The Social Media Posting Sequence That Sells Books
EPISODE SIXTY NINE
If you’re sick of chasing social media trends, not seeing the growth or engagement that you want online, this episode is for you! We are going to walk you through a proven strategy that helps authors accomplish their goals on social media.
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TRANSCRIPT:
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Jenn Hanson-dePaula: Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing Simplified Podcast. I'm Jenn Hanson-dePaula.
Marcus dePaula: I'm Marcus dePaula. Jenn, I am exhausted from chasing all of the trends on every single individual social media platform. They all have different algorithms. They all have different songs trending. They have different filters. I am just all over the place. I feel like Tina chasing her tail in a circle with a lot of these social media strategies that I've been trying.
Jenn: Tina's our dog.
Marcus: Yes. I know that there's a lot of authors out there that also feel overwhelmed by what we should be doing and how we can take advantage of the trends and trying to go viral and all that stuff.
Jenn: Yes. I talk with authors who are just like you, exhausted by chasing all of these different things. We're focusing more on the trend to solve our problem rather than digging a little deeper at what is actually causing the problem. The problem really essentially is not having a way to really get readers' attention to nurture those connections and then to actually sell. Because ultimately, we don't want just popularity. We want to be profitable, not just with the monetary value of our book, but also profitable within making genuine connections and actually reaching our goals with what we're trying to accomplish on social media.
Marcus: Probably one of the most common things that I see authors giving us feedback on and what they need help with the most is connecting with their readers. How do we do that? Because it all starts with that, right?
Jenn: Absolutely. When I see other marketers talking about going viral or doing this trend and that trend, that is going to exhaust people. It's just busy work, honestly. It's only accomplishing one element of three elements that we really need to focus on to see the success or reach our goals that we're trying to reach on social media. There are three different types of content that we need to create. We cycle through those three types. The first type of content is connecting. Connection content is what's getting us eyeballs.
It's what is getting us in front of new readers. This is how we're going to grow. Connection content is the types of posts that your readers can relate to. This is why it's so important to know your ideal reader. It's to know if you write nonfiction, what are their struggles? What are some of those issues that they can relate to? What are some of those scenarios or situations that they see themselves in? For fiction, it can be fun reader problems like you have an avalanche of to-be-read books and they land on you. Here are the different types of bookmarks that I use when I can't find my regular bookmark.
It's things that genre-specific readers can relate to. It's content that a reader can see themselves in and they can empathize with or relate to.
Marcus: Is it them relating to you as an author or them relating to your book subject or story?
Jenn: It can be both. This is where it comes in with our messaging. Our messaging is how we as authors want to connect with our readers. That can be through the genre, what the book is about. If it's something that a reader can identify with within one of your characters or within the subject matter or something like that. It can be a variety of different things, but it's thinking about how you as an author want to connect with your readers and how your genre or the subject matter that you cover is something that can be relatable as well.
Marcus: It's all about finding ways that your interests and your book's subject or story intersect with what your readers want to see.
Jenn: Yes. Within that, when we know who our ideal reader is and when we have our messaging dialed in, it can really provide a crystal clear idea of the content that you want to share. When we can get crystal clear within that, it makes our content stand out because the specific people will be attracted to that.
Marcus: Let me ask you this, in our efforts to try to go viral, is it worth our time and efforts to get as many eyeballs as possible in that or should we not worry about that?
Jenn: Virality is all relative. If you have, let's say 200 followers and for the first time you get 5,000 views or you get 50 comments or something like that, even though that might seem small, that's viral to you because it's more than what you normally get. When we think about virality, yes, some people do go in the millions. Some people go into the hundreds of thousands, whether it be views or likes or whatever. When we only focus on those numbers rather than are we actually getting in front of readers? I've seen many authors post something that has absolutely nothing to do with their book, but they get millions and millions of views and it's an accident.
Marcus: What good does that do for people wanting to buy your book? How many of those people--
Jenn: It's very small. That's why we need to be strategic, and if you do post something and it goes viral that it has nothing to do with your book, yes, it's getting eyeballs on you, but you are going to see a huge dip. You might see a lot of people follow you and then you might see a lot of people unfollow you. You can do those fun things, but it's not relying on that to help you sell books. If it's just posting anything and everything just to get views rather than to actually connect with your readers, then it's just not going to result in what you want.
Marcus: Yes. It actually could, like we've talked about before, have a negative effect on how the algorithm treats your content because if you're not getting a ton of people continually engaging on all of your posts across the board after you go viral, that can hurt you too.
Jenn: These connection posts are the posts that are going to get you the most views. The mistake that I see many authors make is that they lean into this because they think this is the only way that I'm going to get followers or it's the only way that I can get views up or something like that. We need to remember that is, again, only the first of the three of the process that we need to run readers through. Yes, we do want to get eyeballs. Then the second thing that we need to do is to create a community. It's to nurture. Nurturing is the second type of post.
