Using Your Social Media Calendar
Preparation can save you a lot of time. The key is to have a social media plan that looks as organic as possible to avoid being too sales-pitchy or risk boring your readers. You can accomplish this by sharing a range of content types. Here’s the format I use when creating a social media calendar:
- Add holidays and special days
- Book promotions (no more than once per week)
- Requests for readers to follow you on social media and/or subscribe to your newsletter (no more than once per week)
- Everything else
Be sure to alternate the types of content you share each week. I like to rotate through the categories below to help mix things up.
Engaging Questions
More than anything else, readers want to feel like you care about them. Ask engaging questions about things they might have in common with you, such as reading habits, dinner plans, hobbies, and other things related to daily life – especially their pets.
Holidays and Special Days
Major holidays are fun, but odd holidays are a chance to relate to your readers on a different level. From National Pizza Day to International Talk Like a Pirate Day to Alien Abduction Day, there’s truly a holiday for every day.
Quotes & Phrases
The quotes and phrases you share as an author should relate to your books and you as a bookworm. These will be the ones that resonate strongest with your readers and make them see that underneath all of your word counts and writing sprints, you’re a reader just like they are.
This or That and Would You Rather
This or That posts ask readers to choose between THIS or THAT. The two things you’re asking them to choose between do not have to be related.
Would You Rather posts are basically the same thing, but you’re asking in the form of a question.
Memes
If you find a meme that resonates with you as a bookworm, share it with your readers. You can curate memes from online sources, or you can use a meme generation website to create your own.
Choose One and One Must Go
List three things and ask readers to either choose or eliminate one of them.
Canva makes it super easy to create graphics for social media, especially for these types of posts.
Fun and Games
Fun and games posts are very popular and can be anything from themed name games to asking readers to perform a specific action, like telling you the item on their right or looking up a page and line in the book they’re currently reading.
Blurbs, Excerpts, and Taglines
Sharing blurbs, excerpts, and taglines with your book covers, stock photos, and memes is a great way to promote your books. These types of posts should only make up 20% of your posts overall.
And More
Other things you can share on social media include (but are not limited to) recipes, character profiles, your reviews of other authors’ books, your writing space, topics related to research you’re doing for your WIP, and anything else that can help readers relate to you as a person.
Ready to Get Started?
Right-click on the calendar below and choose “Save As” to save it to your device. You can upload it to Canva and fill it in digitally, or you can print it from your home computer and fill it in by hand. Whatever works best for you is the right way to create your calendar.
And if you’d like to get a FREE social media planner each month, delivered right to your inbox with social media tips, news, and a bonus graphic, then click newsletter in the menu above to sign up.
