Are you on social media?
Is that a really stupid question, or what? Aren’t we ALL on some form of social media?
It could be Facebook where you keep up with your friends, family, and all those people you haven’t seen since high school (and aren’t really sure you want to). It could be Twitter where you gather the day’s news. It could be Instagram where you go to relax and look at pretty pictures. Whatever it is, it’s important that you get your presence on every form of social media you can stand and then pick one where you actually hang out online.
You’ve heard this advice already, I’m certain. What I just said is absolutely nothing new. It’s been said by every marketing expert ever. Right?
So… what about the platforms where you’re not? What about platforms you haven’t even thought of?!
I will tell you right now, I’m old. Because of my age, I hang out more on Facebook (yeah, I dare you to find a younger person (which I define as anyone between the ages of 16 and 26) on Facebook. They’re just not there unless they’re part of some very specific group in which case that is the only time they’ll go on Facebook, to see what’s happening in that group.
So, what if you write YA? Or fantasy? Or another genre that you think would appeal to younger people or you would like it to appeal to younger people? What do you do? Where do you go?
Well, you could create a TikTok account and get active. But that would probably take hours, days, years of your life. (From what I understand – and I’ve never done it myself – you can go onto TikTok and literally lose hours and not even realize it.)
And what about Tumblr, where it used to be that younger people hung out? Or Instagram? Do younger people hang out there? Discord! Yes, Discord is where younger people hang out… but then you have to get onto a server and they’re usually private so… forget that one. Snapchat? Once again, you have to actually know people and you can’t really market to people on Snapchat. Your message will go to one or two people (who you’ve become friends with and you have to specifically send your message to them).
So, what’s an old person to do?
Even if you’re like me and keep up with everything that’s new and are really tech-savvy, there are still limitations. So, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to hire a young person to do it for me.
We’ll see how this works out.
The incredible thing is that there are lots of young people who are really savvy at social media marketing. I’m certain you can find one, hire them, and do this yourself as well. (And if this works out with my young person, I’ll ask them if I can share their name and contact info here in case you’d like to hire them too.)
Since I don’t have the time or inclination to explore BookTok, BookTube, or Bookstagram, I will ask my new hire to do this for me. I’m going to ask them to make a few videos and images for me and disseminate them on these forms of social media. But even more importantly, I’m going to ask my young person what they think I should do! I’m going to rely on their specific knowledge and experience to learn what I should do and what I should have them do.
I don’t know if this is going to be as easy as it sounds in theory, but I’ll keep you up to date on how it works out!