by Eevi Jones

For most of us authors, promoting and marketing ourselves can be quite a challenge. And although we know it’s so very important, we often don’t have the time, or we simply don’t want to seem too pushy. And that’s why it’s all the more important to take advantage of all these daily opportunities that present themselves in our everyday lives, but are so often overlooked by most.

In this article, I will show you 9 simple changes you can make today, that can really make a difference in the way you’re presenting yourself online, and that can create quick and amazing wins. Everyone here can do this within a matter of minutes. This is how so many of my clients have found me, my books, and my programs!

1. A Profile Picture That Sticks Out

One thing I’ve noticed with many well known authors is that they don’t change their profile pictures often. And whenever they do change it, they do so across all platforms. So when it comes to your profile picture, try using the same image throughout each media channel. That way, potential readers will recognize you more easily, be it on your Amazon author page, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

BONUS: wear something bright or have a bright background. For example, I wear something red in my profile image, while the woman’s profile image on the right shows a bright and bold background. This will allow others to quickly recognize you, even if it’s just a thumbnail-sized image.

Many authors treat their profile image as an afterthought. From now on, try making more conscious decisions when it comes to color choices and images. And once you’ve decided on an image, try to stick with it. And if you do change it, be sure to change it everywhere.

The same holds true for your displayed author name. Be consistent with it throughout all social media channels.
Make it as easy as you possibly can for your followers to find and recognize you.

2. Your Branded Facebook Profile

Now, you may have heard this before, but this one will add a whole new layer to your online presence.

How often have you hovered over someone’s profile picture within Facebook groups to see who they were or to find out more about them? This provides you with an incredible opportunity to show as much information about yourself as you possibly can.

Here are 6 things you can share about yourself and your work on Facebook’s profile:

1. PROFILE IMAGE:

As already mentioned, try to be as consistent as you possibly can by using the same name and profile image. That will help readers recognize us more easily.

2. COVER IMAGE:

Facebook’s cover image is prime real estate. Use it to your advantage and display things such as your latest book. Also, pay attention that the main content of your cover image displays properly on mobile devices as well, and doesn’t cut off important parts of your image or message.

And don’t forget to add your website’s URL, if you have one. Remember, we want to make it as easy as possible for others to learn more about us.

3. MEDIA FEATURES:

Whether you’re an Amazon bestselling author, an award-winning writer, or a featured guest on a podcast or blog, showcasing these wins will give you instant credibility. So don’t be shy and showcase your hard-earned accomplishments. Not only will they set you apart from others, but also exhibit your dedication, knowledge, and expertise.

Both my Facebook and LinkedIn banners, for example, hold my most recent media features.

So be proud, and share these successes!

4. MINI BIO:

This one is amazing as this text will show up even if someone looks at your profile on a mobile device, so be sure to make this short snippet of 101 characters count.

Mark’s mini bio, for example, currently reads:

Word Slinger. Entrepreneur.

As a well known influencer, this is perfectly sufficient. Less known authors, on the other hand, may want to consider adding additional information such as the genre they write in, or the title of their latest book.

My mini bio currently reads:

I help aspiring children’s book authors with the entire book creation process.

I also added my website, for good measure.

5. FEATURED IMAGE:

This is the featured image of your profile page.

You can set this up by either clicking the little pencil icon located at the top right of this area to “Edit” your featured photos, or by clicking on OPTIONS for an already existing photo, and then selecting MAKE FEATURED PHOTO.

Facebook displays up to 5 featured images. I chose to just show 1, which makes it big and prominent. That’s how many children’s book authors from various Facebook groups have discovered my book. This is so powerful, as it will show up on desktop screens as well as on mobile devices.

6. CLICKABLE LINK:

And this clickable link right here can either be to your website, your amazon author page, your book page (be sure to use a clean link), or your Linktr.ee address, an amazing free tool for optimizing your traffic, which I will cover next.

BONUS: We rarely self-promote ourselves on our private facebook page, so you may still have a number of friends and family members that don’t know what you’ve been up to of late. So as you’re making these updates, they will automatically show up in your friends’ feed. You might even win a new fan among those that already know you.

3. Linktr.ee To The Rescue

This is an incredible and absolutely free tool that comes in very handy, as social media platforms such as Instagram only display one clickable link.

Linktr.ee allows your one link to house all the content you want to share with followers everywhere you can share a link. And while it was originally created for Instagram use only, it can be shared and used everywhere.

When clicking on my linktree link, you will see this, giving visitors access to 6 different links that I want to share:

So by clicking on my linktr.ee link, people can access my courses, my most recent article features, and other fun things like my quiz. It’s a great tool and absolutely free.

Note how my profile picture and my name are the same on every single platform. That will help readers recognize me more easily.

