Branding for Nonconformists

Can Instagram Selfies Help You Sell Books?

Connecting with readers by sharing snapshots from real life

It’s been more than a decade since social media became an essential part of an author’s job description, and after all this time I still feel like I’m doing it wrong — except on those days when a reader reaches out and the unavoidable time-suck momentarily feels worthwhile. Is it too late to become more proficient at Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook? (And how should we define proficiency?) We know that the more you use these platforms the more the algorithms will favor your content, so is it even possible to use social media effectively without diverting much too much time away from your writing? When is attempting to cultivate a presence on a particular platform simply not a good use of your time, and when is it worth putting the effort into learning how to use it effectively? At what point can you say for sure that something isn’t working, and move on to a new strategy?

Lately I’ve been making various simple experiments hoping to answer all of these questions, and in this post I’ll be sharing some initial takeaways for Instagram (with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube experiment results to follow). Before we get started, though, let’s establish a baseline in social-media…