4 Best Social Media Platforms for Authors

With over 3.96 billion people using social media platforms worldwide, it's no surprise that social media has altered the marketing landscape for authors and self-publishers. The ability to create videos and posts that instantly reach your target audience has transformed book promotion from impossible to necessary, and any author who aspires to be a literary celebrity has been quick to learn how to be active on social platforms.

However, promoting your book on the right platform can mean the difference between getting no reads and reaching the top of the charts, so it’s important to know which platform is right for you. Check out the following list for the top four social platforms for book promotion!

Facebook
Facebook is at the top of the chart when it comes to book promotion. With over 2 billion users from all demographics and age ranges, Facebook has the broadest reach of all the social media sites, making it the perfect platform for showing off your latest novel or biography. 

An advantage Facebook offers over other platforms is the ability to provide authors with a wide range of Groups in which they can discuss and publicize their work directly from their book's official page. This allows authors to freely interact with their audience while also circulating their work. An all-around win! 

Even better, if the Group you're looking for doesn't exist, you can easily start one yourself. With a bit of elbow grease and audience development, you could be discussing your work in no time. 

YouTube 
With videos on book reviews, bookshelf tours, bookstore hauls, discussions, and more, YouTube has reached millions of viewers worldwide, making it a holy grail for book promotion. 

Despite what authors may think about trying to vlog about their work, putting in the effort to learn how to make at least a short video could raise your book from a small niche group to mainstream reading. Vlogging your writing process, what you do to prevent writer’s block, and how you find inspiration are just a few examples of videos you could make to grow your audience and, in turn, grow your readers.

Video is an incredibly powerful medium for communicating on all topics, including books. Because of this, there are large subsections of YouTube known as "BookTube” and "AuthorTube” that share content related to their books, writing advice, publishing advice, etc. All genres are covered, but YouTube will be especially worthwhile for you if you’d like to promote young adult and children's fiction.

Twitter
Twitter is built for circulation and engagement, making it an ideal platform for interacting with readers, publishers, and other authors. What Facebook has in Groups and lengthy posts, Twitter makes up for in discussion and community engagement. 

Twitter has a robust community of writers and readers who actively engage with literary content. According to Twitter's media site, the platform’s #BookTwitter community is happy to discuss and engage with a wide range of fiction genres as well as nonfiction, poetry, and essays. 

However, you do have to take the time to network and build if you want to get noticed. The best way to build followership on Twitter is to engage your target audience in “Twitter Chats” that could direct them to your book’s profile and consistently “Retweet” relevant content using popular hashtags that make your content easily searchable. 

Instagram
Instagram is a rapidly growing platform for sharing highly visual content like photos and short videos, making it a great platform for making concise and aesthetic posts that could attract an audience. While Facebook has the most reach, and Twitter has the most verbal engagement, authors with a strong brand essence do best on Instagram. 

With over 70 percent of Instagram's 1 billion users being aged 34 and under, Instagram is ideal for authors trying to appeal to a younger audience. Young adult, genre fiction, poetry, and graphic novels or comics are all popular book genres on this platform. Instagram also boasts a large poetry community, with popular hashtags such as #poems, #poetrycommunity, and #poetsofinstagram having tens of millions of posts each. (Including hashtags that are relevant to popular topics could help your account stand out.)

Instagram users are highly engaged with high-quality content, but the trade-off is that they also expect the highest amount of creativity. Aesthetically pleasing photographs, a keen sense of style, and meaningful responses to user comments are what truly attract an Insta audience, so if you want a shot at their attention, it's best to allow your creativity and passion to shine through.

For more tips and tricks on how to get your book noticed online, follow us on Instagram and Facebook!

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By Jess Swenson, Intern

Jess Swenson is a local Houston lifestyle journalist.