Q –

Hi Angela,

Thank you for going to bat for writers. I have a question and I hope you can help? I wrote a book and I’m trying to sell it. My social media posts just aren’t working. I keep posting the same ad over and over again and my book is NOT selling. What am I doing wrong?

LD

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A –

Without seeing your ads, I can’t give specific advice. However, I can tell you why some social media posts don’t work:

1. Limited audience

If you only have 100 friends on Facebook, or 25 followers on Twitter, and if most of those folks aren’t interested in the type of book you wrote, repeatedly posting ads for your book to the same group over and over isn’t going to work. (And, in fact, it might lead to people unfriending and unfollowing you). If your friends list isn’t large, I recommend purchasing ads on Facebook and other social media sites. Whatever you do, don’t “buy” friends and followers. Those services are scams. You’ll be buying bots, not people.

2. Private Facebook Page

If you have your Facebook account set up so only “friends” can see your posts, that greatly limits your visibility. I recommend, when doing your marketing posts, set those specific posts to “public.”

3. Text vs. Graphic Ads

Posting text about your book isn’t likely to attract many eyeballs. Creating memes in a graphics program is more likely to catch someone’s attention. What performs even better are video ads and they’re not difficult nor expensive! Read more about those RIGHT HERE.

4. Boredom factor

If you’ve created a meme to promote your book, and you’re running the same meme over, and over, and over, people just aren’t going to see it anymore. Keep your ads fresh by creating new ones every couple of weeks or so.

5. “Follow” the Facebook and other feeds of major news companies.

When they post a link to an article that might be of interest to your specific genre of readers, post a helpful comment underneath their post, and casually mention your book. You can even provide a link where they can buy it.

There’s a LOT more advice along these lines in 90+ Days of Promoting Your Book Online.

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90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE: Your Book's Daily Marketing Plan by Angela Hoy and Richard Hoy

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