Tag Archives: social-media

Thursday Thoughts: Social Media

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sell phone with chalk drawings depicting social media icons like cloud, envelope, speaking bubble and envelope. different colors: yellow, teal, and purple. text says, thursday thoughts: social media

So, a couple things caught my eye this morning while I was having coffee trying to wake up. Thursdays are my Mondays and I don’t always handle the mornings as gracefully as I should. Becca Syme says maybe not opening social media (or checking your sales dashboard) the minute you open your eyes could help, but for now this is my way of easing into my day.

The first thing I saw this morning was this lovely Thread by Holly June Smith (typed out in Alt text):

Snapshot of a thread: Hollyjunesmith Today in Unsolicited Indie Author Advice Nobody Asked For But Might Find Useful Anyway (yep, it's a series now): You have to detach your self-worth from social media numbers. Yes everyone wants their book post to go viral and sell a bajillion copies. Yes it's depressing when your carefully crafted posts get 100 views. But checking them all day long will not push that number higher. There is no magic answer. Nobody truly knows how these algorithm works even if they act like they've nailed it. I've had the rush of a post doing big numbers and thought "Yes, I've finally made it!" only for the next thing to flop. These sites are never going to make this easy for us, they want us to keep coming back and posting more.
Snapshot of a Thread: Hollyjunesmith You can look at what others are doing and try to emulate that yourself, but what works for some doesn't for others and you need to try things more than once to gain traction (then they'll probably change the algorithm anyway 🫠) Very few people see overnight success with social media the only thing I've ever seen actually work is to keep posting, and let the numbers be what they are. More often than not, consistency will be rewarded over creativity. Bit depressing, but that's the game. tl;dr Make regular content that doesn't use a lot of your time and energy, and keep going.

I really love this and what I needed to hear because underneath all the blog posts I write about doing better, complaining about low views when I do actually post, and just overall wondering if social media really moves the needle at all, is the fact I have a really difficult time posting. Even on my personal Facebook profile, I rarely post anything. I don’t care much about “checking in” when I go somewhere or telling people about my day. I don’t take pictures of my breakfast, and if I take a picture of a boozy drink like the one I ordered last night when I went out with my sister…

Southtown Pourhouse, Fargo, ND

…I usually forget to post it and delete it off my phone later. I learned years ago on Twitter that followers don’t add up to a whole lot.

Then right after I saw Holly June’s perfect thread I read someone’s bragging about her social media growth. It made me feel crappy for about two minutes because while she can brag about how quickly her account grew, I have a lot of things I’m proud of that (in my opinion) are more important than that.

If you ever feel down because your social media growth isn’t what you want it to be, remember what’s important. Here’s a list and you are welcome to print it out and tape it somewhere to remind yourself that there are more important things than follower count.

write your books make real connections be helpful build a community on your own property each with an envelop black filigree in corners of graphic

Write your books!
Remember why you got into this game to begin with. Everyone is talking about what will happen when TikTok gets banned, and when you have 40k followers and use that platform to sell books, yeah, it’s going to be a devastating development. I’m still pretty optimistic that TikTok won’t go away anytime soon (I’ll believe it when I see it), but social media platforms and the billionaires who own them are fickle beasts and one way to control that is to keep your eyes on your own paper and write your books. Your books will always be there no matter what kind of social media disappears and what takes its place. I’d rather say I wrote three books this year than say I gained 50 followers or whatever. Remember what’s important. Besides, even if you do have a ton of followers, they can’t buy what’s not there.

Make real connections.
Personally, the only reason I know of to have social media is to make personal, genuine connections. Obviously, 100% of my online friends I’ve met through social media. Though, some have reached out to me through this blog and we stay in touch through email or the messages part of a platform like Instagram. Network with others in your genre, build bridges with those you can help and who can help you. That’s what social media is really for. (I’ve said for years if you’re not connecting with other authors and using it to find out important book news, you’re using Facebook wrong.) I’ve been friends with a handful of people for several years that I met on Twitter and I wouldn’t have met them if I hadn’t be a part of that platform.

Be helpful.
It’s going to sound dumb, but helping my friends and other authors is probably the most important part of this whole thing. I learned how to do book covers, I have Vellum and learned how to use it. Now I help other authors who can’t afford to hire out those services. I edit for people when I can. I beta read. I like helping people and between that and writing my books, publishing them and hearing feedback from readers that they loved the story, those are the two most important reasons why I keep writing and publishing. It’s why I keep coming back to this blog every Monday. Just the other day I got a message on Instagram from someone who thanked me for writing the Canva tutorial on how to make a full paperback wrap. I’d rather have someone reach out and thank me for giving her the tools she needed to publish her book than a million followers.

Build a community on property you own.
I can’t stress this enough. Like the future of TikTok and what Musk did with Twitter, you never know the outcome of some of these platforms. Some seem to be around to stay, but for every platform that hangs on, there are more that don’t like MySpace and Google +. As an author, even if you don’t want to hear it, build your reading community on land you own and that way it doesn’t matter what social media does or doesn’t do. Create a website, blog on it if you want so you can build SEO. Start a newsletter. Collect those email addresses and back them up often so no matter what happens to your aggregator, your readers are yours to keep. Sometimes we put our energy into the wrong place. I’m not saying building a following anywhere, like TT or your Facebook author page, is a bad move, but also have a plan B, because just like we say about Bezos, they don’t care about you. The last thing Mark Zuckerberg cares about is your book business. You have to take it upon yourself to find a way to stay in touch with your readers that doesn’t depend on anyone else. If you have an FB page, frequently remind them to sign up for your blog or newsletter or as an alternative, tell them to follow your author page on Amazon. Amazon may not be around forever either, but if they don’t want to give you their email address, I think a follow over there is the next best thing. Now that Zuck owns Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, when their servers go down, ALL that goes down. Having a way to reach your readers that doesn’t depend on someone else is a must. It really is.

You can get down looking at other authors’ follower counts, but behind the scenes, those followers might not be doing anything for them anyway. I know my followers on Twitter didn’t, but I also made friends and that’s what really counts. Post if you want, find joy in sharing your work with others. I’m not saying having a social media account and trying to gain followers isn’t valid, it can be in this world of being online, but it’s definitely not the end all be all of your publishing journey. I have to remind myself of that when I see others’ social media accounts exploding and mine is a stagnant mess. But I’ve accomplished a lot in the past year. I’ve finished a 6-book series and started publishing those books. I’m editing a standalone that sounds so good, and the cover I’m tweaking is a perfect match. I’ve picked up a reading and formatting project I’m going to start working on soon.

I’m on social media. I like talking to other authors, talking shop, supporting them in bite-sized Threads pieces. I’m trying to like posting on my FB author page, even if my reach is bad and my engagement isn’t any better. But with anything, what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it, so I’ll keep posting my favorite lines out of my books, talking about my books, and my life as an author. If those posts find fans, they do, and if not, that’s okay. I’ll keep editing Loss and Damages, and it will be a solid addition to the backlist I’ve written over the years.

And unless I’m starving, my breakfast won’t have anything to do with it.

Come back on Monday. I’ll have my usual post and I’ll be talking about the 2025 Written Word Media publishing predictions. Have a good weekend!