Welcome to the Author Toolbox Blog Hop, hosted by author extraordinaire Raimey Gallant. On the third Wednesday of each month, we share tips for building our author careers. Join us here! https://raimeygallant.com/2017/03/22/authortoolboxbloghop/

Social media is an important tool for attracting and connecting with readers. So why have I spent most of my time on social media connecting with other authors? Yes, networking is fun and important, and authors buy lots of books—I sure do! But I also want to connect with readers who are not authors. Hard to do if most of my social media content is retweeting/sharing other authors’ posts about their books, their giveaways, their blog posts, etc. This is especially true on Twitter, my favorite SM hangout.

Constant cries of “Buy my book!” train people to tune us out, just like we tune out ads on the online platforms we use. I mean, really—do you click through on those weird ads about how bananas floating in water will somehow cure all your ills?

Readers want to feel connected to the authors whose books they love. They want to get to know us as fellow humans, not just ad bots. How to connect, though, when I spend most of my time in yoga pants at a desk covered in coffee stains and cracker crumbs?

Lisa Cato is a social media consultant/teacher who presented a workshop on social media for authors at the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle last year. I’ll paraphrase her key ideas here, but you can learn more on her website: http://www.caledoniacreative.com/, where she offers some cool freebies.  She also has an 8-part podcast, Social Media Deconstructed, well worth a listen.

Like other social media experts, Cato advises us to find our personal hooks to use in social media posts—topics we are passionate about, enjoy posting about, and perhaps tie into our books. She called them chalices and recommends five, the fifth being our books, of course. The idea is to fill each chalice with content that reveals who we are as authors and humans, and to rotate posting from each chalice on each social media platform. She says it so much more elegantly than I do, so go check out her website!

My chalices are

• Cooking. I love to cook, and my characters spend lots of time cooking and flirting over food.
• The Pacific Northwest. My books are set here. Even during the Quarantimes, Hubs and I take daily walks. I snap photos of sights along the way—beautiful houses in Tacoma, views of the Puget Sound, etc. The need for new material to post gives me extra motivation to get out and walk.
• Books I love. I’ll work on posting my book reviews across all my social media platforms.
• Funny stuff related to books and writing—mostly cartoons shared by other writers. Easy-peasy!
• Buy my book!

What about current events? I have a personal profile on Facebook where I can rant to my heart’s content. And I do comment on others’ posts on political and social events. It’s not that I’m trying to hide my political leanings (Left-Coast Lefty McLeftface), but that’s not really part of my author brand. Let’s say I have a shotglass for current events, not a chalice.

As for retweeting others’ book promo, I’ll have to cut waaaay down. That feels unkind, stingy even—but the big-name authors I love don’t promote their friends’ books unless they’ve read them or are excited to read them. And, by the way, none of them throw out silly polls and attention-grabbing questions like “What ice cream flavor would your main character be?”

I do support fellow authors in other ways, like guest posts on this blog, and sharing giveaways my readers might want to take advantage of. How do you handle your social media content? Do you have a strategy, or do you just post whatever’s on your mind?