Marketing is essential for any writer who wants to be successful. Without effective promotion of your services and connectedness with your current and potential clients, it’ll be challenging to maintain an overflowing pipeline of work. There are many approaches to take regarding marketing, but social media marketing presents a uniquely powerful opportunity to promote your skill set. However, it’s essential to be strategic and constant for social media marketing to work out.
Here are five tips writers can use to promote their businesses through social media.
1. Create a Comprehensive Social Media Marketing Strategy
Consumers today expect businesses to have a robust online presence, including social media. If they can’t find information about your business online, they’re more likely to go to your competitor. As a result, your brand reputation and bottom line suffer.
A social media presence will help you grow your online presence, find work, build a client base, and earn a consistent profit. But only if you have a comprehensive social media marketing strategy to reference.
Your social media strategy should detail how you will serve your clients and those interested in doing what you do with intentional content for both. It should also describe:
- Which social media platforms you will use
- The kind of content you want to create for each platform
- How social media fits into your overarching marketing strategy
- The goals you have for promoting on social media
- How you will know social media marketing is working
- The resources this marketing channel will require
- Data on your current and ideal clients
- An analysis of your competitors
Also, study the basics of getting started on social media. For example, learn how important your page names are to promoting your brand on social media. Educate yourself on best practices for filling in your “about” sections and creating posts.
A comprehensive social media strategy will help you stay focused and progress toward your marketing goals.
2. Get Creative With Content
Writers are spread across hundreds of industries. But there will be lots of competition no matter which one you’re in. Luckily, you can stand out with original content.
Get creative with your content. Study what everyone else is doing and do the opposite. Rotate curated, personality, and promotional content. Even when you have nothing to say, you can still repost unique content from others, and share quotes, GIFs, infographics, and so forth.
Additionally, try getting creative with audio, instead of just using visual content. You can record bits of what you’ve written when trying to promote your content directly, or you could even engage in the world of podcasting. Whether you’re starting your own podcast or, more likely, shooting for guest spots on others’ podcasts, these forms of audio content are powerful, yet often overlooked.
Aside from pre-creating and pre-recorded content, you should go live often.
3. Go Live Often
Going live is scary for a lot of people, particularly introverted authors. It can be so nerve-wracking that most writers don’t bother to take advantage of this option on social media platforms. However, you should.
Going live allows potential clients and the rest of your followers to get to know the depth of who you are, what you offer, and why you’re pursuing this career path. It’s best to pick a date and time to go live at least every other week and promote it ahead of time on your page. You could even offer an incentive for joining your live stream early to attract more viewers.
The first live stream will probably be awkward and uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it. Allow your audience to know you on a deeper level with innovative live streams regularly.
4. Prioritize Engagement
Prioritizing engagement is critical, especially when your growth on social media slows. Liking other people’s content, sharing, and commenting on it can attract attention to you and your business. And they’ll be more likely to return the favor.
Dedicate a portion of each day to engaging and networking with others on social media. Answer every comment and direct message you get. Shout your followers and fellow authors out on your page. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to potential clients directly with special offers and other valuable content.
You can fast-track your social media marketing success by engaging with your audience, other writers, and notable connections.
5. Ensure Consistency
Getting results from social media marketing requires consistency. Publishing random posts won’t garner engagement, let alone attract potential clients. But consistent, intentional social media posts will.
You can ensure consistency by designating specific days to content creation and editing. It could be once a week or a few times a month. Just find a groove you’re comfortable with.
Then, create a content calendar to ensure you’re posting content consistently. On each day of your calendar, note:
- What will be posted?
- To which channel?
- At what time?
- What is the topic of the post?
- What is the purpose of the post?
- How will you track performance?
And finally, use social media publishing tools to schedule your posts and publish them automatically.
Consistency will drive your success on social media. So, commit to it.
Conclusion
Promoting your writing on social media is integral for generating consistent leads and maintaining solid relationships with your current clients. With the five tips above, you can leverage social media to advance your business.
Indiana Lee is a writer, reader, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. Indiana is an expert on business operations, leadership, marketing, and lifestyle.
You can follow her on Twitter @IndianaLee3.