A nurturing type of post can be more about building community. It's about creating that engagement, getting feedback, encouraging comments, and a response from your readers or to share this post. A way that I really like to do it is if I share an inspiring or motivational quote, I say, share this with another reader who would benefit from this or who would resonate with this. It can be posting easy-to-answer questions in the caption. We underestimate how people are very quickly scrolling through and if they have to write a magnum opus response, they're going to bypass it very quickly. Getting very easy-to-answer responses that don't take a lot of brainpower that they can just very easily do.
Marcus: Getting back to what you were saying about obsessing about the numbers, what I've heard you say is it's a lot easier if you think about these interactions as if you were face to face. I love that because it simplifies things. Again, it emphasizes how getting to know who your ideal reader is so that you can have things in common to share with them and that they reciprocate and engage with you and go deeper with you.
Jenn: When we focus so much on the connection part and just getting eyeballs on us, when we don't take it deeper, and when readers don't feel that sense of community or if they feel like it's just that there's not something that they resonate with.
Marcus: It's all surface level.
Jenn: It is. The nurturing is very important because that builds that know-like and trust factor that we're always looking for. You want readers to feel like, "Oh, she knows me or he gets me." They want to feel that connection. That's what those nurturing posts really do. It develops that community that is so important.
Marcus: People can tell that your motivations underlying your interactions are just seeing them as dollar signs or as follower numbers as opposed to if you really care about what they have to say. That comes through and that gets to your third point, which is about the promotion.
Jenn: Yes, promoting. We connect with people. We nurture those connections and then we promote. When I have authors say, I feel uncomfortable selling or promoting my book because I feel like I'm asking for a sale. You can absolutely promote without it feeling like a used car salesman. Again, it comes back to your ideal reader and your messaging. When you know what readers are looking for, you're not selling to them. You're providing them with what they are looking for. They are not going to feel like, "Oh, she has this incredible book that I want to read. She's promoting this to me."
No, she's showing you, this is what I've created. This is a book that I know you will love because X, Y, and Z.
Marcus: It's because of that deeper connection that you've established going through those first two steps that it makes it easy for those readers at that point because they trust you so much, that it's like, "Yes, I want to invest in this author. I want to go even deeper with them and show them how much I appreciate them by actually giving them my money."
Jenn: It's also, it's like, "Look what I'm getting. This is exactly what I'm looking for." Just the other day, I saw an author talking about her book and all she had were a few key lines on the screen talking about, this is what my book is about. I was like, sold. This sounds like it's right up my alley. Readers know what they want. When you can spark that interest in them, and when you can lead them through these three processes, like if they can see how you're connecting with them and they can relate with you, and then you nurture that connection and then you show them, this is the book that I have.
It's leading them in a very gentle and progressive way that is not pushy. It doesn't feel like marketing, but you're accomplishing those goals that you are trying to reach on social media. Then when you cycle through these three posts, you're continuously growing, you're continuously nurturing, and you're continuously selling. It's something that you don't just talk about your book once.
You have to keep reminding them because people might not be ready quite yet. That's perfectly fine. You have to continue to talk about this. This is also a way, no matter when someone discovers you or whenever someone stumbles upon your content, they aren't going to be going, what are they about? It's really simplifying it. You've overcomplicated social media. This really helps us to simplify the process.
Marcus: All right. That helps me feel a little less exhausted. It also reminds me of the fact that so many of us have that ew, yuck, when we hear the term marketing. We think of marketing as just that promotional phase that you talked about. Healthy marketing or easier marketing is what you just outlined with the three different layers of ways to engage with people. Chasing trends and trying to go viral is a lot of work.
Jenn: Yes. The thing is, if you find a trend that works within your messaging and speaks to your ideal reader, go for it. That's fantastic. You do not have to constantly be chasing that. Constantly chasing going viral is just going to not only fizzle out your brain because you're just going to waste so much more time scrolling rather than actually writing and doing what you want to do. Exactly. With these three different types of posts, the connection, the nurturing, and the promotion, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed thinking, how do I even start with this?
How do I even start finding my ideal reader? How do I nail down my messaging? To make this easier, I've created something that will remove the guesswork and has done the heavy lifting for you. It's called Standout Social Media for Authors. It walks you through all three of these different types of posts. I have post ideas, post prompts for you. I have an ideal reader profile. I help you identify your messaging and get that nailed in. It gives you a process that you can cycle through and a content calendar, which just makes it so much easier for you to put all of this to work and to actually save time, to see results, and to finally start to see that growth, the community, and the sales that you're looking for.
Marcus: For those of you who've been following Jenn for a while, you may have noticed recently a slightly different look to our website. Instead of going to mixtusmedia.com, which you still can if you want to, we're going to ask you to go to jenndepaula.com.
Jenn: The reason why we wanted to drop the name Mixtus Media, we've had that name for almost 15 years. When we originally named the company Mixtus Media, we were offering different things. It was also people asking, is it mixedoose? Is it mixedus? We just decided to remove that barrier and just go with Jenn dePaula.
Marcus: We're following your own advice. Choose a name and a website that's easier to remember and identify with who you are.
Jenn: If you're looking to grow, if you're looking to build that community, and if you're looking to continue to promote your books in a seamless and easier, more simplified way, go to jenndepaula.com to grab your copy of Standout Social Media for Authors.
Marcus: As always, thanks for listening.
Jenn: See you next time.