self-promotion is great, but too much will make your followers frustrated and lead to lower engagement.
Poor Networking
Like most forms of communication, social media is a two way street. Most writers are great at posting but don't see great followings or engagement. Part of that problem is that they're only taking advantage of one side of the street. Remember, you can track hashtags, find new followers, like and share other people's content, and will see the results of the extra work they put in to interact and network with others.
I hope this helps you avoid these mistakes in your posts in the future. For more information about social media for self-published and aspiring authors, check out my webinar.
And always remember that social media is only successful if you enjoy yourself! Hiring a social media manager can help you find your voice, enhance your brand, find content and schedule posts. If you're interested in learning about my pricing and other service, reach out to me through my contact page.