Raise your hand—heck, raise both of them—if you’d rather do almost anything else than hang out on social media.
Keep them in the air if, when you go to make good use of the platforms we love to hate, you end up spending way too much time yet not doing much of anything productive.
Yup. Me, too.
It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of funny cat videos, what your friends and family ate last night, or who’s saying what about just about anything.
But you can turn your social media into a money machine if you know what to do, when to do it, and how to measure results. Throw in a dash of self-control and a few other controls, and you can monetize your social media and make the time to “spend” on it worthwhile.
The other articles in this month’s issue are going to help you make the right decisions from a book marketing and time maximization perspective.
Let’s start with some book marketing tips as they pertain to social media. I suggest running any book marketing strategy through four filters: your personality, your book’s job, your budget, and your available time.
A quick breakdown:
Identifying your perfect combination of book marketing vis-à-vis social media will allow you to create focus time and turn your minutes—and any dollars you invest—into more money.
Measuring your results takes time, so be sure to give every tactic you employ time to bear fruit. Be sure to keep track of both time and money invested, as well as your return on investment (ROI) so you can make adjustments when it makes sense.
My final tips are meant to wrap arms around both your time and money, so you waste as little as possible of both.
First, set boundaries. You won’t overspend if you predetermine your limits. Please don’t “play it by ear,” especially if you’re more artist than business person. Digging into the data will keep you on track.
Second, use a timer. I use two timers: one on my phone to jar me out of unproductive scrolling, and one regarding social media apps in general. You can limit yourself to a specific amount of time on the apps per day.
One last tip: use an app to pre-schedule your social media posts, so you only go on social media to be social and interact with readers and other authors. That will keep it fun—or as fun as it can be!
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