You want to use social media, as it’s the best way to market directly to prospective buyers of your books. But with the dozens of social media sites out there, which one or two are best for you?
Which social media platform(s) you use largely depends upon three factors:
• If your target audience is there
• If the platform lends itself to the way you promote your book
• If you get results from posting there
As an example, my writing guidebooks do quite well on X/Twitter, Google+ (during its heyday) and LinkedIn but don’t net much off of Facebook, Pinterest or Tumblr. I don’t get many followers on Facebook, and promos for my writing tips blog don’t lend themselves well to picture-oriented platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr. In contrast, my hiking trail guidebooks do quite well on X/Twitter, Google+ (again, during its heyday) and Pinterest, all of which can show scenic pictures from the trail. As with my writing guidebooks, not many people follow my hiking guides on Facebook and the recreational activity doesn’t fit the professional nature of LinkedIn.
So, you’ll need to test each platform to see what works best for your books. To get started, here are the major social media platforms that you should consider trying out.
Facebook
With 2.1 billion monthly visitors as of January 2025, Facebook allows for excellent targeting of prospective customers if you are willing to enter the ad arena. It’s not so great for just making posts, unless you can develop a solid base of followers who regularly check your page. Be aware that not all of your followers will see your posts, however.
YouTube
YouTube receives 112 million daily users and is the second largest search engine in the world – yes, that’s right, an incredible number of people go right to YouTube to see if there is a video on the topic they want to know about. Because of this, on other search engines YouTube videos usually appear high in search results.
LinkedIn
Popular among professionals, LinkedIn is a great way to connect to others looking for consulting and coaching. It’s also an excellent way to develop a relationship; given this, the platform is less effective for selling books than it is for selling services related to your book (which in turn leads to book sales!).
Instagram
The most popular of the photo-sharing platforms with more than 500 million monthly visitors as of early 2025, it is an great platform for posting photos of you at any events. Unlike other platforms, where hashtags either are not used (LinkedIn) or frowned upon if more than three are given (Facebook, Twitter), most Instagram posts contain any number of the metadata tags.
X/Twitter
With more than 250 million visitors every month (as of April 2024), X/Twitter offers an excellent opportunity to build a large base of followers. To get more follows, use hashtags, re-x/tweet other X’s/tweets, and follow others. Building a base of followers takes time, but once you reach 10,000 followers, it tends to take off on its own. On the downside, X/Twitter recently limited users’ ability to reach followers.
Pinterest
The photo-sharing sight is excellent for posting pictures of your book covers and other products (be sure to include links to the pages where they are sold). Because tagged items in Pinterest can go viral rapidly and show up high on search engines, you really can significantly boost your sales. Pinterest boasts 578 million users per month as of mid 2025.
Bluesky
Though small compared to the other aforementioned social media at 4.1 million daily users (as of June 2025), this alternative to X/Twitter is by far the fastest growing social media platform out there. Many will not use X/Twitter or Facebook out of principle, and this is the platform to reach those potential readers.
A word of caution: Of course, not all of those monthly visitors are interested in the topic of your book or even in reading. Generally, the more visitors, however, the greater the number of them will be interested in your book’s genre or topic.
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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 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 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.
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