When promoting your book via social media, you’ll want to make sure you’re observing the site’s “social etiquette.” Users of each site have unwritten standards of what is considered spamming, overt advertising, and poor taste. Rest assured, violate the rules and you undercut your ability to sell your title.
Each site’s standards differs slightly, and as with any social rules, some users are more offended than others. There are some general etiquette rules, however, that seem to cut across most social media. When promoting your book, you’re best not to:
• Use ALL CAPS – They are very difficult to read, and many users will simply move on to another post or tweet.
• Go nuts with the exclamation points – One will do.
• Be coy – Mysteriously announcing that “Something great is about to happen” misses the point of what social media is all about, namely providing useful, interesting information in a quick manner.
• Put down other writers – Every writer has a typo or two in their book. And the best way to bring attention to a repugnant idea is to point at it.
• Put down readers – Not every reader shares your taste. Remember, even negative publicity is good publicity, for there’s nothing worse than being ignored.
• Put down reviewers – Take the moral high road. You don’t need to stoop to the troll’s level to get attention for your book.
• Cut the self-pity – Rather than telling about how your writing is subpar, why not work on improving it? Besides, who would buy a book from a writer who says their writing stinks?
What general etiquette rules have you noticed in social media?
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.