Everything I Know About Social Media

It recently came to my attention that people think I am good at social media. This is hilarious to me because I often feel I have no idea what I’m doing, and am definitely not as successful as many others. I certainly haven’t become massively successful as an author from social media, and I’m not even at 10k followers on either platform.

Then I realized there are a few things I know which may help those who are interested.

First, some things up front: As I said, I am not an expert and I cannot predict if these things will work for you. I am not saying these are the only ways to be successful on social media, nor am I saying these will guarantee your success. My guess would be if you found someone saying their tips are any of those things, then they are insincere, oblivious, or trying to make a profit.

Second, I thought I wouldn’t have much to share, but it turns out I was wrong.

The Practical

Begin as you mean to go on. I have seen some people build incredible platforms, and then become an author, and their engagement totally tanks. They go from reviewing books to trying to sell their own, and their audience loses interest. I have a theory that while Instagram prioritizes getting new views from people who don’t follow you, TikTok takes stock if your own followers aren’t even interested. Pivoting is hard, so have clear goals in mind. I’m sure my platform would be bigger if I only tried to engage teachers or only tried to market my book, but I don’t want to pick. I want to do both, so I do, even if means not being as “big” as I could be.

Pick a target audience. Some authors create great content giving tips to other writers. However, writers aren’t always readers in your genre, and building a fan base that way won’t necessarily sell books. It will, however, grow your community. If you want that, go for it! We need those who are willing to reach down and help those in the trenches. I don’t really go after teens, but instead I try to hit teachers who influence teens’ book choices.

Your audience isn’t all in the same place. Different books do better in different places. Many authors talk about doing well on Facebook. I believe these are adult authors. Teens are not on Facebook, and if they are, they are probably not in Facebook groups or following pages. They are, however, on Instagram and TikTok. Similarly, teens are not on Threads. In fact, few of my adult friends are. Writers are on BlueSky, but hardly anyone I know in real life even knows that exists. I don’t ever try to go viral on Threads. I don’t think it really moves books and marketing is really hard over there, but I do share my thoughts with other professionals there (both teachers and authors). Insta and TikTok are where I try to reach and retain an audience for intentionally growing a platform.

Your genre matters. Romance seems to do really well on social media, whether contemporary or romantasy. That also means it’s hard to stand out. Thrillers and mystery also seem to do well. Fantasy and romance seem to have success with character art in ways I have not seen replicated for thrillers. The cutesy or whimsical drawings don’t evoke danger and chills the same way. Maybe it would for horror? My point is, if you’re seeing other authors have success, before you compare yourself or try to mimic them, check your genre and age category, because the results might not translate.

Don’t delete. I definitely take down videos that don’t do well—if there are lows views, a handful of likes, and no bookmarks, there’s not much incentive to leave them up—but I archive them on Instagram or set the privacy settings to “only you” on TikTok. I heard you’re not supposed to delete, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but setting to private is just as easy, so I figure, why not?

The first three seconds matter. Instagram will straight up tell you if not enough people are viewing within the first three seconds. If you are doing some kind of reveal, make sure it happens after the three second mark, but also make sure the first second isn’t scroll-able. No black screen. No pause before talking. Questions and ellipses naturally pull the brain to wait a little longer for an answer/pay off.

Show your face—sorry! From my experience, algorithms like faces. Very few videos without my face go anywhere, but it does happen. Again, character art seems to be a great alternative if you are doing romance and/or fantasy. Sometimes I give my facial reaction for the first three seconds and then the reveal of what I’m looking at after.

Lighting. Natural lighting is your friend! If not available, I hate to say it, but a ring light does work wonders for those of us hiding eye bags and wrinkles. Some people go viral with terrible lighting, but they are almost always young.

Prompt intentional engagement! People loooove sharing opinions, so you can ask for those in the comments. Also, if you share a relatable experience, people are more likely to share it with others who have experienced the same thing. If you post on something controversial, you are likely to get angry people in the comments, and anger drives the algorithm. (This is my least favorite form of engagement; the anger isn’t worth it for me unless it’s an issue I really believe in.) However, I do find it fun to flip expectations. One of the reasons I think my well-known Duck Video went viral is because I set it up to seem like something bad and then it was something good. My minion video with the 18M views was set up to be something good and then turned out to be something bad, but I let people infer on their own. Flipping expectations is fun and useful!

