Social Media Only Works if You’re Providing Value

Every author, published, and unpublished, is encouraged to be on social media. Some publishers even push you to be on every platform, but I know that’s not possible. I’m not nearly as active on Facebook as I am on Twitter and Instagram, two platforms I feel are easier to get in and out of and back to what I need to do.

Whatever platform you chose it’s not going to work unless you find a way to add value, and simply posting about your book release over and over isn’t valuable. How are you connecting with readers and how are you finding an audience? What do you bring to the platform that few others bring or that connects on a personal level with others? For me, my value is obvious. I pen advice on publishing and insights into the world of a literary agent. People who follow me are looking to see inside my head and learn something about the business and, apparently, how much coffee I drink.

You have a book coming out and that’s great, but that alone is not giving you the added value people on social media are looking for. What are your passions and how can you share them to build a broader audience? Are you a cook as well as a writer? Can you dispense cooking tips alongside your writing updates? Are cute cat pictures your thing, because they happen to be the thing of thousands on social media. What if writing really is your only thing? Awesome, writers love getting pieces of inspiration, advice, hearing about the process of others and even seeing what a copyedited manuscript looks like.

To successfully build your social media platform you need to be adding something to the conversation. If you’re not, you’re quite possibly just wasting your time.