Building a social media author platform

When I was submitting my first picture book manuscript to trade publishers I realised my lack of social media footprint was probably leaving me at a great disadvantage. Look at who's getting published today... celebrities and social influencers. People the public already know.

Since early 2016, I've put my personal feelings about Facebook aside and signed up again and recently created my own author page, though definitely a work in progress.

A colleague in magazine publishing recently did some social media analysis and found that her Facebook following was the hardest channel to grow. Instagram was growing the most steadily.

I think this rings fairly true in my experience. It takes work to go beyond the sphere of family and friends on Facebook but Twitter and Instagram are more conducive to sharing with strangers or 'fans' it would seem. There's something quite liberating about this and it's a good way to find people with similar interests.

Though I wouldn't put myself in the class of social media influencer yet, I feel more confident now that if a Publisher was interested enough to do a little investigative research on me, they would see that I am engaging online and at least have the building blocks in place should my work take off and find a strong fan base.