It’s no secret that more and more authors are flocking to social media to help sell their books. After all, with the entire world at your finger tips, you ought to be able to find your ideal reader and tell them about your book.

So you set up your accounts, you fill in all the information they ask from you, and now you’re done. Right?

Unfortunately, the hard work has only just begun.

In order to successfully run a social media account that will return the results you’re so desperately hoping for—namely, higher book sales and increased name recognition—a few things have to be working in your favor. No matter which platform you’re on (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (now X), Tumblr, Pinterest, and any of the others), these components always help you succeed.

In this article, we’re looking at how to do a self-audit of your accounts to ensure you’re creating the right kind of content to draw people to yourself.

Discoverability

If someone puts your name (not your account handle, but the name they’re most likely to search by looking at your book cover) in the search bar of the social media platform, how likely are they to find you?

You can test this easily by putting the things they’re most likely to search in that bar and seeing what pops up. (Note: this is also good practice for your website. If you search your name in Google, does your website pop up?) What happens if you search your book title? You need to be easily discoverable so that your readers can find you.

Interactivity

Once someone finds you, you want them to be encouraged to interact with you somehow. It’s not enough for them to lurk on your page. We want them to click follow, subscribe, like, or any other platform-specific term for “show me this person’s posts on my feed.” More than that, we want them to scroll through your content, the items you’ve posted on your page, and leave comments, like photos or posts, and best of all, share the post with all of their followers.

Is there a clear invitation to join you on your page? Is there a clear benefit to them for following you? After all, people tend to be self-focused. What do you offer them to encourage them to stick around? After a certain point, that becomes unnecessary (what do we really gain from following most celebrities online?).

The main reasons people follow authors are:

• Entertainment
• Book News
• Event News
• Behind the Scenes content
• Book suggestions for future reading

If you happen to have information about the industry, or tips and tricks you’ve learned about writing, and you’re in a position that warrants sharing those tips on a wide scale, you can post that too. But those are most likely to draw in other writers, not necessarily to draw in future readers.

Do the posts you’ve created offer one of those five things? Are any of those things stealing the majority of the spotlight? Are you annoyed or put off by your own content because it all looks the same? These are all things to pay attention to and to adjust accordingly. After all, you are part of your target audience. And if there’s something in your content that would cause you to stop following yourself, you should adjust your content to work that out of the system.

Share-ability

We just touched on this briefly, but this is the most important factor of online activity. How likely is someone to click share on your content? How likely are they to send it to their friends and say “Oh my gosh you have to see this?”

Hopefully they want to share it for a good reason; maybe it made them laugh, maybe it encouraged them, maybe their friend just expressed something that related to your post and it made them think of their friend. Whatever the reason they decide to click share, that is the main reason you are posting online.

“But Jori,” I hear you say, “I’m only online to sell books and grow a following so I can sell more books.”

I hear you. But wouldn’t it be nice if everyone who followed you told one friend about your page? You could double your following overnight if they all did it at the same time.

If your content is the type of content that will inspire your target audience to share it with their friends and their own followers, your reach will multiply. More eyes on your content means higher name recognition, which turns into a higher follower count, which turns into higher book sales.

Post the kind of content people will want to share, and your platform will become one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. So how do you do that?

Stay tuned, because we’re talking about that next.

---