Social media can be a good thing. I like X for my "regular" non-author life. I follow who I choose to hear from by creating my own lists. That way I can screen out all the crazy people. I can also instantly find out what's happening in the world. Some people like Facebook; why, I don't know, but perhaps they use it to stay in touch with friends/family and to post braggable images. Instagram's appeal is kind of a mystery. I've never used TikTok ~ not my demographic.
It's an accepted notion that social media has changed the world. Maybe so, but perhaps not for the better. I remember when AOL was supposed to have changed the world, too. Where are you, AOL?
As far as selling or even promoting books, social media doesn't work. Authors need to stop wasting their time on it and search out methods that do work. Here's my "success" promoting via social media:
X ~ I set up a separate author account on X to keep my two worlds separate. I write under a pen name, so all I needed was a dedicated email account under that name in order to establish my identity. Quickly, I gained a fair amount of followers; all other authors. Authors don't want to buy your book. They want you to buy their book. Maybe they're all just looking for a community, but I'm really not. I would see posts occasionally that were interesting regarding my craft, but honestly, most posts were junk; silly stuff; time wasters for both the OP and their followers. The only time I ever log into my author X account is when I have a newly published book, and that's if I even think to do that. It's more of a silly superstition than anything. I know at the time I'm doing it that my post will have zero effect.
Facebook ~ Again, I set up an author page under my pen name. Perhaps five or six people began following me; again, all authors (plus a spammer here and there). For a time I posted something every day ~ a post featuring my latest book or anything I could think of that might engage people (posing a question, offering giveaways). Nothing. I even offered to buy books from the first five self-published authors who replied to my post and I couldn't even get five takers. I haven't revisited my Facebook page in months.
Instagram ~ Oh, I got a lot of followers. Who they are, I don't know and didn't bother to research. It's a frustrating app ~ too busy, too much spam, too many commercial ads. I posted regularly for a while. I "liked" others' posts (ones I truly liked). I created a couple of fancy posts of my own using Canva. I did, of course, promote my books and even issued a call for ARC readers. It was all useless. Finally I became too bored with it to bother going back.
Pinterest ~ Is Pinterest even social media? I don't know what it is. Years ago I set up a personal account for some reason and added some images to it. Then I read somewhere that a self-published author got most of her sales from the site, so I gave it a shot. The site convinced me that what I really needed was a business account, which I dutifully set up and which never worked as promised. My personal account was simple to use. I created different pins and added images to them. A business account should act the same, right? Nope. I made a pin for my books and added links and blurbs to each book's image, but every time I tried to add a new book to that pin, the site created a brand new pin with no link to the book; just an image. I won't even go back there. It's hopeless. Needless to say, it's worthless for scoring any book sales.
LinkedIn ~ Apparently LinkedIn is now considered social media. When I was active in my career, everyone thought of it as a job site. You'd post your resume whether you were looking for a job or not, and sometimes you could establish professional connections, which I didn't give a damn about, but everyone had an account, so I did, too. I read somewhere that authors should have a LinkedIn account as well, so I created one. I receive new invitations every day, mostly from people wanting to push their book-related services. At first I was annoyed, but then I decided to just accept every one of them. Having a lot of connections means something, right? Not really, but what the heck. I don't respond to messages, though. They just sit out there. I don't even bother to tell these people I'm not interested. I just ignore them. Book sales from the site? Come on.
Sometimes authors feel like they're "doing something" by promoting on social media. I, too, want to plow forward with my career. I can't afford to constantly advertise my books via paid sites. I do it on a very small scale when I publish a new book. In between those times, I still want to move my already published works. But social media isn't the answer. Use social media for fun, if you consider it fun. Don't try to advance book sales with it, because all the other hundred million authors out there are doing the same, and nobody's buying their books, either.
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