During the 2019 Colorado Gold Conference in September, I am facilitating a four-hour intensive look into as many aspects of fiction book marketing as I can fit into the “short” time frame. Since I joined RMFW just two summers ago, I have sat at the feet of some of the most amazing and prolific authors in this state. My brain acting like a sponge, I have taken and applied every single marketing technique I could possibly absorb. While this is not going to be a step-by-step process to reach million-dollar success, the information can give you a solid foundation to find an audience outside of your immediate friends and family.
The largest portion of the four hours will be spent on social media. For many people, myself included, dealing with social media is much like beating your head against a wall over and over with the same result: a headache. If Twitter, Instagram, or even Facebook are foreign lands to you, then hashtags are a foreign language.
Hashtags? Yes. You need to know what they are and how they work, and then you need to use them. If you have dipped your toe into the mystic waters of Lake Social Media, here’s a brief explanation of the language of hashtags and how you should be using them to attract new readers.
The former “pound sign” (#) is now known widely as a “hashtag”. This symbol “tags” a key word or phrase for the ease of searching topics across most social media platforms.
For example: I have two beagles and looove looking at beagle puppies on Instagram—a social media platform consisting of personally uploaded photos from people all over the globe. In the same way I can “follow” my sister’s photo uploads, I can follow #beaglepuppies. By doing so, I see anyone who tags their own photos with #beaglepuppies on my feed, even if I don’t know them personally and we have nothing else in common.
Why is this important? Exposure. By using relevant hastags on your social media posts, you become easier to discover by people outside your immediate social media reach.
Imagine you write fantasy novels with dragons. When you upload content highlighting your books, you can tag it by using websites like http://best-hashtags.com to find the most popular hashtags using keywords pertaining to your work. For dragons, it suggests: #dragon #art #gameofthrones #got #dragons #drawing #httyd #fantasy #anime #howtotrainyourdragon #dragonart #artist #love #daenerystargaryen #sketch #jonsnow #hbo #fantasyart #reptile #digitalart #manga #cute #lizard #follow #like #fanart #photography #nature #illustration.
Pick out the ones that apply and leave out the ones that don’t. If your work is closely related to Game of Thrones, totally use the popular #GoT to reach those fans.
Trial what works for you and your preferred platform.
Do you use hashtags? Why or why not?
Great Thank you.
Thanks for the best-hashtags website! That really helps. I remember I posted on Twitter about a short story I wrote and realized after I’d posted that I hadn’t tagged it, so my *3* followers were the only ones who saw it.