6 Tips to Use Social Media as a Writer
Get the most out of your social media content.
Having a social media presence is important for just about everyone these days, but especially writers. Social media gives you a space to share your writing, premarket your book before it’s released, and continue building your audience for future book releases. With social media you’re able to share your work with more people than you may be able to with one in-person gathering.
Here are six tips to get the most out of your time on social media:
1. Focus on One or Two Social Media Platforms
If you let it, social media can take up a lot of your time—maybe even too much of your precious writing time. So, we recommend choosing your top two social media apps and devoting your social media marketing efforts to those platforms. It’s better to spend a set amount of time in two places than it is to spend too time trying to post content on all the social media platforms that exist.
2. Keep Social Media Time Separate from Writing Blocks
To keep your writing time efficient, use that time block just for working on your manuscript or other writing projects. Schedule another time block in your day that you can devote to social media. This way you won’t end up down a social media rabbit hole when you could be writing.
3. Do It All From Your Smartphone
Most smartphones these days have high quality cameras, so you can capture images and video with your phone and use built-in photo editing software to enhance your imagery.
If your photo is a little dark, adjust the brightness or exposure to lighten up the photo. If your photo is overexposed, do the opposite and bump down your brightness or exposure. You can also use the contrast, highlight, and shadow editing features to edit your images.
4. Use Video Content To Get More Profile Views
Social media algorithms, especially Instagram’s algorithm, place a higher value on video content than photos on your feed. So, get creative and post some Reels to get the feel of video content. You can easily edit your videos together using Instagram’s built-in video editing features. Add some fun music to your video, write a caption, use some relevant hashtags, and watch your profile views grow.
5. Aim for Quality over Quantity
The quality of the images, videos, and captions you post is more important than the number of posts you publish each week. Good lighting reduces fuzzy or blurry images and videos, which improves the quality of your content. Check the background of your subject before snapping your photo or video. Remove any clutter to clean up the background or reposition a bit to reduce people in your photo’s background if you don’t want them there.
6. Be Consistent
Just like consistency is key with your writing, it’s also an important part of being successful with social media. Create a posting schedule for each of your social media accounts and stick to them. Maybe you decide to post content to Facebook on Mondays and Fridays at 8 a.m., and then you post to Instagram on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon. Once your audience begins to notice your posting schedule, they’ll start looking for your content.
Also, take time to respond to comments you receive and interact with other accounts. This consistent engagement will also help you grow your reach on social media.
Best Social Media Platforms for Writers to Use
It seems like a new social media platform launches every week, so we’ve put together a list of the most popular social media apps available right now.
Add your social media questions as a comment, and we’ll choose 2 to 3 to answer in a future Substack article.