If BLL taught us anything it’s that the slightest decisions can have a massive impact. A kiss, a drink, a misconstrued glance, could all lead to some devastating and lasting effects.

While we all (thankfully) don’t live in the pressure cooker that is the wealthy, elite residential community of Monterey, your marketing can have the same explosive power as Madeleine’s gossip or Celeste’s denial.

Each of these “big little marketing tips” take less than 15 minutes to complete and can have lasting and far-reaching influence.

Be Consistent

We are inundated with dozens, and often, hundreds of marketing messages a day. The ones we remember aren’t necessarily the brightest and boldest, but rather the ones we see repeatedly.

When we think Coca-Cola, we think of a red and white label. When we think McDonalds, big yellow arches flash in our mind. When we think Justin Bieber, tattoos and mop buckets. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Nonetheless, repetition within a brand is key, but often, authors are all over the place making it confusing for readers to recognize them from one point of contact to the next.

  • Use One Headshot – The headshot in your book should be the one on your Facebook page, your Instagram, Twitter, website and beyond. Give people time to get to know your face. Eventually your fans will be trained to watch for and pay attention to you on saturated places like social media platforms and Goodreads.
  • Make Your Bios Similar – If on your website you talk in depth about your dogs, your kids, your degrees and your favorite coffee then on Twitter you mention one of your nine books and then on an article on Huffington Post you link to your mom blog, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. If your books are your main product, make them the forefront of your bio across all mediums.
  • Repeat Handles – Does your social media naming convention look a little like this:
    • Twitter: @JaneLDoe
    • Facebook: @JaneDoeAuthor
    • Instagram: @DogLovinJane
    • Website: com

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. A lot of authors set up their platforms at different stages in their career and therefore go with different handles as their mood at the times suits them. In a small amount of time though, you can check Twitter and Instagram* for new handles** (without losing any account info) and use GoDaddy or some other domain website to see if a like website address is available. The more fluid your online properties can be, the easier it will be for you fans to find you.

*Facebook is the place where it is most difficult to change the page name. If possible, get your other properties to match Facebook to avoid that process.

**The best possible handle is your full name, assuming it’s unique and available.

Link It

No matter where you are online or what you’re doing, don’t miss opportunities to link to a page that is selling your book (ideally Amazon, if possible). Whether you are contributing a guest post on a friend’s blog or creating an email signature, there’s no reason to leave out opportunities to sell your book.

Frequently on Twitter authors link to their websites, which is great, but if book sales are important to you, don’t miss the chance to link to a purchase page. You never know where your readers may be.

Maximize eBooks

One area where indies really get it right and traditional publishers really get it wrong is in maximizing an ebook’s ability to move readers from a book to another online property.

If you have control of what goes into your book because you are self-published, working with a small press or going with a hybrid publishing model, insist that a link to sign up for your newsletter be placed in the front and back of the book.

What better marketing is out there than to have someone finish your book, love it, and then immediately be able to sign up to receive notifications when your next book is out? And it would likely take only seconds to include a sentence and a link.

Follow

Too often beginners on social media (and even some experienced social media users) think posting is the best use of their time on social media. And while, yes, you have to be an active and engaged member of any platform you join, it’s not just about pushing messages out.

Take 15 minutes out of your day to follow 100 people on Instagram and 100 on Twitter. Go to the profile of an author you admire or a one you share similarities with and start following their fans. That’s it.

It’s easy. It’s free. And best of all, it’s what’s going to help you get connected with new readers. You should certainly be posting content to social media, but don’t underestimate the power of a follow.

#Hashtag

This may feel like old news, but the hashtag is alive and well and you can’t afford to miss the opportunities it presents.

The majority of authors do one of two things with hashtags (even though they have been around for years now):

  • They ignore them and don’t use them at all.
  • Or they use them wrong. #Whohastimetohashtag

On platforms like Instagram where communities of booklovers are taking over, knowing how, what and where to hashtag can take you from zero impact to rich, engaged content.

Next time you want to post a picture of your book on Instagram, do a little test:

  • Post one picture using no hashtags.
  • Post another picture using five relevant, book-related hashtags. (Here, use these: #Bookstagram #BookRiot #EpicReads #Bookworm #BookLover #Books)
  • Post a third and challenge yourself to find 25 relevant hashtags for books. Usually you can find these in the comments of a popular bookstagrammer’s posts.

Guaranteed you will see a massive difference between the first post, the second and the third. Using the hashtags on Twitter and Instagram in particular will take your accounts from “shouting into the abyss” to slow and steady engagement.

Boomerang Baby

Interested in having videos, but don’t have the time/experience/patience/extrovertedness to get the camera rolling? Boomerang videos are your new besties. These little three second films play the action you record forwards and backwards on a loop, like this.

Download the app to your phone and start playing with some cute snapshots of your author life. Feature your book cover, show your fingers typing away on your next novel or catch a cool couple of frames in your story’s setting. The possibilities are endless and the app couldn’t be easier to use. Get some tips and tricks on creating a great Boomerang here.

Marketing in the biggest broadest terms is scary and daunting, but you take big little steps by implementing a few quick changes to your current efforts.