{"id":2638,"date":"2020-03-24T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/?p=2638"},"modified":"2020-03-17T21:35:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T01:35:07","slug":"social-media-whats-in-it-for-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/social-media-whats-in-it-for-authors\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media: What’s In It For Authors?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You said it, random guy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most\nsocial media platforms have accounts you can maintain specifically for a\nbusiness, where you have access to a mix of features that\u2019s similar to but not\nquite the same as a personal account. For instance, a business\naccount on Facebook<\/a> will let you create events, run\nads, and track analytics. You also don\u2019t have \u201cfriends\u201d on a Facebook business\naccount like you do on a personal account; people simply like and\/or follow\nyour page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Different\ndemographics<\/a> frequent different social media\nplatforms. Therefore, it\u2019s important to understand the general\ndemographics of your genre<\/a>\u2014for instance, whether they skew\nyoung or old, liberal or conservative, wealthy or cash-strapped, male or female\u2014and\nfocus more on where those people spend their online time. For example, YA\nreaders skew young and female, so cultivating a strong presence on Instagram\nmay be the best use of your professional social media time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nsocial media platforms also allow you to schedule posts. This means you don\u2019t need\nto rack your brain every day to come up with something interesting to post (if\nyou have that problem). You can also rig your website to auto-post your blogs\nto your various social media accounts, which is useful if you do a lot of\nblogging (like me).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chalice Technique for scheduling social media posts:<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s\nsay, like me, you have a hard time thinking of clever one-liners on a daily\nbasis. Or, also like me, you\u2019re not super into social media and don\u2019t want to\nspend significant time thinking about it every day. What then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\ntechnique I\u2019ve used is something I\u2019ll call the \u201cchalice\u201d technique, though I\ndidn\u2019t invent it myself (I just can\u2019t remember if it has an official name). This\nis how it works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1<\/strong>:<\/em> Pick five or six topics to focus your social media on\u2014for instance: family, work-in-progress, book news, what you\u2019re reading, and pugs. These are your \u201cchalices,\u201d from which you pull specific things to post about. It\u2019s similar to deciding what you\u2019ll put in your newsletter [link]; in fact it\u2019s good branding synergy to use the same topics! (check out my lingo speak\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s an example of some chalices I’ve used<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Step 2:<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>Build a spreadsheet with all the days of the month annotated. Then decide which days will be devoted to which chalice, taking care to spread out the chalices evenly; specifically, don\u2019t overdo it with the book news. A quick way to lose followers is to stuff your feed with ads. I recommend planning to post every two to three days, to leave room for spontaneous posts if the mood strikes you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 3<\/strong>:<\/em> Write specific posts for those days. Try to keep it short, like one or two sentences\u2014ideal for scrolling. Include pics when you can, cuz people like pics. Some posts can be only pics or videos, like a funny meme or whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s an example of the spreadsheet with my planned posts in it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Step 4:<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>Copy and paste the post into your social media platform of choice, then schedule it for the day you annotated in your spreadsheet. Done!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 5<\/strong><\/em>: <\/strong>Sit back and relax until the next month (or two weeks, or however far out you schedule your posts).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthere you go! Now all you need to do is spend maybe an hour or less a month on\ncoming up with content all at once, rather than racking your brain for\nsomething to post every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now\nat this point, let me say I\u2019m absolutely not<\/em>\nthe authority on social media. I suck pretty hard at it, and only spend\nslightly more time than your average grandma scrolling through my feeds. I\nmight not have checked my Twitter or Instagram accounts in over a year. I\nglance through Facebook once every couple weeks or so. My introverted husband keeps\nup more with social media than I do. (I do, however, keep up a lot with the\nnews, but I go to actual news sites for that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore,\nI don\u2019t have a lot of super-insightful advice to give about social media. I\nwill, however, say this critical thing about social media and your author\ncareer: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

High\nsocial media engagement is the result<\/em>\nof a book\u2019s success, not the cause <\/em>of\nsuccess.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like\nwith everything, there are some exceptions\u2014in this case, mostly non-fiction\nstuff, and of that mostly mommy bloggers from the early 2010\u2019s (i.e. early\nadopters) who racked up a significant following before everybody else got on\nboard. But that ship has sailed so you won\u2019t be one of them, especially with\nfiction\u2026unless you do something fun with food, maybe turn that into a\ncookbook\u2026weird cookbooks are hot right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is, setting up social media accounts for your author business is a good idea simply because it\u2019s a free and mostly passive resource for marketing. But don\u2019t put a lot of time and energy into posting content and updates unless it\u2019s something you genuinely enjoy doing. Social media is an arm of marketing, and like I said in my marketing post<\/a>, it\u2019s better for your mental health to prioritize the things you enjoy while minimizing the things you don\u2019t enjoy\u2026especially when the financial result of torturing yourself versus not torturing yourself is the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nchalice technique I just described above? Other authors swear by it, but I gave\nup on it after a couple months because even that was too much effort for\nsomething I didn\u2019t enjoy doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmoral of the story is this: if you like social media, then do that. If you\ndon\u2019t like it, then don\u2019t do it, or keep it to a minimum. Either way, your\nsocial media presence isn\u2019t going to make or break your career. \n\nEventually the next shiny thing will come along and everyone will swear\nyou need to be ON IT LIKE YESTERDAY, but all you really need to do as an author\nis write a good book. And then write another, and another. Everything else is\nsecondary.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most social media platforms have accounts you can maintain specifically for a business, where you have access to a mix of features that\u2019s similar to but not quite the same as a personal account. For instance, a business account on Facebook will let you create events, run ads, and track analytics. You also don\u2019t have … <\/p>\n

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