4. Linktr.ee Benefits Without Linktr.ee

Do you have your own website? Even better! If you want to share a number of links at once on one single page, using your own website instead of linktr.ee has a number of advantages:

• You can use your own branding.
• You are able to give your buttons different colors.
• You can customize the link.
• You are able to pixel all your visitors that come to your site.

I chose to make my link something fun by calling it eevijones.com/VIP. It’s short and easy to remember. And as there is no third party such as linktr.ee involved, you are able to pixel every single visitor, so that you can easily retarget them if you were to run Facebook ads or the like.

5. No Website? No Problem!

What if you’re not ready for your own website, but you still want others to learn more about you? While linktr.ee houses all the content you want to share with followers, an About.me page is a simple yet professional way to showcase who you are and what you do. There is of course a paid version, but the free version will provide you with everything you’ll need.

About.me will let you create a customized link, an intriguing bio, a spotlight button for a clear call to action such as visiting your Amazon page, and any other social media links you might want to include.

So instead of sharing your Facebook or Amazon author page, you now can share a more professional looking link, all in a matter of minutes.

6. Let Your Emails Do The Work For You

This may not technically count as social media, but this is too good not to be included, mainly because it’s something most of us use every single day. People are curious by nature. So let’s take advantage of that, and make people aware of our books or services without having to directly tell them about it.

This is how I’ve gotten a number of author-visit invitations, without ever having introduced myself as a children’s book author. My email signature did all the work for me.

An email signature like this can hold a photo of yourself, your latest book, or your logo. You can even add social media buttons that will take the reader directly to their prefered platforms.

If you’d like me to show you in a quick video how I created this free email signature that automatically shows up at the bottom of every email, visit eevijones.com/emailsignature.

7. How To Share The Smart Way

This is one of my absolute favorite tools. It’s simple, it’s free, and it’s so, so effective!

With Snip.ly, you can add your custom call-to-action to most pages on the web, allowing you to engage your followers through every link you share.

Before sharing an article I wrote for another website, for example, I attached a little popup button to the bottom of the page that links directly to my own website, so that people can discover me while they read.

You can also link it to your social media pages, such as twitter and facebook, and are able to customize the position of the popup, the color, and branding.

So before sharing a link of an interesting article within a Facebook group or in one of your emails, create your own fun and engaging Sniply first, so readers can easily click back to your site.

8. Your Instagram Profile

Just like on Facebook, people can see right away who I am and what I do by looking at my Instagram profile.

Instagram allows for fun emojis, so you can show a bit more personality, and showcase what else is important to you.

Remember that Instagram only allows for one clickable link, so this would be the perfect opportunity to make use of your Linktr.ee link, your about.me, or your page that hosts multiple links you’d like to share.

I also make use of Instagram’s Highlights, and added simple highlight covers below my profile. This is something not many make use of, but that is so very effective. Each highlight holds relevant information to me as both an author and a publishing strategist. My program highlight, for example, holds information regarding my programs, and the shoutouts highlight showcases a number of testimonials. This would be the perfect place to display some amazing reviews your book has already received.

9. Your Hashtag Mine

The power of Instagram is in the hashtags. Now, we can go over similar authors’ feeds and see what hashtags they are using, or we can let free online tools do the work for us.

Best-Hashtags.com’s algorithm, for example, calculates the best hashtags for us based on historical data.

Entering #childrensbooks in the search bar, for example, generates these two separate sets, each holding 30 hashtags, the maximum number of hashtags allowed by Instagram.

We can now simply click the copy button, paste the entire set of hashtags into Instagram, and see your engagement rise.

Using the correct hashtags, your posts will get more likes and and more views. Just be sure to update your lists every so often by searching for topics and terms relevant to your writings.

CONCLUSION:

You can apply many of these quick and simply changes to other social media platforms that you’re planning to use in your book’s marketing strategy.

Make the most of the virtual real estate you’ve been provided with and make it as easy as possible for people to

1.) see what you do and are all about, and
2.) where they can get what you have to offer

Now of course, you don’t have to be present on every single social media platform out there. But it is my hope that after having read this article, you’re more conscious about your choices and realize that there are so many daily opportunities where we can share our work.

I would love to hear your biggest takeaways, and the one thing you think you can implement right away to boost your visibility on social media. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Eevi Jones

Eevi Jones is the author of the multi-award winning and bestselling book How To Self-Publish A Children’s Book, and the founder of Children’s Book University, where she teaches loving moms, dads, grandparents, and teachers how to write & publish their own magical story.

She’s been featured in media outlets such as Forbes, Scary Mommy, EOFire, Kindlepreneur, The Creative Penn, SCBWI and many more.

She can be found online here.