The state of social media for writers

And the skills to develop to reach your readers

Continuing with my “Joy & Connection Marketing Plan” series this fall, my posts this month are all about connecting with your ideal reader. So often, when we talk about the concept of having a platform as a writer, people default to the concept of:

1. Platform equals being present on social media, exclusively.

2. You measure your platform by how many followers you have. Period.

Neither of these things are true, yet social media often does play some role in how one connects with their ideal readers. So today let’s talk head-on about the state of social media for writers.

Each Tuesday this month I’m sharing an exclusive post on this topic for my paid subscribers. To receive this and gain access to my private community here on Substack, join us here:

Let’s dig in!

As a Writer, Do You Need to Use Social Media? Nope.

A question I commonly see revisited online is whether a writer needs to develop an online platform. Sometimes this is framed around certain contexts, such as “Do you need an online platform as a NOVELIST?” or “Do you need an online platform as a DEBUT AUTHOR?” or “Do you need an online platform as a YA AUTHOR?”

I want to reframe this question with some that I feel addresses practical aspects that relate to one’s goal as a writer, such as:

• “How will people know about me and my book?” Of course, change this as needed: how will people know about your Substack, or art opening, or prints for sale, etc.

• “When someone becomes aware of my work and is a little bit interested, wanting to dig deeper, how will they do that? What will they find?” This has us considering if they will type your name into Google, and what comes up in those search results. Or what questions a mildly interested reader may have, what objections they have to pursuing your work further, and what would get them even more interested. Personally, I like when I can find a long bio about a writer or creator I’m curious about, or see photos or videos they share. It gives me a lot of context about not just what they create, but why. Is that a requirement? Of course not, but these are the things that tend to increase my engagement with a creator I just discovered.

• “How can someone stay connected with my work if they are interested?” So let’s say a potential reader see someone mention your book, but they aren’t ready to buy it yet. How can they stay connected with your work, remember it, and perhaps even grow more interested in it? This is indeed where following you on social media or subscribing to your newsletter becomes a way that they can stay in your orbit.

• “I hope to have a sustainable career as a writer over time. My first book comes out next year, and my follow-up two years after that. How can I build upon success, and not lose the readers I gain in the time in between?” This question is related to someone who works across genres or creative work, such as a writer who is also a painter, or a poet who also has a memoir. It’s difficult to gain readers and forge a community around your creative work. To help support what you create in the future, you may want to maintain these connections in some way, and yes, that may include social media.

• “I’m not an insider, and have no access to influencers. I plan to self-publish. How can I possibly begin growing a readership all on my own?” Again, this is where being active on social media provides opportunities to reach and engage people with the themes you love writing about.

These questions then help answer the question, “Do I need an online platform as a writer or creator?” Because it has us considering if you can give readers a way into your work without it. Do you need to be on social media? No. Could it possibly help you reach your goals? Yes.

Can You Promote Your Work Without Social Media? Yes!

Likewise, can we flip this question: “What would my potential and options look like as a writer without using social media or having an online platform?” Here, I always like to go back to a story that author Thomas Greanias told me years ago when he described becoming a bestseller earlier in his career. This story is from 2005, before social media was really a thing in our culture. An ebook he had published was coming out as a physical book for the first time (2 years after the ebook), and he was waiting for publication day. He decided to stop by a local bookstore just to see where the book would appear on the shelf:

“I'm looking in the stacks there and I'm thinking, oh, it's gonna be… oh, it's here near Grisham, that's good. People will look for Grisham, maybe they'll find me. I was just scanning, saying my book will end up right around here [on the shelf], and there it was a single copy [of my book] spine out!”

Exciting, right? Well, this was Tom’s next thought:

“I thought, nobody on the planet is ever going to find this book.”

What he did next was to take a step to be social, and gain some valuable information in the process:

“I took [my book] to the front [and asked] the manager… do you have any in the back? She said, ‘No, but if you buy this copy, I'll have to reorder.’ I asked how many will you have to reorder? She said, ‘Oh, about five.’”

