Social Media for authors?

I'd say to ease into it. Do your research. Know how to use each site wisely. It would be impossible to do everything all at once. Try to maintain all of your sites in the most constructive of ways.

Tips: Don't post hastily. Don't waste time on just one either. Make sure your utilizing each site to it's full potential. Good luck with everything!

You can always just look at mine and then do everything totally opposite to the way I do it.

-Linked In is about 100% useless, IMHO
-Twitter has given me MANY opportunities...it's a good idea to follow (AND INTERACT) with book review bloggers. If you do it right, you have many doors open for you.
-I'm finding tumblr is great (again, if you do it right). It's a great place to show your personality-likes and dislikes in a fairly inoffensive and fun way.

Just be careful...I know I'm far too chatty in social media circles. I would go slow and steady. If you use Twitter, please for the love of God don't spam your followers with ONLY 'my book' stuff. The more you 'actually' interact and form relationships, the better. And accumulation of followers for no apparent reason is an asshat thing to do. Also...don't go in for the #FF type things...nobody wants a stream filled with meaningless things like that designed merely for people to pump up their following stats. REAL SINCERE COMMUNICATION with individuals works best.

"REAL SINCERE COMMUNICATION with individuals works best."

This. For every site you use, this.

I would suggest having 1 or 2 'homes base' social media platforms according to what suits you best and where your readership is likely to be.

TroyJackson said:

I am sure this has come up before, but I didn't see it as a recent post, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Click to expand...

Take a look at How to Promote Your Book Like An Intelligent Human Being in the book promotion forum, a forum which is filled with good ideas.

Linked in is for business networking. Great if you're looking for a job. Probably won't help if you're selling a book.

On a blog, don't blog about writing. Potential readers won't be interested in that, and you're going to look exactly like every writer out there.

Limit yourself only to a few resources -- if you create accounts on everything, you'll end up eventually spamming everyone just to keep your name out there. I've seen far too many writers reduce to simply forwarding links on Twitter and sending out Tweets saying, "Buy my book" -- and wonder why they aren't selling anything. Social media is about the conversation, which means you have to have a conversation -- not go on autopilot.

If you're going to do Facebook you might want to setup a separate author page or page for the book itself. It'll keep your real friends on FB from getting spammed and it will allow you to connect with more people without having to reveal your private life.

I concur with all the mentions of "sincere communication" for all social media outlets. Twitter has been great for me and LinkedIn a bust (for creative endeavors).

With Tumblr and a blog I would recommend doing one or the other. They're basically the same thing, but a blog gives you more freedom to interact with your viewers. John Scalzi's Whatever is a great example of an author's blog which has developed into its own platform.