More On (Moron) Social Media Promotion

I know I'm doing my social media promotion all wrong, but I don't think doing it right works any better. My experience with both X and Facebook is, your followers will be 99% other authors. If you happen to capture an actual fan, it's a fluke. Fans aren't going around looking to follow authors unless their lives are completely barren or that author is Stephen King. Marketing to fellow authors is silly. They don't want to read your book; they want you to read theirs.

The only engagement I ever got on Facebook was when I offered to buy three indie authors' books. I've read that some independent authors have tons of social media fans, but I would require actual proof of that before I fell for those anecdotes. 

So, while I hate social media for a multitude of reasons, I'm fresh out of marketing money, and although posting on social media likely isn't going to help, it's harmless...and free.

What am I doing wrong? Well, I'm not trying to engage. Because that's hopeless. So I'm essentially flashing a huge neon sign that reads, BUY MY BOOK. Granted, no one online knows me, so why would they buy? But who online knows anyone? It's all just a game.

I can safely say that I've sampled almost all the social media sites, and I've thus whittled them down to three categories: could possibly be worthwhile, useless but harmless, much more trouble than they're worth.

Possibly worthwhile are X and Instagram. Now, mind you, I have nothing to back that up. I've only ever gotten engagement from people trying to sell me their services, but at least I know that I'm visible! Plus, ease of use is HUGE for me. Both these sites are straightforward and require minimal effort, plus on X you can just talk! You don't have to be some marketing wiz, and you don't have to spend time on Canva designing anything. The other factor that's important is that neither of these sites are cliquish. You just do you, and nobody cares; nobody will judge you.

Useless but harmless describes Facebook. I don't understand why people still use the site; it's basically a jumble of things no one is interested in seeing, but nevertheless appear in their timeline. The time I spend on Facebook daily equals about thirty seconds; long enough to post whatever I've posted to other sites and to double-check that none of my previous posts have gotten any comments (they haven't).

Obviously, TikTok is more trouble than it's worth. I've now posted two videos that have zero views, and the site's "magic" algorithm still hasn't caught on to the content I want to see, even though I have commented on a few relevant posts. I won't say that this article is misleading, but I also won't not say that this article is misleading.

Don't get me wrong ~ I know there are other sites, but let's face it; these are the big players. I tried Pinterest, but it frankly screwed me by messing up my books' "pins". I was left with only cover images, and no buy links or blurbs. Pretty much worthless. I could say the fault was on my end, but any site that's inordinately confusing to use (or deceptively confusing when you're sure you've done everything right) is just not for me.

I keep getting connection requests from people on LinkedIn, but I'm still unsure what the site can do for me, marketing-wise. I need to think about it more, I suppose.

I suppose what all this boils down to is, I'm not intrigued by any of these sites, and I don't know how anyone else would be. But I guess some are, so I'll keep posting little snippets or "stories" and keep attracting publicists and web designers and paid reviewers, but no actual readers.

It beats streaming reruns of old sitcoms.