Five Things Socially Savvy Authors Should Do Every Day

When I talk to authors trying to wrangle their social media activities, one of the big questions is what should I do every day to make the biggest difference? This is especially important to figure out so you can maximize your time and put your efforts in the right place. Savvy book marketers should be able to do the following five things in an hour or less every day. If you need to prioritize, the first and second activities on this list are the most important. Every day you should be engaging with your fans, potential book buyers and others who can help you network for opportunities.

 

 

1. Monitoring your posts for activity: Engaging with your audience is one of the best ways to build loyalty and affinity. Don’t ignore people that reach out to you, regardless of whether or not they are happy or sad. Half of the battle is responding and making a real effort to listen to your customers and prospects.

 

 

2. Proactively looking for ways to engage: The world of social media is called social for a reason! You don’t—and shouldn’t—have to wait for people to say something to you before you reach out. Instead, take advantage of the lists you have created, and engage with those individuals that really matter. For example, you can engage with individuals who have signed up for your blog, or who match other contact lists. Retweet other authors, comment on the latest update from book bloggers. Start having conversations!

 

 

3. Curating content: You shouldn’t always be tweeting about yourself. Instead, vary your content with a content curation strategy. Content curation is one of the best ways to help keep an audience engaged, to demonstrate leadership, and to provide additional value to your customers, partners and prospects. There are a variety of tools that help you aggregate your content, including my favorite, Feedly, which helps me stay on top of all the blogs and news sites that I care about. Do what I do: read the news over your morning coffee and queue up the content you want to share in less than ten minutes every morning.

 

 

There are other options such as Panda, Newsblur or Feedbin, all of which help you get your news easier and to share it out. If you use Buffer you can install a browser extension so you can share content from wherever you are on the Web.

 

4. Take a look at your content calendar: For those of you who are planning out your content visually in a calendar in a program such as Hootsuite, checking your calendar every day can help you get a quick understanding of how your content is distributed. I know from experience that the days when I’m not tweeting or sharing content are days when my engagement (and click-throughs to my site) tend to plummet. Don’t let that happen to you.

 

5. Check your reports and adjust content: I like to stay up-to-date on what content is resonating best with my audience so that I can create more of the same, or swap out content that is underperforming on one channel with content that has done well in other places. Checking your top posts can help you get a quick snapshot of what’s working and what’s not. And if something isn’t doing well, don’t give up on it right away. Try re-sharing it at a different time, or on a different channel. Sometimes altering the text a little bit or swapping the photo can make a big difference.

 

 

If it helps, schedule these activities into your calendar. I know many social media practitioners who schedule this time like a meeting, so it won't get missed and their time isn't stolen by someone else for other, potentially less important, meetings. Do these five things every day and you will naturally see your engagement and hopefully, your book sales, going up and up!

 

 

On a roll? Check out more from The Socially Savvy Author.

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