Category: News

Making Authentic Connections on Social Media

Posted on by CMPR

Why Make Connections on Social Media?

There are 4.9 billion people on social media; there are bots and marketing agencies spewing generic content; advertising is cluttering news feeds; and if you aren’t a celebrity, you won’t gain followers by the hundreds. So why does anyone even bother, you ask?  Because there are 4.9 billion people using social media. If your audience was just a fraction of that number, you could be happy. Making authentic connections on social media is difficult, but so rewarding in finding the audience for you.

We are so fortunate to be able to reach out to all of these people directly. But you have to be thoughtful, dare I say strategic about how you talk to them. If you do your homework and start talking to your “people” who want to hear what you have to say, then you will grow, and you may even become an influencer someday.  If your social media platforms are not behaving the way you want them to, it is likely that you are not properly focused on who you are trying to reach and what you need to communicate.

Building Authentic Online Relationships

Relationship building online is about earning the trust and loyalty of your customers and audiences so you can maintain and grow your numbers. But how do you do that? Is it by working with a company that will push out “snackable” content? Is it by talking about how great you are or how wonderful your product is?  Would having a roomful of cats posted on Instagram fit the bill?

Even though we can now hide behind our screens, it doesn’t mean that the skills and needs of human interaction are out the window. If anything, you need to be even more thoughtful about your dialogue with others to practice effective social media marketing. Your content needs to be authentic, and you need to do your due diligence and research in advance to identify an audience that will be interested in receiving your messages. After you determine your audience, you need to figure out how to reach it, what platforms to use, the content you will use, and when you are going to post and share.

It Takes Time

To build an army takes an army and that’s what you are doing. You are setting up a foundation of friends and followers who want to know about your ideas or buy your product. If satisfied, they will help spread the word via reposts, shares, and referrals. And as I’ve said, it doesn’t happen overnight.

Don’t try and take a shortcut when it comes to quality, actionable followers. The ones you end up with are often spam and other ineffective types. You need to put a real engagement plan into action, stick to it, monitor the results, and take appropriate action when necessary.

We all need to accept that making authentic connections on social media is going to take a lot of work. Set up a schedule that works for you. Block out time every day to work on internet engagement and research. Find a tracking program or use the tools that the individual platforms provide so you can see how your content is doing. Someone told me once regarding careers that you start with one brick and soon you will have built a wall. So go ahead and start your construction and you will see how things progress.

Content Pillars Lead Your Social Media Plan

Posted on by CMPR

What is a content pillar?  That’s marketing speak for a theme.  Content pillars lead your social media plan to build an audience.  Once you feel comfortable posting on your social platform, the next step is to identify what you want to write about regularly.  These “pillars” will support your platform and help you create many great things for your followers.

Authentic Content Pillars

Many people are stuck on what to talk about, so they randomly post stuff just to be “active”.  Sadly, that won’t work if you are serious about using social media as a tool to build a following.  You are fighting short attention spans, an overwhelming amount of users, and a mysterious algorithm.  I know it can feel artificial to “create” based on marketing principles and conventions.  However, many people  strike a balance between what comes natrually, and what they need to communicate to grow.

The Content Pillar You Know Best

So here’s what I know from working with artists and writers for most of my life–you are not the best judges of what is interesting to the people who consume your books, music, films, etc.  To authors writing is a purpose, a curse, a discipline, a dream, annoying, easy, difficult, frustrating, and whatever other terms you want to throw at it.  To readers or aspiring writers, your world is a mystery, filled with things they can’t reach on their own.  With this in mind, let’s play with some sample topics around the content pillar of WRITING:

Topic 1: A writing journal, what do you feel like when you write.  Repeat for every day that you sit down at your computer.

Topic 2: Writing advice, tips you provide and those you find from other famous or non-famous writers that you research online.

Topic 3: For fantasy writers, world-building and character-building.  Here you can talk about your process and those of your colleagues, or you can literally talk about the world and characters in your books.   Bring them to life for your audience and talk about what you can’t find between the pages.

