How to Get Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Book

Ah, social media influencers. People who, for the most part, are famous for doing absolutely nothing important at all (snark intended!). All they need are good looks, a good cell phone camera, an unlimited amount of time online, and a sky-high ego. Okay, okay… Some of them are good people on a good mission but those aren’t typically the ones with multi-millions of followers.

Whether you like social media influencers or not (I do not), the allure of their numbers of followers has not been ignored by marketing firms. There are even firms that charge companies money to connect them with influencers.

FINDING THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS

There are influencers with millions of followers and there are micro influencers who have far fewer. There are even influencers who post book reviews. You can see a small sample of micro influencers (and how much they charge) HERE.

But, what is most important is that the influencer’s audience will be interested in YOUR book. As with any marketing activity, you first need to determine your audience. You then need to find influencers who cater to those folks. And, as you probably guessed, there IS a directory of the most popular social media influencers.

REMEMBER THAT THE RELATIONSHIP NEEDS TO BE MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL

1. Most very popular influencers will charge you a pretty penny to promote your product. You can read about influencer pricing models HERE. Keep your smelling salts handy when you do.

THIS ARTICLE is imperative reading if you are considering influencer advertising.

2. Others might promote your book because they truly believe it will help their readers. This is rare, however. If they can get money for something, they will, regardless of their personal opinions about a book and its ability to help their readers.

3. If your book is controversial, extremely funny, or on a topic that will get an influencer’s audience talking, they may not charge you to promote your book. The more people who talk about an influencer’s posts and/or videos, the larger their audience will grow. And, the larger the audience, the more money the influencer will make in the long-run.

4. If you follow a specific influencer, and actively engage with their posts, share them, etc., they might start to recognize you, making them more likely to promote your book in the future. You’ve been scratching their back so they might be willing to scratch yours.

DRAWBACKS

Some influencers have gotten into trouble for promoting products without letting their followers know that what they’re posting is an advertisement. The Federal Trade Commissions has cracked down on some of them. You don’t want your book embroiled in a mess like that.

SUCCESSFUL INFLUENCER CAMPAIGNS (that you probably can’t afford to create)

You can see some successful influencer ad campaigns for big-name products HERE and HERE.

TEXT ADS

Having an influencer simply post a text ad to their audience is, of course, far easier, and more affordable for unknown authors.

HOW TO BECOME AN INFLUENCER YOURSELF

If you want to become one of those annoying influencers, and possibly make money from it, read THIS ARTICLE.

RELATED

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About The Author

Angela Hoy is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the author of 19 books, and the co-owner of BookLocker.com (one of the original POD publishers that still gets books to market in less than a month), PubPreppers.com (print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish), and Abuzz Press (the publishing co-op that charges no setup fees).

Angela has lived and traveled across the U.S. with her kids in an RV, settled in a river-side home in Bradenton, FL, and lived on a 52 ft Irwin sailboat. Angela now resides on a mountaintop in Northwest Georgia, where she plans to spend the rest of her days bird watching, gardening, hiking, and taking in all of the amazing sunrises.

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One Response to "How to Get Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Book"

Wendy Jones May 16, 2021 at 3:24 pm

I looked at the varied influencers and how they were asked to participate in various promotions.

I must say unless your book is one-in-a-million (e.g., some piece of special apparel or object is a part of your story) I would skip this idea altogether.

The reason is simple. If you look at how the promotion is carried out, it is 99+% all show and no tell. That means the audience wants to focus on one visual cue (i.e., a tire, a shoe, an act [hitting a ball, jumping over something]), not the title of any book or a sizzling teaser.

Sorry, unless you have a very specialized book — your run-of-the-mill fiction, romance, crime, etc is not going to fit into this kind of advertisement mode.

How to Get Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Book

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One Response to "How to Get Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Book"