Digital marketing has proved to be one of the best advertising strategies for businesses across the world. Gone are the days when one had to rely on print or electronic media to advertise their products or services.
With social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, anyone can promote their products. The good thing about social media is that you can reach a wider audience within a short time. It is a cost-effective way of marketing.
However, when it comes to promoting your books, you need to be more creative. It is not just about creating a twitter handle and requesting your friends to follow you. Remember there are millions of people using Twitter and Facebook to advertise their businesses too.
This means that getting the attention of people will require a lot of time and effort. Sometimes you will need to hire someone who is more experienced to help you strategize.
Why is Twitter good for promoting your books?
Just like any other social platform, any information you tweet is automatically posted to all your followers. However, the good thing with Twitter is that users can search for whatever subject they are interested in and get the information. Twitter should be a staple in your author marketing platform.
Below are 7 proven Twitter tips to market your books on Twitter:
1. Set up your account properly
The first step in marketing your books on Twitter is properly setting up your Twitter account. You can’t advertise via Twitter without an active account. Have you ever visited a Twitter account and felt fascinated?
In other words, it’s not just about setting an account. You have to create something that’s attractive to your Twitter followers. If for example your account is dedicated to promoting books, ensure that you provide relevant and consistent information about different books.
If you want more readers to follow you, then you have to prove to them that you can provide what they need. There are many authors also promoting their books – what sets you apart from them? Your account should be different from others in terms of content and design.
2. Ensure that your profile and Twitter handle reflect your objectives
Your profile plays a big role in promoting your books via Twitter. Readers will always want to know who you are and what genre of books you deal with. It is always good to use your first name and last name as your Twitter handle – although it’s not always practical.
All in all, ensure that you align your Twitter account profile with what you would like followers to know about you.
Whether you are writing about recipes, health, and fitness, nutrition, science fiction, or any other topic – your profile should be able to attract like-minded readers.
Don’t be too formal or too casual. The secret is to learn how to strike a balance between the two. After you have built a large following, you will definitely know what your followers like and don’t like.
3. Create targeted Twitter ads
This is arguably one of the most important parts in promoting e-book promotion. The way you create ad design your ads will determine how many potential readers you will attract.
Although Twitter has a software where you can create the ads, there are several other advanced tools you can use.
After creating your Twitter ad, it is good to set aside a small budget to implement them. The good thing is that there’s a way one can determine if their Twitter ads are effective or not. This helps you to know where to make changes and improve your Twitter ad campaign.
Another thing you can do is to connect with other like-minded authors. Follow them and retweet whatever relevant information they post or tweet.
Last but not least, create memorable tag lines. Come up with a few words that summarize your book. A tag line is more effective when designed as an ad.
4. Post videos
There’s no doubt that most people have shorter attention spans. They might not have time to read a lot of content on your Twitter page. This is where videos come in handy.
Create small teaser videos about your books and post them on several social platforms. The more views you get, the higher chances that you will make more sales.
You don’t have to create longer videos – 30 to 45 seconds is enough for each video. This will draw the attention of readers and viewers and help increase your sales.
Another thing about videos is that they are able to pass the message across in an entertaining manner. Those viewing the video will get a clue of what your book is all about and if they like it they will definitely search for it and place an order.
5. Provide time-limited offers to readers
This is another great way of promoting your books on Twitter. Most people like the feeling that they are being given an exclusive deal.
Giving out time-sensitive discounts on your books can easily arouse interest among many readers and drive your sales significantly.
You can even decide to offer a few books for free for just one day. For example, if you have written several books already, then you can consider giving special deals on your new book for readers who purchase several copies of the previous books.
In addition, the urgency will motivate readers to hurriedly purchase the books – believing that they won’t ever get that opportunity.
Ensure that you create the offers after you have gained a significant number of followers. You should also constantly engage them to attract more views.
6. Network with other authors
Another secret of selling more books on Twitter is to connect with other authors. Try to search for twitter handles and connect with them.
There’s a lot that you can learn from other authors. For example, you can find out from them what promotional tools they have used and which ones have worked.
Besides, you can also agree to do cross-promotion – where you all advertise each other’s books on your various social media platforms. Authors who are in the same genre as you can turn out to be a powerful support group.
You can even decide to form a group of several authors and agree to advertise your books together. Doing this will help you to bring together a pool of readers and easily promote your books on Twitter.
It is a fact that some others might not be willing to share their strategies, but you will definitely find a few who are willing to connect and grow together. It is also important to connect with more experienced and established authors.
7. Create contests
People love free things. As much as they appreciate discounts, they will even be more excited by receiving free stuff.
You can achieve this by setting up a book reading contest once in a while and rewarding the winners. This can work perfectly when you are releasing a new book.
You can hold the contest about a week before launching your new book. You can then hold one or two more contests after releasing the book to the market. This can be a powerful tool to promote your books and increase sales as soon as it gets to the market.
This is because many followers will be interested to join the competition to win the price. You can even use their submissions as a form of advertisement.
A few tips on how to create the competition include asking readers to submit their favorite quotes from the book among others.
In a nutshell, there are many ways through which authors can promote their books through the internet.
One of the best platforms of doing that is Twitter. It is estimated that there are more than 300 million active Twitter accounts in the world.
This means that authors have unlimited opportunities to increase their sales. All you have to do is to come up with appropriate strategies such as using relevant hashtag, connecting with other authors, creating Twitter ads among others.