Platform Tools

Social Media:

Top 3:

  • Google+ because it’s awesome. G+ is all about conversations, it is simple to use, it is the fastest growing social network of all time, and it is deeply integrated with Google–your most powerful ally on the Internet when it comes to discoverability.
  • Twitter for traffic and making connections at events. Twitter is like a giant global instant messaging game of telephone, only the message doesn’t get garbled. One of the quickest ways to drive traffic to your website is a well crafted Tweet with top notch hashtags and a really catchy headline. Also the conversation really ramps up when you are at an event and that event has its own hashtag. You can make a lot of great connections that way.
  • Facebook for presence (Facebook has become unwieldily since they went public and have started bumbling around with monetization, but it still claims the largest user base of all social media platforms. I recommend maintaining a basic presence there to avoid missed opportunities, but not to invest a lot of time and especially not money into it.)

Others to note:

Goodreads – If you are an author you should be on Goodreads.

YouTube (another fine Google product) – Do not mistake YouTube for just a place to upload videos.  It is actually a powerful social media site. People can like things, make comments on things, follow your channel and more. Make sure your Google+, G-mail, and YouTube are all tied to the same Google account.

Wattpad is a social media specifically designed for readers and writers. And more users on Wattpad identify themselves as readers than writers. It involves giving away some of your writing for free. But it doesn’t have to be your books you have for sale. And even if you do give those away, it doesn’t mean you won’t have sales. Wattpad is about building an audience and getting discovered.

Pinterest? So I get a lot of questions about Pinterest. It is not a site to ignore. Pinterest is a place to post your pictures, especially if you are posting them from your website. Pinterest is a place to share pictures of others too (get the browser extension that lets you pin images from any website) and also link back to their website. Pinterest is also a place to have your pictures/blog posts posted by others without you even being involved. I recommend anyone marketing online to make an account, poke around, get a basic understanding of how it works, create a few boards, post a few pics. And make full use of your sharing options. You don’t have to be a power user, just be aware of how it is used.

Tumblr? A site much like Pinterest. Actually, if you really want to use it well you should treat it like Pinterest, only you should stick to just one niche Tumblr rather than making a whole bunch of Tumblrs like you do with Pinterest boards. If you are an author of horror, create a Tumblr where you share images and things that creep you out for example. You can cultivate a following there and that can translate into people buying your books.

Remember: Don’t spread yourself too thin by spending time on as many social media as possible. Make a profile on as many as possible, and fill it out completely with bio, picture and link back to your website, and at least maintain a presence on one of the majors. But then pick one that you can really get into. One that seems easy to use and fun. Use that social media to really form connections with a community. That is the best, time conserving, strategy I can offer.

Graphic Designs:

Canva – Extremely easy to use website that allows you to create graphics for websites, social media and even bookcovers.

Link Tracking:

Bitly – Honestly, I don’t know why more authors don’t use link tracking. Every author I know wants to save time on their marketing so they can write more.  Link tracking only requires a little planning and forethought, but the information you get tells you where you are wasting your time and where you can get more results for your time. You can track links to your website, to your blog, to your Book sale page on Kobo, any page–not just your own.

Automation:

Hootsuite if you are really into using both Facebook and Twitter a lot and want to streamline the process. With Hootsuite you can set up automatic posts. If you have multiple accounts and pages you can see them in one place. It has a lot of potential for saving you some time.

Twitterfeed is a sort of bare bones service that will automatically post your new blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. I use it for Twitter only myself. It is one of the few of the currently available post automators which lets you set a few hash tags for Twitter posts. It is a little bit clunky, but once you get it running you never have to bother with it again.

Networked Blogs to automatically post your blog posts to Facebook and get a great little widget that let’s people visibly follow your blog. I use this one to post my blog to my FB pages. It makes a nice looking post. With Networked Blogs there is a nice photo, a little blurb of text and the title. I had problems with other similar services not having pictures, or the text, etc.