3 SOCIAL MEDIA MYTHS OF AUTHORS BUSTED…

Social media is a powerful technology, but it’s also misunderstood. In its simplest form, social media is a way to connect with old friends from childhood or college and a way to share snippets of your daily life. In its more complex form, social media is a unique way to market your business and products to the entire world in a short amount of time. While you can take months or years to study the intricacies of social media and craft business strategies, there are three common myths about social media that authors can dispel today.

Myth #1: You must use every single social media platform.
Expanding your reach is certainly a goal for authors as that yields more sales, which equals increased income. However, the real question to ask before signing up for every platform is: where is my ideal reader? Using Facebook just because it has over 1 billion users doesn’t mean those 1 billion users will find you and start purchasing. Identify your ideal reader and find out where they hang out. Those are the platforms you should use.

Myth #2: Aim for every post to go viral.
It’s always fun to see a post go viral as they are usually entertaining or thought provoking but of the viral campaigns you’ve noticed recently, could you say what company sponsored them? I can’t either. Aim to provide value in your posts mixed in with some of your personality as opposed to aiming for shock or entertainment value. Your ideal reader wants to know more about you and your characters so your authenticity will be felt and remembered long after the latest viral video fades away.

Myth #3: Having a large number of followers equals increased profits.
It sure is an ego boost to see a large number of social media followers but are these followers interacting with you? Are they liking or sharing your posts? Are they leaving comments? If not, then chances are they are not your ideal readers and chances are they will never purchase one of your books. Evaluate your own posts; it’s quite possible they’re boring and that’s the reason for no response. Be more creative with your posts and watch for audience interaction. This directs back to the need for niching down to your ideal reader. You’re not appealing to everyone; you’re appealing to a small fraction of the world’s population. Pay attention to finding that demographic and the number of engaged audience members will follow, as will the profits.