Are you worried that your social network is so big that your platform might be getting out of control?

Maybe you’re concerned that fame will ruin you if all of your Facebook friends buy one of your books.

Help is here. I’ve got nine timely tips designed to help you get rid of a large percentage of those pesky online connections. (You can thank me later.)

1. Write something promotional on your new friend’s timeline immediately after you connect.

Here’s the type of message that sends me looking for the “unfriend” option. I’ll bet it will work for you, too.

“Thanks for accepting my friend request! I know you’ll like my book, The Obnoxious Author’s Guide to Success! You can buy it here: amazon.com/toagts.”

2. Include a plug for your book when you offer birthday wishes.

Nothing says “It’s your day!” like “Happy birthday! Here’s a link to my book on Amazon!”

Why don’t more authors do this? It’s a surefire way to get unfriended.

3. Use your book cover as your personal profile photo.

People might tell you that they’re on Facebook to connect with people, but we know that they’re there to connect with book covers, right?

(Besides, if you use your book cover as your profile pic, that Ryan-Gosling-look-alike-ex-boyfriend-from-college who’s been trying to track you down ever since he heard you were single again won’t know that it’s you!)

4. Hijack discussions with random references to your book.

Make certain to include a purchase URL with your off-topic comment. People like to be reminded to buy your book.

5. Make certain that the majority of your status updates are overtly promotional.

Here’s one that I really like. Feel free to personalize it for your use:

“Help my book become an Amazon bestseller! Buy it on Amazon today between 2:35 a.m. and 2:43 a.m. It’s really important that you buy it then!” 

Remember: People appreciate being reminded to buy your book. You cannot remind them too much.

6. Ignore comments on your book’s page.

Everybody knows it’s a page for a book, and they know that books can’t type. They don’t expect to have a conversation with a book — they just want to offer observations when they comment.

7. Use Messenger only for book marketing messages.

Isn’t it funny when people think you’ve sent them a personal message, only to discover that it’s a promotional messages about your book? (LOL!) This works especially well when the person you’re messaging doesn’t read the type of books you write.

8. Avoid sharing helpful information related to your book’s topic on your profile, book page, or in relevant groups.

Let’s be clear. When you share links to useful material on websites, blogs, etc., you start to look like you know something about your book’s topic.

Then people start asking you questions because they think you might be, well, an expert or something!

You can’t always be answering questions, right? You’ve got a book to promote and that takes time!

9. When someone acknowledges that they haven’t bought your book, attack them.

What is up with that? It’s not like they don’t know about it! At least 90 percent of your Facebook posts have been about your book!

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

I’ve seen all of this in action. None of it is fiction.

Perhaps that’s because many authors are challenged to find the right balance on Facebook and other social media platforms. They’re encouraged to promote their books online, but they don’t have a sense of how much is too much or what’s not enough.

The 80/20 rule

Best practice is to make 80 percent of your content helpful, useful, or personal, and just 20 percent promotional. When you do that, your connections will welcome the occasional marketing message, and might even share it on your behalf.

As for me, I have transitioned out of using my profile for Facebook to keeping nearly all of my book marketing tips and advice off my profile and only on my page and book marketing group. For a steady stream of helpful information, please like my page and join my group.

I’m sure you can offer advice, too. What’s your best tip for getting unfriended on Facebook?

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2012. It has been updated and expanded.)

10 terrible social media myths authors should avoid

By Chris Syme

When it comes to social media, it seems like we will believe just about anything. If we see it on the Internet it must be true, right?

Much of what we’ve come to think about social media is just wrong. It’s time to tear down those tips and tricks that people keep telling us and close the door on bad social media advice.

Sometimes it’s obvious that some practices are wrong; other times not so much—especially if we see them over and over again online.

In order to produce content that people will love enough to pass on to others, we need to clear the table of bad practices so our fans can see the real value in what we post on social media.

If you see yourself in any of these 10 myths, take heart. We’ve all been there. I want to challenge you to challenge yourself. Together, we can stamp out these terrible social media myths.