Your Goal When Creating Your Content

Your goal is to be able to start with your theme, then take your topics and create a combination of feed posts, stories, reels, or their equivalents on your platform of choice.  For example if you choose to do a journal you could include views that inspire writing as your images.  You could do a reel of something your house pets do when you sit down.  My cat likes (demands) to jump on my lap, then she meows like crazy because I’m typing instead of paying attention to her.  I would put your topic at the top of a page and then jot down all the things that go with it from a visual and an internal point of view.

Cat takes over my work station constantly.
Not mine, but you cat lovers totally get it.

Now, look what you’ve done.  You have some topic ideas that are original to you, and. they can educate and engage your audience.  Ideally it is a good idea to have a couple of pillars that you plan on your content calendar for the month.  Think about who you are trying to reach and what will encourage them to pay attention to what you are saying.  Here are some things we have done for clients over the years that have been successful:

  • For a writer of plausible thriller fiction, we created a tag line for a content pillar that tells readers about Things You Should Know But Don’t.   Every week there are posts relating to something going on in the world that isn’t on the front page, but is important to know.  We organize the posts by topic depending on what is being covered in the news.
  • A male author writing a female character has a platform dedicated to the character who covers her fascinating life, and how to navigate the world as a twenty-something woman.  Her pillars are a regular “Diary” and “Ask Gina”, which is a parody of Dear Abby.  When a new book comes out she talks about what’s happening in her life and teases out aspects to look forward to in the future.

The Simple Things

Once you establish the content pillars to lead your social media planning, you will feel more grounded. It will be easier to generate ideas for different kinds of posts.  As you grow your following, you will learn about your audience and may get suggestions from them.  Sometimes it is the simplist thing that can delight a community.  Recently, an author I met said that she started posting sunrises, because she likes to write at that time.  This took off for her, because, as she said, who doesn’t love sunrises?

For more information and to read more about content creation search “content marketing” on our blog page.  You can also read a recent post Optimizing Your Link in Bio

 

 

 

How To Talk About Your Book for the First Time on Social Media

Posted on by CMPR

So many authors come to us wondering when and how to talk about their book for the first time on social media. Doing something new is nerve wracking and we know not all your current followers are interested in the subject. Despite this, if you’re not talking about your book on social media, all you’re doing is missing out! Here are some things to think about when you’re getting ready to talk about your book for the first time.

Describing Your Book

Learning how to describe your book on social media is crucial. You have to try and think about both your current social media audience as well as your intended reader audience as you craft your first posts. Write about your book in a way that a general audience will understand, not just those who are already familiar with the topic. You want to hook potential readers in, but also provide enough clarity so that they’ll know if they would be interested.

Every post you make should include some basic information about your book. Topics you can try talking about or showing imagery of include the cover art, title, subject matter, general premise of the book, and where they can find it. You can’t assume that potential new readers know this information so you want to make it clear but interesting. These two examples show how you can announce your book for the first time by providing a general overview of the topic while keeping the audience interested in learning more.

Thinking About Your Audience

Not all of your current social media audience will be interested in your book’s subject matter, but that’s okay! LinkedIn and X, formerly Twitter, may have your professional contacts while Instagram and Facebook may be where you connect with friends and family. The target for your book might be a separate audience entirely, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about your book anyway! Getting the word out about your book to as many people as you can is important. This is how you get those from your book’s intended audience to join your social media audience as well.

The first few posts may not do as well as you hope, but this is to be expected so don’t let this fear hold you back. Social media is a land of experimentation and learning what works best for you, so the best thing you can do as you are first getting started is to keep going until something sticks.

If you want to guarantee that more people will see your posts, you can consider the idea of spending some money to run ads. This will help you beat the algorithms and get more eyes on your content. Check out these helpful guides on running ads on Instagram and Facebook to get started. Don’t forget that having quality content is still of the utmost importance. No matter how much you spend on ads, you need to describe your book well first and foremost. 

Once you make your book announcement, keep talking about it! Talk about your book frequently and with purpose. Show social media users why they should follow along on this journey, while continuing to provide basic book information fit for both your niche audience as well as the more general public.

Content Marketing: Optimizing Your Link in Bio

Posted on by CMPR

Last week we gave you some tips to optimize your Instagram bio.  Now, I am going to give you some ideas for getting the most out of your “link in bio”.  Instagram sets limits on when and where you can use links.  However, the bio is one place where you have ultimate control over how effective that link is going to be. 

