Five Social Media Blunders Authors Should Avoid

    It doesn't matter how much you hate, loathe or simply misunderstand it, social media is a powerful tool for any author. Many people have come to embrace social media as an effective way to market their books, but that doesn't mean they know how to properly use it. 

There are many ways to misuse and abuse social media, and the problem is that it's way too easy to miss the mark if you don't know what you're doing. Here are five of the most common blunders that authors make. Just be sure to avoid them if you really want to improve your fan base. 

1) Buying Followers and Fans There are hundreds of online companies that sell you followers and fans. From hundreds to thousands, you can instantly look like a superstar overnight with enough money. While reaching this many people might be your goal, there are a number of problems when it comes to buying followers. First of all, are these even real people? Sure, the company selling them to you assured you they were, but there's no way to guarantee it. You might have a bunch of bot or hacked accounts clicking that follow button as hard as possible. Another problem is that the vast majority (we're talking way over 90%) aren't even in your target audience. That means that most of your followers in this case won't care about your posts or products. While this does make you look bigger than you are and it improves your reach (ie: how many people see your posts), it will actually end up hurting your wallet and reputation, especially if you actually try marketing to these people. 

2) Hashtag Stuffing Social media users love hashtags, and posters love them too. It's an easy way to target and find content. Just add a hashtag with a relevant keyword and you'll easily get the target audience you were hoping for. But, this strength leads many people to hashtag stuffing. If one or two hashtags brought this many people, then eight or nine will bring even more! Yes, these hashtags do bring more people, but you should never be stuffing your content. According to a study by Buddy Media ( https://blog.bufferapp.com/a-scientific-guide-to-hashtags-which-ones-work-when-and-how-many ), two hashtags really improve engagement. More than this starts to REDUCE engagement. Be wary about how targeted your messages get. 

3) Joining Every Social Network For any marketing method to be successful, it must be manageable. You can't expect yourself to make new products or effectively reach people if you're spending all your time on social media. However, that's exactly what many authors do. They join every social network they can think of and then wonder why no one is buying their book, or why they don't have time to write. Facebook is a no-brainer because it's so big that literally every demographic is there. After that, be a little choosy about where you go. LinkedIn will be good for business books, Twitter has a good amount of people in general, GoodReads is targeted specifically towards writers and so on. Pick two or three social networks that you can really excel at and start there. Don't expand until you're sure that you really got a hold of this marketing method. 

4) Not Learning Social Media Some writers don't learn social media at all, or they only learn the bare basics of posting and maybe one or two other things. Yes, this is a very powerful tool and it's time that you stop being stubborn and just learn how to use it. Social media has been driving sales and fan bases for many companies and writers, and it really does help you meet buyers and talk to potential customers. Learning social media is crucial. First of all, it's really not that hard, and secondly you have a leg up above your common user because you know how to write. Writing a book and post are very different, but you'll be surprised how easy it is to transition once you've got the basics down. If you can't figure Facebook out on your own, consider buying a book or making a profile completely separate from your marketing and just play around with it until you feel comfortable. 

5) Thinking Social Media is Free No, it's absolutely not. Even if you don't spend a penny on any of the advertisements or making landing pages for people to go to, you're still spending money in the sense of spending time. Social media takes a lot of time, both to learn and execute, so it's best to do so as effectively as possible. Attempting to marketing via social media without fully understanding it is going to waste time, and thus waste money. Also, if you really want to reach as many people as possible, then you are going to spend money on advertisements to get more people and buyers to your account.

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