1. Copying and pasting the same content word-for-word on all my social media channels will help my message reach more people.

This myth basically infers that all social media audiences are created equal.

Today, if you post the same message verbatim on every social media channel, people will think you are lazy and ignorant.

Every channel has its own demographics and channel culture. If you go to a black tie dinner wearing your yoga pants and sweatshirt, people will know you didn’t take time to understand where you were going. You’ll stand out and not in a good way.

Learn how to reframe your message in the channel culture’s frame. This fun infographic from instamom.com does a fantastic job explaining how your social media messages should differ in approach.

And don’t forget age demographics. Some channels have younger audiences and require a different approach. If the channel’s target demographic isn’t in your audience, you are really wasting your time there anyway.

2. The more hashtags I stuff in a tweet, the more people I will reach.

There are just so many ways this is wrong.

Hashtags have strengths, but stuffing is not one. I could list a million reasons but I’ll just stick to data. In 2014, Buffer published data from an extensive study by Buddy Media to find out the exact science of how hashtags affect a social media post. They found that tweets with hashtags receive two times more engagement than those without.

But more is not better. After two hashtags, engagement levels started to drop off drastically. Bottom line: a post full of hashtags is never a message, it is a distraction.

3. I need to join every social network to reach more people.

This myth violates a couple basic principles of effective marketing:

• Your marketing has to be manageable to be effective. You need to be able to write, promote your books, and have a life. It won’t happen if you spread yourself too thin.
• You want to key in on the channels where your readers are and develop an effective audience there. You don’t want to necessarily reach more people, you want to reach the right people. Facebook is the only platform out there that has enough range in demographics and captures enough online traffic to justify saying everyone should be there. After that, it’s iffy.

For marketing purposes, it is not enough to just join a network. You have to be working at producing engaging content and building loyal relationships wherever you are.

Be smart about which networks you use. Some may return much less than the amount of effort you are putting in.

4. Buying followers and fans will help me sell more books.

There are several reasons buying followers is a waste of your money. Besides being unethical, here are a couple:

• “Followers for dollars” are not qualified customers. Heck, they may not even be real people. Chances are very high they are not your targeted audience.
• Buying followers just increases your reach (number of people that might qualify to see your posts). Reach is a low-level goal. And it is a no-level goal if the followers you bought don’t care about what you have to say.

Note: There is something to be said for the credibility of having lots of followers but today everyone knows that people are buying followers and scamming for auto follows, so who are you trying to fool? Concentrate on engaging the number you have and they will grow organically.

You can run contests and giveaways to increase your qualified followers (people who want your books). I would rather have 1,000 people who like to read my kind of books than 10,000 bots and fake followers who will never buy one book.

5. Social media will not help me sell any books.

This is a particularly common misconception for authors. If done correctly, social media does help sell books.

The problem with this myth is that represents a misunderstanding of the benefits of social media marketing. Authors have two basic needs when it comes to marketing: sell more books and build a dedicated fan base. Social media is better at the second but it can certainly do the first.

6. Social media results cannot be measured.

Social media can certainly be measured, but you need something to measure first.

What is your goal? Increase followers? Build an advance reader team? Increase sales with a launch campaign? Build an email list?

Most people don’t know how to match goals to measurement. But don’t worry—this can all be learned. The backbone of good marketing is a plan. If you have a plan that includes goals, measurements, strategies, and tactics, you will know exactly what you are measuring.

If you are just playing darts with a blindfold on, even if you hit the bullseye, you won’t know how you got there.

7. Social media is only for young people.

This myth is easily busted with data. Just take a look at the latest data from Pew Internet Research, the top internet research organization in the world.

A whopping 71 percent of American adults online use social media—53 percent of them use more than one network. As of last year, for the first time in history, the majority of online adults over age 65 now use social media. The 18-29 group has the highest percentage at 90 percent, but all age groups are on social media now. The 30-49 age group is second at 70 percent of online adults.

