Click Here: Encouraging Interaction from your Followers
One of my favorite things on social media are polls. I love being able to “anonymously” give my input for seemingly unimportant things that my favorite accounts are posting. It allows intimate connection with the valuable idea of anonymity. This is an aspect of social media that can work in your favor, author.
You should absolutely add polls to your stories, posts, etc., to gain input from your followers. They will jump at the chance to give their opinion without it being publicly traced back to their specific account. Especially if it relates to something new of yours.
Utilize these effects of social media to do research. What do they want to see in your next series? Does the main character choose option A or option B, or even a wild option C? Give them a sneak peak of cover art concepts; which do they prefer? These are the types of choices that your followers will love to submit their opinion on. Utilize these to cater to your fans while gaining valuable input on the real-world trajectory of your work.
Once you hit a certain follower threshold on different platforms, you can add “Swipe Up” or “Click Here” links on posts and stories. These are effective ways to direct your followers to your website. Leading them to your newsletter sign-up link or digital bookstore are some of the best options for this aspect. A lot of times on these posts, the swipes or clicks are accidental, but it still generates traffic and engagement for your profile. All bonuses where the algorithm is concerned, resulting in better performance for your account(s).
Your newsletter is one of the lowest engagement options out of all the ways you interact with fans (but not in a bad way!). This is because it is strictly based on sign-ups and is not ad or algorithm based. The folks who sign up for your newsletters are the ones who want your information directly in their inbox. You can utilize this difference to encourage them to share your profile(s) with friends and to their social media. Give them sneak peeks to your latest work, or a snippet of what you’re currently working on. This gives your subscribers the feeling that they are part of an exclusive club that no one else is privy to.
Redirecting engagement on the various platforms you utilize can be challenging. Your goal, author, is to send them to your virtual bookstore so they will either buy, wishlist, or borrow your book(s). If you lay enough of a trail for your followers, I promise, they will want those breadcrumbs.
