Digital Herstory

There have been quite a few discussions on threads about people, especially newer or upcoming authors, struggling to build and find an audience on social media and marketing. I asked around to see if people would want some very general advice on where to get started and there was indeed some interest. This is the first of four planned posts on using social media for community and promotion. Unfortunately, there is no “one trick” which works every time on social media. You do have to find what works for you. This guide will hopefully provide you with some things to consider while figuring it out.

Understand your target demographic

Before even thinking about social media, you need to do some legwork on understanding your target market. If you are a writer or an author, chances are you already write within a specific genre (or two!). This is great because you will already have something to define your audience by – and find where they are. For example, Romantasy seems to be everywhere right now. Fueled by TikTok and some recent bestsellers, there is plenty of buzz about it. But what does this tell us and how is it relevant to social media?

The main demographic for romance novels tends to be women. Romantasy has been seen as “young adult adjacent,” so it makes sense that it is extraordinarily popular with young women. If you look into BookTok users, you’ll find that young women make-up the main demographic. And out of the 80 million or so monthly active U.S.-based TikTok users – 60% are women and 80% are between the ages 16 and 34. If you are trying to reach that younger audience – then yes, TikTok is worth looking into for a platform.

But what if I am uncomfortable with being in front of a camera and making reels?

I hear you! I am the same way. I am a writer and the idea of being observed or on camera puts me in a state of anxiety. You can still find what works for you and play with content ideas – but that will be the next post. 😉

Find your audience

If you want to get an idea of the digital landscape and how people use it, then I recommend you at least read the Digital 2024 Global Overview Report from We Are Social. They publish it every year and it is a gold mine for understanding how people use digital tools broken down by region, age, platform etc.* If you don’t want to read the 500+ page report, you can get a snapshot of the top headlines in the video below.

After researching the latest social media demographics, you’ve decided on the platforms you want to focus on. What is next?

Grow your community

Follow, follow, follow!

You’ve created your profile, chosen a good photo, and posted your first intro post. It’s time to look for who else in the industry is on the platform – and follow them. Generally, I like to do a nice mix of the big, medium, and niche accounts. I then go through who they are following and follow anyone who is relevant to my profile and seems interesting. I’ve found that this is a good first practice because the algorithm then will place your account in a similar category to who you follow. It is just a way of nudging things in the right direction before even thinking about your content. On some platforms (such as Instagram), you can also follow hashtags or topics. If I notice a certain hashtag coming up again and again – I go and follow it so the new content shows up in my feed.

Which leads me to the next step…

Engagement is key when it comes to social media. It tells the algorithm what content you are interested in seeing, builds relationships with other users, helps bump up content to other people’s feeds and more. If you are just posting content but not going out and engaging with other people’s content then it will be extremely difficult for your account to get any traction. “Follow trains” and “like for likes” may get a quick boost but after those are done, the actual engagement tends to die down again.

When it comes to engagement, it should be quality over quantity. Go celebrate people’s joys, and mourn with their loss. Encourage people to try again. Laugh with their jokes. Compliment their cats. Be genuine and people will come.

There will be four parts in this series:

• 1. Finding & growing your audience
• 2. Planning content
• 3. Creating content & accessibility
• 4. Nurturing your community

* I might go through the report and pull out data that is good to know for writers & authors myself. Maybe.