#6 Do You Know What Social Media Strategies Successful Indie Authors Are Using??
So, now you have a list of indie authors who are doing things right in your genre. Aka who you want to be when you grow up. Now what?
What I did next:
Took my list of indie authors and stalked (respectfully!) their social media and marketing strategies (I am absolutely not advocating for copying or plagiarizing here. Only research to see what’s working for them. After all, your book and author brand will be different and what you post on socials will be different as well).
Took notes on what social platforms they’re using, how they are engaging with their audience, and what book promo tactics they’re using.
Looked at their websites, what pages they have, what freebies they offer, etc.
Created accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, Threads, and YouTube.
Realized I need Facebook too. Sigh.
Social Media Overload 🤯
Listen, up until this point, I’ve avoided social media like a cursed spinning wheel at midnight. But now that I’m indie-publishing? I need to show up somewhere. And in researching what other authors are using to be successful, I found some interesting data.
Interesting stats from my research:
| Platform | Number of Self-Pubbed Authors Using It | Number of Trad Authors Using It |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | 5 | |
| X/Twitter | 3 | 2 |
| TikTok | 5 | 2 |
| 0 | 1 | |
| YouTube | 2 | 0 |
| Threads | 0 | 1 |
Caveat #1: This is just what I found for the authors on my list. Your list might reveal different results. If they do, please share in the comments so we can all learn!
Caveat #2: I compiled this by looking at my list of 10 indie authors, 4 small press authors, and 5 big name traditionally published authors in my genres. (Apologies to my college stats professor!) It is in no way a big enough data set to make claims off of, but it is interesting.
Then, I found a few articles about which social platforms younger generations (aka my target audience) are using: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/
Mine says:
YouTube
Instagram
TikTok
Snapchat
(I wasn’t expecting Snapchat to be on the list. Can you market on Snapchat??)
But if your target audience is different from mine, I recommend researching to see if you find any surprises on where your target audience actually spends their time.
I also found an article that said that younger generations are using Pinterest more and more. They are a growing audience on there and use it to make purchasing decisions: https://business.pinterest.com/blog/gen-z-marketing-on-pinterest/
Caveat: That article was posted by Pinterest, so it’s probably not an unbiased source, but some of the data they include is interesting.
And then when I looked back at my indie author research, no one on my list is using that platform to market their books. There’s only one trad published author using it. Is there a reason they aren’t? Or, is this a missed opportunity given the trends in how younger generations are using the platform? 👀
I’m honestly not sure. What do you think?? Let me know in the comments!