Of course, he bought it. Then he signed it and gave it to her as a gift. This is when the big discovery happened:

“That's when she said, ‘If you come back, you can you sign those five, and we can put them up front.’ Suddenly, I'm looking for every bookstore in California and I'm thinking, I have to go here, sign copies so they put them up front.”

“I started drawing the maps and thankfully the freeway system in California is such that you could hit all these big box stores, just doing a huge loop around the state. I literally went from San Diego to San Francisco and around the Bay Area back down, and I had to wait till they had some copies, but I would sign them.”

“The book was then taking off and I actually ended up getting a call for my agent saying, ‘What do what are you doing?’ I said, what do you mean? He said, “The velocity of sales is really incredible. And the sales team wants to know what you're doing. Are you buying big blocks of books?’ I said, no, I'm just going to stores and signing them. They're letting me sign them and then they put them up front and they're selling. If you put it in front of their face, they're gonna buy it.”

Tom and I talked a lot about the importance of being ‘on the ground’ in his words, of really being present in the places where books are sold in order to understand the nuances of the process.

Will that same strategy work today? Probably not, a lot has changed, which Tom admitted when we spoke. But the story is meant to illustrate that there is so much information and opportunity out there, but it takes effort to find it.

Do You Need 10,000 Followers?

This comes up often, writers hearing that agents or publishers requires them to have 10,000 followers on social media before they will sign with them. But I don’t think that number is really useful. Instead I consider what any partner in the publishing process might be interested in:

• Knowing that the author will be a good partner in trying to bring this book to market.

• Knowing the author has developed meaningful connections with those who may appreciate the book.

• Knowing the author is finding opportunities to put this book in front of buyers in a meaningful way.

You may be thinking, “But the author writers the book! Isn’t that enough?” And the honest answer is: sure. However, there is a business side to all of this that is filled with risk. Agents and publishers aren’t just magical fairies selecting the cutest mushrooms in the forest. They are business partners who truly love books, but also want to ensure their work is sustainable. So they hope to ensure that the books they select will sell, will reach readers, will have a positive impact on the world. Their resources of time, energy, money, and access are finite. So if you come to the table with additional ways to help this book reach readers, that might be interesting to them.

Your platform could be part of a much more complicated calculation for each agent or publisher. It’s reasonable to think that it could matter to them. Again, your platform is not how many followers you have, but instead illustrating that you can clearly communicate with your ideal readers, and develop a meaningful sense of trust with them to where they may support your book and spread the word.

Choosing Which Social Media to Be Active On

Which social media should you invest your time in? That is more difficult to say today than it used to be, because they each keep changing so much. Sometimes what I consider is not the importance of where you show up, but why and how.

Where might your ideal readers be? Where are other writers or creators in your field showing up? Have you spoken to them about their recent experiences with social media? You may want to ask, I’ll bet they have valuable advice to share. Where are the communities of people who care and share about the kinds of themes you write about, or genres/topics you publish in?

It’s also important to consider what each network is today, rather than our perception of what they used to be. For instance, there are plenty of people who view Instagram from a 2018 lens: occasionally posting a photo to the primary feed of square images, ignoring how much Reels have overtaken the platform, and not venturing into Stories either. Ignoring Reels and Stories is ignoring most of what Instagram is today.

This is why I focus on the word craft so much, and on the idea of human connection. Let’s review some of the more prominent social channels at the moment:

• Instagram: I still like Instagram because it encourages you to share images & videos from your real life. However, many who successfully developed a platform there feel burned by it. What was once a feed of square images now prefers you share vertical videos. They have also tweaked their algorithm again and again to the point where many creators feel that their actual followers rarely see what they post. Has Instagram changed? Yep. To me though, it encourages a conversation of what we can realistically expect from a social network.

• TikTok: Is it a weird algorithmic, potentially toxic social network? Maybe. Is also there a thriving community of readers who love talking about books here? Yep. If you are apprehensive about video, unfamiliar with how TikTok works, you may learn a lot simply by observing it for a few months. Download the app, do some basic searches about books, follow a few people, then just observe. Take notes on what you learn.

