This is part one in a series of articles called 'Author Tips & Tricks' that I'll be posting in the coming weeks. In an attempt to give back to the amazing online community of romance and erotica authors (and all those who self-publish), I'd like to share the best of what I've learned over the past year. I'll do my best to provide you with beneficial, well-organized information that I consider invaluable. Just my way of saying thanks.
So if you want to learn about attracting tons of new followers on Twitter, Google+ and your blog, read on!
Attracting New Followers
Two of the questions I'm asked most often are how did I gain followers on Google+ and Twitter, and how did I get people to actually like me on Facebook. (Something that continues to be a work in progress.) Why is this important? Well it's important for the obvious reasons, such as increasing potential reach and exposure for your eBooks, but also because it helps you gain legitimacy in both the eyes of your audience and your fellow authors. And as you gain more likes and follows you'll increase the likelihood of your status updates, posts and tweets showing up in timelines, newsfeeds and search engines. Which is
exactly what you want.
So, what are the secrets?
- Consistency and Quality Are King: It used to be that content was king, but times have evolved. When first starting out, one of the biggest mistakes I made was simply sharing too little, and only posting my own content (a mistake new writers always seem to make). While I always made an effort to be witty, funny or a little naughty (for my erotica fans), I never really seemed to gain that much traction. I was rarely retweeted or even favorited, and no one ever responded to me. (Seriously. A good day was one interaction.) I would tweet people and they would ignore me outright, mostly because I had no followers and was obviously trying too hard. (Sound familiar?) I ended up following hundreds and hundreds of people with no one following me back, and I had no reach or influence. But after a few months, I came to two very important realizations.
- Consistency: You need to post to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter every day. No kidding. This does not mean your life has to revolve around social media. However, you do need to devote at least 15 to 30 minutes a day to maintaining your online presence. This includes answering fans, responding to comments, updating profiles, searching for promotion opportunities (like blog hops, guest posts and author interviews), or simply posting new content. As an example, your Twitter timeline should be (roughly) 30% personal tweets (similar to status updates), 30% tweets about specific content (e.g., pictures, articles, quotes), 30% retweets/favorites of others' content, and the last 10% should be about your titles or promotions you may be running. This ratio, while only an approximation, can be used for both Facebook and Google+ as well. Your willingness to share and promote other users will gain you more followers and influence, and their reciprocal sharing of your content will help you gain fans that you wouldn't have otherwise. Additionally, your increased online presence will start gaining you followers just by virtue of your consistent posts.
- Quality: But your consistency comes with the caveat of quality. If you're posting every day in an attempt to improve your reach and gain new followers, you better be posting quality content; not spam. And this can be especially difficult for authors who publish online, because self-promotion seems so important. Yet the truth is most people will find incessant posts about your eBooks to be extremely annoying. Instead, your focus should be on establishing and improving relationships with fellow authors and fans. And the best way to do that (like any relationship), is to be honest and genuine. There's a reason reality shows and TMZ are so popular. People crave real information and gossip. Self-promotion is the opposite: It's an advertisement designed to incite people to purchase a product. You need to be real. But does this mean you need to give away everything about your personal life? No. But it does mean if you find yourself playing a role instead of being yourself, you need to take a step back and reevaluate. Stop trying to be what you think people want you to be, and stop trying to force yourself to be funny or witty if you're not feeling that way. Instead, connect with your audience and let them know what you're feeling on a day-to-day basis. You'll connect with a much broader range of individuals, without question. And from those connections, followers will come.
- Engaging Your Followers: So once you've started gaining followers from your consistent, quality posting to social media networks, how do you engage them? (Meaning, how do you get them to respond to your promotions, retweet your tweets, and like your posts?) By identifying your audience and seizing opportunities.
- Identifying your audience: You need to be honest with yourself. Don't assume your audience shares your gender and age demographic. Don't assume that your audience shares the gender and age demographic most common to your genre. Basically, don't assume anything. Sign up for Google Analytics, StatCounter (real-time, free), and use the statistics provided by Blogger, Wordpress, or your hosting provider to make informed decisions. Do the majority of your visitors use Internet Explorer? Then it's likely you're targeting an older, less technically-savvy crowd. Why? Because I.E. is the default web browser for Windows, which means the visitor was not comfortable switching to an alternative browser such as Chrome or Firefox (which would suggest they were comfortable with both technology and accessing material online). Also, find out which websites your visitors are referred from (where they were before they accessed your blog), and from what country. If you write contemporary romance and you see a large influx of visitors originating from a specific site in France, find out why. Is it a forum where people are talking about you and there's a natural buzz? Was one of your stories shared by a popular foreign blogger? Was your blog linked to a popular site that specializes in your genre? All of this is valuable information you can use to further engage your followers and seize opportunities in the limited time they're available. A recent personal example would be when I noticed an extremely large influx of Russian users to my blog, a small number of whom also started following me on Twitter and liking me on Facebook. I had absolutely no idea how they found me, until I discovered the site they were originating from was a blog for taboo erotica. Someone had posted one of my stories with a link, and sure enough I was soon being visited by hundreds of horny Ruskies who liked my style.
- Seizing opportunities: When I discovered my story had been linked by the foreign erotica blog (which provided me with a new source of traffic), I immediately tried to leverage the opportunity. (Anyone else noticing my college minor in Business showing?) Instead of demanding they take down my story (which was posted without my consent, in full), I realized I had a valuable resource at hand. (Or at least I hoped I did.) So I emailed the webmasters of the blog and asked to provide them with a promotion of two exclusive short stories. What was their response? They offered to post each story one week apart, briefly promote each on the front page of the site, and do an interview with me. Two weeks later and suddenly I had received a few hundred (!) likes on Facebook from foreign individuals I'd never heard of before, and I had captured a new audience I never, ever would have found had I not taken the time to both identify my audience and seize the opportunity that became available. Yet on my part, the only effort required was sending an email and being available for a quick interview on Russian time.
TL/DR: Attracting new followers on Twitter, Google+ and your blog/website requires consistent posting to social networks with quality content (following the basic ratio outlined above). It also requires identifying your audience through use of stat analytics, as well as identifying and seizing opportunities as they arise in order to engage your followers.
So that's it for part one of Author Tips and Tricks. Feel free to include it on your blog or website, just please be kind enough to include a link back to me. And if this post helped you (or can help one of your fellow authors or bloggers), please don't hesitate to share.
Happy networking.
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