Social Media for Authors: How to Stay Consistent Without Being Overwhelmed
We’ve all been in this situation at one point or another.
We're on a roll with our social media posts, seeing growth, increased engagement, and gaining traction, when suddenly…
…our kids get sick, we get sick, deadlines take over, our to-do list attempts to drown us, the dog uses our phone as a chew toy…and on and on.
We have a lot to juggle - let alone finish writing our book and getting it into the world!
So when it comes to social media and continuing to grow our audience, how can we keep the ball rolling when life gets in the way?
Here are my five favorite ways to save time and stay consistent with social media.
Use Social Media Management Tools
These tools have saved me more times than I care to admit! With these tools we can schedule posts ahead of time and they automatically post it to our account at the assigned time. My favorite tool is called Later.com - they have a free version that you can use and it’s so easy to use. You can upload your video, graphic, or picture to Later.com, write the caption, add the hashtags, and schedule it - it’s so easy. Plus it saves all of your posts so you have a catalog of everything that you post, which leads me to my second point…
Reuse Your Content
You don’t have to come up with new post ideas every week. Reuse your content! That’s another reason why I like using Later.com because I can scroll through my catalog of posts and simply add them to the schedule again.
Use B-Roll for Reels & TikTok
If you’re spending a lot of time trying to film videos for Reels and TikTok’s, tap into b-roll videos. B-roll is basically collecting short clips of objects or situations throughout your day. This might be showing your bookshelves, your hands typing, the scenery as you take a walk, your dog - it can be anything. Creating a collection of short b-roll clips will give you ample content so you'll always have content to easily create videos. You can use one clip or tie several together to make the video a little longer. And best of all, you can use them over and over again.
Create Content Buckets
When it comes to staying consistent, one of the biggest struggles can be coming up with an actual topic or post idea. We spend more time thinking, “What should I post?!” than actually posting the content. That’s where Content Buckets come into play. Content Buckets are 3-5 topics that we cycle through week after week. I find that 3 content buckets are the sweet spot.
Focusing your content buckets on:
Growing Your Audience: these can be fun or relatable posts, books that you’re reading, your TBR list, etc.
Promoting Your Book: this can include sharing your book’s hook, introducing your characters, addressing questions or solutions your book provides, etc.
Create Engagement: this can be sharing behind the scenes of your writing or research, starting conversations around specific topics, asking questions, etc.
These are three great content buckets that give you the framework that you’re looking for and help you grow, promote, and engage your audience.
Create a Content Calendar
Planning ahead can be one of the biggest timesavers when it comes to social media. What I have found is that figuring out what to post is the most time consuming part. So if we tap into our content buckets and assign one of those topics to a certain day of the week and cycle through them week after week. That way you know what to post and it can save you a lot of time.
When it comes to social media, work smarter and not harder. Put these strategies to work and let me know how it goes.
But most of all, take care of yourself. If you need to step away from social media for a while - that’s OK! Your readers will always be there when you get back. It might take a little time to get things back on track, but your health, happiness, and family are the most important things.
And if you’d like a jumpstart on different content ideas, be sure to download my free 50 Content Ideas for Writers!