This myth is a lame argument anymore.

8. I am too old to learn how to use social media.

This myth is vaguely related to number seven.

Social media savvy is not the domain of the young. If you are adept enough to write books, you can certainly learn how to use social media.

The trick is finding help learning how to do it right. Find some resources you can trust. Take some free online webinars from trusted sources, follow bloggers who know what they’re talking about, and network with other authors who are in your same boat. I think the really intimidating piece here is the learning curve. But once you get around the curve, the road is pretty straight.

9. Social media is free.

Boy I wish. Most of the platforms are free to use but maintaining a consistent presence takes time and resources, and sometimes money. You know the old saying, time is money. And time will be your biggest cost.

In addition, email providers, website hosting, images, and advertisements all cost money. Although it is possible to do social media well on a shoestring, reaching a wider audience often costs money. The good news is, there are ways to control your budget and still be successful.

10. Social media is a soap box for me to sell my books.

I don’t know if anyone really says this, but they certainly act it out. If all you do on social media is tweet or post “Buy my book” then you are failing. If you sell a handful of books with this method, think of how many you could sell if you actually built a platform to sell more books and develop a dedicated fan base.

The formula for selling on social media is “you have to earn the right to sell.” You do that by producing entertaining, helpful content that shows people you care more about them than you do about selling books. It doesn’t matter if you write fiction or nonfiction, this is still the formula.

What can you do to bust some of these myths in your own social media today? Share your thoughts in a comment below! 

• Talks only about himself — the monologue from Hell.
• Steps into a group and hijacks the conversation immediately, changing the subject to her favorite topic — herself.
• Corners you and makes a sales pitch.
• Speaks rudely to anyone.

While you probably wouldn’t react to any of this behavior with rude or boorish behavior of your own, you probably make a mental note to avoid anyone who does this the next time you see them.

Do you run the other way?

It works the same way on LinkedIn. Once we figure out who they are, we avoid those people who are takers or are just plain rude.  Let’s be honest: People do business with people they know, like, and trust. LinkedIn users who are annoying miss important opportunities to connect with people who might be in their book’s target audience or are individuals they can learn from.

Online, as in the real world, you want to be someone who knows how to have a conversation, understands that you can learn a lot that’s useful just by listening, and treats others with respect. And that’s just for starters.

4 common mistakes

And yet, I see authors making the same four mistakes over and over again. I can’t point them out in the discussions as they occur, but I can share them here, hoping that putting a spotlight on them helps others understand what they should and shouldn’t do when networking on LinkedIn.

1. Starting a discussion to announce that we can now buy your book. 

That’s an ad, not a discussion. Advertisers will tell you that their biggest problem is getting their prospects’ attention, which is why so many of them are shifting away from straight advertising and putting some of their promotional budget into content marketing. They’ve discovered that “Here’s information you might find helpful” gets more eyeballs than “Buy me! Buy me!”

2. Hijacking a thread.

I recently started a discussion thread in a couple of book marketing groups so I could share MediaBistro’s (awesome) list of 20 free sites where you can promote your e-book for free. In a couple of the ensuing discussions, authors posted random self-promotional messages. One described his new book and included a web link for it, while another announced she was a guest blogger and included a link to her guest post. They were off-topic and openly promotional. Do you think they added to their network on that influential site? Not likely.

3. Send a private “buy my book” or “use my service” LinkedIn mail message.

I get these all the time. Do you? I wish that just once the information would be about a book I might actually be interested in. I have somehow managed to be connected to several employees of a book marketing services company. They bombard my LinkedIn inbox with the same marketing messages over and over and over. Every time I think I’ve disconnected myself from all of them, I get another “check us out!” message from one of them. And as if that’s not bad enough, they all sign their messages with “Love.” Love? On LinkedIn? In a message to a stranger? Really? As a result, I don’t refer any authors to them.