Many people link to their website, which is fine, but there are tools out there that make it possible for you to link to a page that has a list of content your audience could check out.  Ultimately you want to inform and/or entertain your followers. Giving them the best experience when they click you link is your goal.

Link In Bio to Your Website

You can link directly to your home page on your website from your Instagram bio.  If we did that our link would open here.  Now, we have to hope that users decide to spend some time perusing our site through the menu options.  When we have a new blog, we could link directly to that blog post, but what if we have a variety of content including other blogs in that category, special events and promotions, or video? 

According to WebsiteBuilderExpert, “the general sweet spot for good average time on a page, across industries, is around 53 seconds.”  Do you think that’s enough time to get your message across?  A blog can hold attention for up to five minutes, but where does your reader go after that? You could change your link every time you want to have someone visit a different page on your website or you can use a content aggregator like  Linktree.

Using a Link in Bio Content Aggregator

There is more than one resource out there to help you get more content in front of your audience from Instagram or any other platform.  We have been using Linktree for years. 

If you go to the Linktree site you can sign up for free to start.  Their annual fee is determined by different features, but a free account will give you unlimited links and a chance to give them a little donation from time to time.  On the left is an image of what a Linktree page looks like on your computer

 

From this page you will be able to add different links.  If you look above on the left you will note a purple  “+Add Link” button.  When you click on it, you will see this:

All you need to do is insert the URL of the content page you want people to reach when they click your Instagram link in bio.  It will automatically be added to your list.

On the right hand side of the first image is what your list could look like on your smartphone.  We have our logo and the purple color because it represents our brand.  You can also use basic design functions within Linktree to create that connection to you and your brand or work.  With a content aggregator you can have as many items on the list as you like so a user could scroll down and check out more of what you have to say and share.

Be a Good Content Marketer

A good content marketer will figure out how to connect their platforms so that their audience will easily navigate their offerings.  It takes time to figure out what is optimal, but using a link in bio and a content aggregator is a more efficient way to highlight you and your products.

Check out last week’s blog on Instagram bios.  You can also our free course on book marketing.

 

 

Creating An Effective Instagram Bio

Posted on by CMPR
Having an effective Instagram bio is a key factor in growing your audience since it is the first thing profile visitors will see. Potential new followers will see your bio and profile before making a quick decision whether to stick around or click away. Optimizing your bio in 150 characters or less in a way that showcases your brand identity is pivotal but tricky! Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Keep It Short & Sweet

The number one tip when it comes to creating your Instagram bio is to keep it concise while continuing to be informative about your brand and personality. You want to communicate who you are and what you offer as soon as a visitor clicks on your profile. If they don’t know why they should follow you at a quick glance, your bio may not be effective enough. Between users’ short attention spans and the 150 character limit, you must strive to grab visitors’ notice right away.

Use Keywords

Your Instagram bio should contain keywords relevant to you and your brand that describe who you are and what you do as an author. This will increase your visibility online in search results to help new people find you and attract a target audience. For example, you can use words like “author” and “writer,” or more genre specific words like “romance,” or “mystery” to attract the right kind of readers to your page. As a starting point, brainstorm words that your ideal readers may use as search terms on Instagram to find books and authors similar to you. Instagram SEO will help your profile and content to be shown in search results.

Add a Call to Action

A call to action encourages page visitors to do something, whether that be to follow you, click a link, send a message, etc. This is a good way to get people interacting and engaging with you and your content right away. Choose a call to action that aligns with your goals and include it in your bio to optimize your audience’s sense of curiosity. We recommend including a link as your call to action. Try directing users to your own website where they can buy your book online, a newsletter sign up, or even a link in bio tool such as Linktree. A link in bio tool will show all of your most important links at once! Your bio is the first thing Instagram users will see when they visit your page, and these few simple tips are a great way to get started with your optimization. Your main goal is to drive readers into some type of action, such as following you or buying your book. Check out these fun bio ideas for some more inspiration on what to add to your profile and how to have an effective Instagram bio!