Is Your Social Media Helping Your Marketing?

Whether we like it or not, social media has become a huge piece of our lives. Even if we say we are not interested in social media, we tend to get a lot of our daily information from the net. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2016, 38% of Americans get their news from online sources. Now, while this might just be about news, it does show a trend that this is where we are now going to for anything new.

For authors, this is also important considering the decline in bookstores out there and the fact that there are so many authors out there fighting for the coveted readers. Using your social media is a great tool, IF you are using this properly.

So, the question is, what is your social media saying about you and your writing? Are you promoting your writing and giving the readers an update on what you are doing and where you are going?

I saw this weekend several authors who were showing a lot of pictures of things they were doing as a family, pictures of dogs and cats, and so forth. Anything on writing? Not a whole lot. One author made a small attempt telling me the amount of words she had written that weekend.

Your readers are interested in your career. They want to know of the upcoming books and what they can be looking forward to in the future. They want to know about how you draft your stories and the process you take to get to that final product. They also want to know how you are reaching out to your readers.

So, take some time today and reflect on your social media. Here are some questions to consider:

• Are you talking about your craft?
• Are you talking about your latest book, the up-coming book? 
• Are you interacting with your readers?
• Etc.??????