6 Helpful Tips For Effective Social Media Promotion of Your Ebook

Today’s guest post is from Anna Fox, who runs the blog Manifest Connection—which provides practical help for writers to get organized and equipped, and be productive in their writing efforts.

Becoming a published novelist is no easy task, but the possibilities presented by the Internet make it that much easier to take control of your own creative future by self-publishing your work in ebook format. While this route will allow you complete creative control over your novel, with no opinionated editors around to push your plot in unforeseen directions, you will have to deal with the loss of a dedicated marketing team.

Thankfully, the seemingly endless opportunities presented by social media can help you to even the advertising odds, so long as you know what you’re doing.

If you’re ready for your work of fiction to make its way to the masses in digital form, utilize these six helpful tips for effective social media promotion of your ebook in order to send your words and the tale they weave as far and as wide as possible:

1. Explore Social Media

While you may already know platforms like Facebook and Twitter intimately, don’t fool yourself into thinking that the concept of social media marketing ends there. While the big names are imperative to your cause, there are a great number of highly useful social media platforms to choose from, many of them tailored directly to your self-publishing cause, such as the MyBlogGuest ebook gallery.

By considering your niche and your goals, and then letting a service like Google do the finding for you, you’ll be able to take advantage of both the well-lit areas and the dark and dusty corners of the web that have something to offer you, giving your book its best chance at early success in its digital debut.

2. Get Connected

Whatever platforms you choose to focus your marketing attention on—and this will surely vary, depending on your niche—be sure to turn your profiles into attention magnets in order to earn yourself as many like-minded fans and followers as possible.

With well-informed and attractive profiles in place, take the time to seek out and connect with other users who share an interest in the topic that your book covers, whether it’s a work of fiction or nonfiction. Always take a personal approach, never spamming or mass-adding friends and followers; you’ll find the extra effort necessary to connect with people directly well worth it when it comes time to count sales and measure reader loyalty.

Besides providing you with an ocean of people interested in your story and the depth it contains, while promoting early sales you’ll also give your fans a reason to talk about you, both out loud and on the web itself, setting yourself up for prolonged success as word of who you are and what you have to sell reaches further and wider each and every day.

3. Tease and Dangle

Whether you’re pushing an ebook that tells the story of a dragon-slaying knight, a romantic adventure, or a grim tale of horror, you can be sure that a compelling plot is all you need to catch the attention of readers. With that in mind, make a point to use your social media presence to drop not-so-subtle hints, character overviews, plot tip-offs, quotes, and any other tidbits from your book that you think will generate excitement.

Even if your tale doesn’t feature a long list of cliff-hanging moments that you can draw upon, remember that no one knows your audience like you do; knowing your genre means knowing exactly the type of enticing that people need to be motivated to learn more about the world you’ve created for them.

4. Keep SEO in Mind

While social media is in itself quite separate from the idea of search engine optimization (SEO), the two are intertwined in ways that can prove to be very valuable to you as an author hawking a newly released ebook.

In order to ensure that Google and friends pay as much attention to your book as you expect your fans and followers to, be sure to go heavy on keywords, hashtags, and other SEO-friendly identifiers as you converse with your followers and divulge information about your ebook and what it has to offer them, helping yourself to be found on the web at large as opposed to just the social networks you’ve decided to frequent. (Kindlepreneur has a great hashtag tool here.)

Besides having the obvious benefit of getting the word out about your ebook to more people, you’ll also begin to see new marketing opportunities present themselves as you become more established online, giving you the ability to tweak your advertising plan on the fly in order to take advantage of the many new options you’re sure to come across. Whether that means launching a blog, holding question-and-answer sessions on popular platforms, or simply enjoying the increased recognition that you’ll be receiving, allowing SEO to become a natural part of your social marketing plan really is a no-brainer.

5. Launch with Style

Launching your new ebook with style can mean only one thing: throwing yourself the party that you and your fans truly deserve! Social media will prove to be invaluable in this regard, giving you the means to host an enjoyable virtual jam that brings people together around your new book.

Whether you utilize a Google+ hangout, a Twitter hashtag, or a Facebook fan page, you’ll have all the tools at your disposal to turn your ebook launch into something that your first buyers are going to remember for a long time to come. Besides further entrenching you among fans of your niche, this is also guaranteed to go a long way toward generating further buzz for your work, both online and through good old-fashioned word of mouth.

6. Be a Fan Favorite

Whether you’ve got a book in the wings waiting to be released, or you’re already enjoying early success with your ebook, now is no time to let up on your efforts to effectively market your product via social media; indeed, you’re just getting started!

In order to keep yourself in the minds and hearts of your readers, both current and future, continue to take the time to be active online, interacting with fans and followers by conversing with them, answering their questions, and helping them feel as if they are part of something special. With your book remaining the focal point of all conversation, you’re sure to quickly establish yourself as an expert in your niche, giving people a reason to gravitate toward you when it comes to the topic at hand.

Being a fan favorite not only generates sales in the short-term, it also sets you up for future success by leaving you with a large pool of people who are likely to be interested in subsequent work that you publish, giving you the opportunity to write successful follow-ups and sequels, establish a blog, or take your social media endeavors to new heights, all of which cater to your wish to build your career as a writer.

Feature Photo Credit: MACSwriter via Compfight cc

Anna Fox is the writer addicted to productivity and self-improvement. She runs a blog, where she shares her experience with readers. For spreading the word about her ideas she is using Viral Content Buzz—free social media platform for content promotion.