Why Social Media is Essential for Your Author Blog
Welcome to the fourth part of our authors and blogging series. So far we’ve shown you how blogging can help authors reach an audience, things to consider when starting a blog, and how to create a must-read blog. Today, we’re discussing why social media is essential for the long-term health of your author blog.
Today’s Communication
Social media permeates every aspect of our society. It has evolved into a standard form of communication for kids and parents, corporations, and presidents.
As such, people expect authors to own social media accounts. For unpublished writers, social media cultivates potential fans for future books. For published authors, it grows reader loyalty.
Facebook is the largest social media site in the world. Hence, it’s no surprise that many writers create a Facebook author page. Other common social media platforms include YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest. For illustrators, Instagram is popular because of its visual nature.
Social Media Does Not Replace the Author Blog
Don’t use social media instead of a website. Social media platforms are notorious for changing their algorithms. This means people may see your social media posts one day but not the next.
Platforms may also ban your account without notice. Perhaps you used a banned word. Or maybe you posted something perceived as controversial, and people flagged it. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, it’ll take time to appeal and reinstate your account.
With an author site, you have more control, especially if you use a self-hosted blogging platform. But it cannot exist alone. Social media is vital for supporting your site. It just cannot replace it.
The Essential Partnership: Social Media and Blogs
Perhaps you’ve been writing captivating blog posts, but your traffic, or page views, is lagging. Likely culprits include a lack of awareness or the inability of people to find your site.
It’s not enough to write great content if no one can find it. You’re competing in an already crowded environment where people are bombarded with messages all day every day.
Social media is necessary for increasing the visibility of your blog posts. It’s like a megaphone calling attention to your content. If others like these posts, they’ll share them. This can lead to more blog clicks, increasing your site traffic. In turn, this traffic boosts site ranking and impacts your SEO (search engine optimization), making it easier for people to discover your site on the Internet.
Social media can also help build readership loyalty for your blog. By engaging with followers and promoting blog links to them, you encourage them to visit your site again.
For prospective authors, linking to your author blog posts on social media provides editors and agents an opportunity to discover you and assess your writing skills.
In this information age, social media plays a crucial role in helping a blog stand out. In the next part of our series, we’ll share how to use specific social media platforms and techniques to increase followers and traffic to your site.
This post was written by Maria Adcock and originally posted in the SCBWI Kid LIt News 2021 Newsletter: Winter/Spring Edition ©All rights reserved. All content is copyrighted ©2021 The SCBWI Long Island, NY. SCBWI.org Kid LIt News is an educational newsletter of the Long Island, New York region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the international organization for professionals in children’s publishing.