4. Being disrespectful.

Rude behavior isn’t necessary. And it’s unprofessional. LinkedIn is a site for business professionals. We’re expected to behave like we’re business professionals, even if we aren’t. This isn’t a chat room where people use avatars instead of head shots and don’t use their real names. We know your name, what you look like, and where you work. So be nice — even if someone isn’t nice to you. It will take you a lot farther.

Online social networking works the same way as in-person, real-world social networking. As my grandmother used to say, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

What tips can you offer for doing it the “right” way?

Do you Wattpad? 5 tips from a Wattpad writer

By Natalie Wright

“Tips about Wattpad? What the heck is a Wattpad?” you ask.

For those of you unfamiliar with Wattpad, it’s a social media site dedicated solely to writers and readers. Anyone can post his or her work on Wattpad. Readers can fan the writer, place the writer’s story or poem into their library, comment directly on each chapter if they wish, and interact with the writer through messaging.

With over two million registered users worldwide, and over seven million unique visitors each month, Wattpad may seem like a social media must for writers. But is it?

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Experience-based tips

I’ve been using Wattpad, both as a reader and writer, for over a year now. Here I’ll share five tips I’ve learned from my experience with Wattpad:

1. Users of the site are predominately teenagers and young adults. If you write for teens, then Wattpad is a fantastic place to spend some of your social media time. My observation is that the stories that garner the most reads and votes include vampires, witches, science fiction, fantasy, comedy and teen angst. If you write literary fiction (for example), I don’t think that Wattpad would be a useful site to become involved in.

2. Wattpad is social. You can post a brilliant story on Wattpad, but if you don’t take the time to interact with others, it will receive very little or no attention. To get started, peruse the stories in your favorite genre. If you like something that you read, fan the author, leave a comment, vote and otherwise be a good apple. Most Wattpad users will reciprocate, generating attention to your title.

My first novel, Emily’s House, had about 3000 reads when I was approached by Wattpad to highlight Emily’s House as a “Featured Selection”. That was last July. Emily’s House has now had over 850,00 reads on Wattpad. In order to become a featured selection, someone must recommend your story to Wattpad or it needs to have enough votes and activity to catch the attention of Wattpad curators (one of my readers recommended it to Wattpad for featured status). If your goal is to build a fan base, then try to get your story “featured” status to boost reads.

3. Wattpad is a good place to spread the word, but not a great place to garner sales. My Wattpad readers occasionally ask where they can buy my books. But for every reader that asks to purchase, I get a comment along the lines of “Hey, why isn’t all of Book 2 posted?” Many Wattpad users are teenagers and international. They don’t have the ability to freely order. My experience is that lots of reads and votes on Wattpad will not necessarily translate into sales. If you write books for adults, you may experience more of a sales increase than teen fiction writers.

4. If you’re still reading this after I just told you that Wattpad wouldn’t help your sales, then you may be wondering why the heck anyone would bother with it. Good question. Answer? Free market research. Wattpad is an excellent place to obtain feedback on your works in progress. Wattpad users are, for the most part, kind people who leave either positive comments or constructive feedback. If you write for a teen audience or an adult science fiction or fantasy audience, you’ll find millions of potential readers on Wattpad. And, don’t forget to read their stories. What better way to get an idea of what teen readers want to read? Read what they write.

5. If you’re interested in obtaining a traditional publishing contract and you write for the teen or young adult audience, building a fan base on Wattpad may help you land a publishing contract. Everyone talks about platform. What is a platform if not a group of readers interested in your work? If you use Wattpad wisely and consistently, you may build a group of devoted fans. Publishers have offered lucrative publishing contracts to Wattpad writers based on their loyal following. See this story about Brittany Geragotelis, aka BrittTheBookSlayer, who got a three-book deal with a traditional publisher once her story, Life’s a Witch, reached 19,000,000 reads on Wattpad. If traditional publishing remains the Holy Grail, then Wattpad may be a new path that writers can take to achieve it.

 Do you Wattpad? If you do, share your thoughts on it with us here. And you can view my Wattpad profile here.