How to Promote Your Book on Social Media in 2024? 10 Ideas for Authors

Who knew staying in meant going back to print books for a cerebral escape? Since the start of 2020, print book sales rose by more than 8.9%. This is a surprise, given that most consumers are now glued to their smart phones. 

However, avid readers are significantly increasing their consumption of books. About 825.7 million in print books alone were sold in the U.S. during 2021, and the U.S. books industry is expected to earn $30 billion by 2025. E-books also continue to be popular across ages, with over $4 billion more revenue in 2020 compared to the previous year.

Why Authors Need Social Media for Books Promotion

Some authors may initially cringe at the idea of being aggressive in promoting their own work on social media. Most aren't focused on the marketing aspect of publishing and may not know how to go about promoting books on social channels. Questions like, "Do authors need social media?" Or "How to promote a book on social media?" could arise.

These concerns are valid, but the fact is, promotion from authors can be a powerful way to make books more interesting or personal. Social media marketing broadens the captive audience greatly. It's almost impossible not to design and execute a social media book promotion in today's digital world. 

10 Strategies on How to Promote A Book on Social Media 

Since most people are on the Internet, authors need to engage their potential customers in the space. The key is to know how to do so effectively. Here are 10 tactics you can try: 

1. Follow accounts that you'd personally want to subscribe to.

Follow-for-follow is a known strategy to increase one's following on social media, but it will only work if these accounts are actually part of your target audience. Similarly, if these social media accounts promote to an audience that’s similar to yours, you'd want to follow them and hopefully reach the right leads. 

Being more authentic with followers works because you begin building a community of like-minded individuals—whether readers, advertisers or writers—who could ultimately share and buy your content. Support the accounts you're interested in and hope that they aid you as well.

2. Share your journey

Everyone loves an intimate look at the creative process. Readers, or potential fans can connect with you if they have a look at the behind the scenes regularly. Because this includes the pretty and the ugly parts, you'd be a more relatable and lovable author, and your work can gain more traction.

3. Share digestible, downloadable content

In relation to the book publishing journey, authors can share content that's connected to the book and make them downloadable. It could be anything, from graphs, book cover ideas, written outlines, plot ideas, among other creative pieces. Again, this will emphasize authenticity and keep audiences engaged with the whole writing process

4. Treat social media platforms differently

Is there a preferred social media platform for book promotion? It really depends how you optimize each one. That means you can't have a single uniform social media promotion plan. Every platform has a different user demographic, and the type of content that works best within these platforms also varies. 

If you think you need to post the same work everywhere, think otherwise. Keep content attuned to each social media platform. For example, TikTok and Instagram cater to younger generations and are suited for highly visual content, with Tiktok being a video content platform.

Facebook and Twitter can reach older demographics for text-based content. LinkedIn is for content that working professionals will appreciate. Know the trends in each platform before posting.

5. Think about algorithms

For paid posting, you can leverage the algorithm settings for platforms like Instagram and Facebook. The more you know about the best posting times, engagement levels, audience targeting, and more, you’d be able to maximize each paid content that you'll post on these platforms.

6. Use a content planning, scheduling, and publishing tool

You don't really have to cover all social media platforms all the time, but even with just one or two platforms, social media marketing could get overwhelming, especially for a busy writer.

Getting a simple scheduling tool can make things smoother and save you time and energy when promoting the book. You can also hire a Fiverr social media expert to lay the groundwork and make things more consistent across platforms.

7. Showcase social proof

Social proof refers to intentional social influence, whereby you encourage your target audience to emulate the opinions and actions of others who positively regard your product or service.

Books benefit from social proof, because testimonials and reviews give an in-depth perspective about your work. Take screenshots from Amazon or social media follower reviews when you can, and then re-share these to your own account. 

8. Collaborate with influencers

Who reigns supreme on social media sites? Influencers! Whether they’re personalities with a small but engaged following or ambassadors who command millions of subscribers, influencers can boost social proof and garner you an automatic pool of potential leads. Authors can reach out to book review influencers to highlight the work to their respective audiences.

9. relevant hashtags

Hashtags keep your content visible to the right users, regardless of whether they are already following you or not. Simply adding a hashtag can get you broad content exposure to the accounts searching for that particular hashtag - an easy way to keep your campaign growing. One helpful tip is to use hashtags that do not yet have millions of followers. This way, the post will have a better chance of being "seen" and not buried under thousands of posts.

10. Center marketing around your audience

Constant gratitude and appreciation go a long way to making your book memorable. Focus your messaging on connection and not baldly on promotion. This way, you build rapport, get genuine comments about your book, and make social media platforms an excellent space for reaching your readers.