Be ready for unintentional engagement. Some of my videos do not get attention for the reason I intend. For example, I had one video go viral because many people were debating about why make up would be stored in a fridge, and that wasn’t even the point of the video (I was making a joke about Friends and putting books in a freezer). My first time I hit 1M views was for dressing like a student at school, but a lot of people commented on my “creepy eyes,” which has become a regular occurence on many videos—I’m thiiiiiis close to adding “My thyroid is fine” in my bio because I get weekly comments about it. This engagement can be unpredictable, but I know some people purposely put something in the background that is weird to drive engagement. Just be careful it is driving the right kind.

Instagram and TikTok have different algorithms. TikTok usually sends out videos quickly. If it gets to 1k views in the first few minutes, I can predict it will keep being shown. If it pauses around 300 views, I may not hit 1k at all. In contrast, on Instagram, videos regularly delay being shown after a few hundred or thousand views, and then can still sky rocket. Instagram also keeps feeding viral videos out for a longer duration. I have videos I posted 6-8 months ago that still get likes daily on Instagram. On TikTok, even my most viral video died down after about a week. TikTok is my testing ground and instagram only gets a fraction of my videos. If an old video on TikTok gets attention, it’s not because the algorithm is driving it, but because people are searching for it. I sometimes look at the search terms used to get there and then make new videos with those key terms.

More people care about TikTok. I have more views on Instagram and more followers, but every cool opportunity I’ve had has come from TikTok. People Magazine and Newsweek both reached out on TikTok and only mentioned TikTok in their articles. A publisher recently reached out to pay for me to review on of their books on TikTok, not instagram (I turned this down, but it was cool insight into the world of influencers and publishers). Viral videos on TikTok drive sales in ways they don’t on Instagram. I don’t really know why, but it is true.

Views and engagement are very different. I have a video with almost 80k views on TikTok, but only 192 likes, 8 bookmarks, and it got me three followers. Videos with this low engagement almost never do well on Insta despite the high views. Conversely, I have some videos with less than 10k views on TikTok that got me 700 likes, over 400 bookmarks, and 60 followers. I never posted this one to Instagram because it didn’t get the engagement in the first three second, so I knew it wouldn’t do well. On a similar note, videos that get 10k views on TikTok usually get 100k on Insta, or if a video gets 100k on TikTok, it is more likely to hit 1M on Insta. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve hit over 1M on Insta, but I still have only hit that milestone on TikTok with my duck video. Just remember that views are not the only metric of social media success.

The Impractical

Realistic expectations are important. When I first started TikTok, I really thought any video could blow up…to the point where if I posted at night, it was hard for me to fall asleep because I was thinking about what might happen if it did. Now, it’s never my expectation. Going viral usually happens unexpectedly. But if I get one “added to my TBR comment” or bookmark, I figure that’s a success.

Have fun. If posting starts to feel like a chore, put it away. Odds are really good that you won’t go viral anyway, so while every post can feel like a lottery ticket, I have gone viral enough to know that even several viral vids won’t make a difference. In fact, one time I intentionally took a day off socials to recenter myself, and the video I posted the next day went the most viral on Insta with over 18M views. If you aren’t having fun and laughing at yourself, it’s really, really not worth it.

Get comfortable being embarrassed. Most of my videos have some element of imperfection or cringe, but I got over that when I stood in front of middle schoolers and tried to get them to pay attention to literary devices. Imagine friends and supporters watching or total strangers. Forget the haters. I rarely spend more than five minutes filming and editing a video, and some of my quickest get the biggest buzz, so it’s not worth trying to be perfect.

Break rules. If you follow me on either TikTok or Instagram, you will probably see me breaking any number of these “rules,” but that’s because these aren’t even really rules. They’re tips, and I’m always willing to experiment and try something new.

Be yourself! Being real and genuine is going to help you find your niche . I am both a teacher and an author, and I am better at building my teacher platform than my book one, so maybe I don’t really have one target audience and I’m straddling both too much…or maybe that’s fine because I am myself and having fun!