• Facebook: There is nowhere else that I connect with the kid I sat next to in 3rd grade, a cousin I haven’t spoken with in awhile, that colleague from a job 16 years ago, my favorite writers today, and where I discover new people with similar hobbies as me. Because of this, and its powerful advertising engine, it remains a social network where people stay connected.

• LinkedIn: is a surprisingly durable social network. Many people forget about it, and perhaps even find it a bit dull. But, it is a thriving network, and can help you reach others in truly meaningful ways. Don’t overlook it.

• X/Twitter: no comment.

• Threads: I still see people trying to make this a viable alternative to Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks that they feel disenfranchised with. Its integration with the Facebook and Instagram network is a bonus because it can extend the reach of Threads posts.

• Bluesky, Mastodon, and a bunch of other newer networks I signed up for, but now forget the names of: I genuinely hope they succeed. I’m glad people are building them and users are there. But I haven’t seen any of them reach critical mass yet. That could work in your favor, because some of these may help you reach your exact readers. This is why it is important to talk to your ideal readers, other authors, and influences in the communities your work will resonate with.

• Substack: You know I’m a fan, I’ll talk more about Substack later this month.

Do you have to be on any of these platforms, actively posting? No. However, there is value in being literate about the marketplace around books, writing, and ideas, and how that happens on different social media.

Algorithms Are Changing Social Media

Algorithms seem to play a bigger and more nuanced role in what we see on social media. Sometimes writers find this to be negative, because it is harder to have their posts seen by followers. Other times this may be positive, surfacing the kinds of content and people that you deeply resonate with.

What I tend to look for is how emotions play a big role here. So much of what is recommended to me on Threads, Facebook, Instagram, etc — tend to have an emotional thrust to them. It focuses on someone’s backstory, or the importance of a topic. For instance, I’ll see something in my feed such as:

“I’m crying. I started here a week ago with 6 people reading my work. Now there are 100 of you. Thank you, you have made my childhood dreams come true. I write about _______, and it fills my heart with joy that 100 of you out there care about this too.”

As writers and creators, this can benefit you — sharing your posts with those who you don’t know, but are passionate about the same things you are. How can you encourage this to happen? It’s the same stuff I always talk about: clear communication and shared trust:

1. Clear Communication: Not doing vague posts. Instead consistently give people a way in to your work as if they just discovered you. Be clear about not just what themes you explore, but why.

2. Shared Trust: make your backstory and process feel personal. A real person showing up because they deeply care. When others engage with you, reciprocate. That doesn’t mean you have to follow them — instead, simply say ‘thank you’ when they comment.

Focus on Skills Not Channels

How do you approach this? Skills and relationships are transferable across channels, so focus on developing those. What might this include? A partial list:

• How to be nice online. (Yes, this is a skill to develop.)

• As I’ve already mentioned: clear communication about what you create and why. This takes time!

• How to share frequently in a way that feels meaningful and fulfilling.

• How to use video, images, and text. These are formats that aren’t going away anytime soon, why not get better at using each?

• Reach out and forge 1:1 professional connections to people who inspire you. Learning how to do that well is a craft.

• Dig deeper: look beyond doing the absolute minimum. Consider how to fully show up in whatever channel you choose to participate in. The other day I was reading an article about a PhD student who discovered a lost Mayan city in Mexico, simply by using online maps. When asked how he did this, he said: “I was on something like page 16 of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organisation for environmental monitoring.” What made me smile is how being on "page 16 of Google search" was meant to sound as if he had entered a a level of research that few dare to venture to.

Please let me know in the comments: how do you feel about social media at the moment?

Reminder: don’t miss out on my exclusive posts for paid subscribers this month!

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan

Kids of the Week: He was so excited that the mail truck pulled up just after he put on his costume.

Grandma of the Week: my mother-in-law visits with my mom: