How to Effectively Use Social Media to Sell More Books in 2026

Podcast 44 min read

Publish & Prosper Episode #103
Published January 21, 2026
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Complete List of Channels

In this episode, Matt & Lauren debate the merits of using social media as a book marketing tool in 2026. Short answer? Yes, social still plays an important role! Long answer? Listen to learn about:

💡 Why social platforms should be used for discovery, not as the home base for your entire brand.

💡 How to show up with content that adds value and supports your long-term goals.

💡 Common mistakes that turn social media into a black hole time vortex.

Episode Chapters

[00:44] - Establishing Today’s Topic
[4:29] - Building on Social Media versus. Building on Owned Real Estate
[6:25] - Understanding (and Admitting) Your Marketing Goals
[11:12] - Knowing Where to Show Up on Social Media
[17:56] - Knowing How to Show Up on Social Media
[25:20] - Using Your Content Strategically
[33:26] - Using Social Media to Build Community
[40:02] - Common Mistakes to Avoid with Your Social Media Marketing Efforts
[49:32] - Episode Wrap Up

💡 Explore These Resources

Pew Research Center | Americans’ Social Media Use 2025
Adobe Express | Social Media Marketing Strategies: Complete 2025 Guide
Deloitte Digital | 2025 State of Social Research
Katie Brinkley’s Podcast Episode on Instagram | Listen on Apple or Spotify
Lulu Blog Series | Social Media 101

💡 Listen to These Episodes

Complete Episode Transcript

Matt: You ready to get started?
Lauren: Yeah, let's do it. It's gonna be a long one, so might as well dive in.
Matt: Can, can you tell this is my favorite topic? So I'm really looking forward to this.
Lauren: I think you're gonna have a lot to say about this though.
Matt: I will have a lot to say.
Lauren: So.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: While you might not love the topic of social media marketing, you do have a lot of insight and opinions on it.
Matt: I do. I had to put it all on paper this time.
Lauren: Which – yeah, you brought some pretty extensive notes.
Matt: Yeah.

[00:44] - Establishing Today’s Topic

Lauren: But I do actually think that we should establish a couple things right up front. We are specifically focusing on organic marketing efforts. We're not talking about doing ads, things like that. Also, we probably need to establish for ourselves, and also for everyone listening, specifically what platforms we're talking about when we're talking about social media marketing. Cause a lot of the research that I was doing when I was like, pulling stats for this, in the, the different sources that I was looking at, were including platforms that when I first looked at it, I was like, I don't…would we call that social media?
Matt: Yeah. I think that a lot of, when you see that, I think a lot of that is actually perpetrated by the brands and the platforms themselves.
Lauren: Sure.
Matt: I think for our purposes, and so that we don't drag this out, I think when we say social media, and what we're gonna be talking about today, we're talking about basically the, the big five, right? Like, when it comes to selling books, like establishing an author presence, I think those are probably the main ones.
Lauren: I think that for the purpose of this episode, you could even narrow it down more specifically to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook.
Matt: Safe to say in this episode, we're gonna be talking heavily about those three. X will come into play, if for no other reason by proxy.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Because theoretically a lot of what we're talking about can be applied to X as a channel. And some of it to Pinterest. There are other things more specific to Pinterest, where you would literally have to focus solely on Pinterest, because of the nature of that channel. And then obviously the notable one we did not mention is YouTube.
Lauren: Yes. I think the exclusion of YouTube in here is not necessarily… I mean, I personally don't consider it a social media platform, I consider it its own channel. And so to me, including it in here, would one, make this episode twice as long as it's already going to be.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And two, I think that YouTube is its own frontier entirely. And I think that it would be a mistake to approach it with the same strategy that you approach –
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: – social media.
Matt: You have to show up there differently.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: And you have to be prepared with different things to be successful on YouTube. So I agree. It's probably its own episode, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. All right. We're also not going to be talking about hoping that you get lucky and go viral with your content. In the wise words of a very wise podcast co-host of mine, virality is not stability, and I think that's really important. So this is not an episode on how to try to gamify viral marketing and make your book go viral. Because one, you can't. And two, even if you could, you shouldn't want to. Because it is not stable marketing.
Matt: You know. That doesn't mean that it's not nice to –
Lauren: Oh, sure.
Matt: – have something go viral. Of course. I think what you're saying is we're not gonna sit here and give you strategies that'll make you go viral. Again, air quotes for those not watching. Because it, it just doesn't exist. And even to this day, these algorithms are ever changing. They're very sensitive. Chasing virality is an exhausting and never ending tactic that in the end, for most authors, small publishers, even the larger publishers by the way, it's just not a winning tactic. One viral hit. Yeah. I mean, it's great if it happens, but we're not gonna talk about how to do it. It's just it's wasted effort. And it's not stable. You're right. Like, that's just not, that's not a good marketing tactic, is trying to win virality every single time.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: You'll exhaust yourself very quickly. I'd like to think that if you do some of these things correctly, you'll get lucky and get one of those viral hits at some point. But if not, really what we're hoping is that you're able to build a very stable and continuous stream –
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: – of discoverability, new sales, and a pipeline of getting people from these channels to your owned platform, like email or website or whatever.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Okay.

[4:29] - Building on Social Media versus. Building on Owned Real Estate

Lauren: Which is actually Matt giving me a great segue to one of the first things that I wanted to talk about.
Matt: It's what you pay me for, isn't it?
Lauren: Sure is. You know, Matt and I talk a lot about not building on rented land, how important it is to own your content, own your audience, own your email lists –
Matt: Ad nausea.
Lauren: — whatever. It's kind of one of our main tenants, and now here we are saying social media marketing, which is very clearly obviously not building on owned land.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, again, we're not countering that. We're just saying don't build on – that can't be your only thing. What we're talking about is how to use it to get over to owned land.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And that's exactly my point. If you are building an audience on social media that dead ends on social media. If you do not have any kind of CTA driving people to sign up for your newsletter, or to go visit your website, or to join your Discord or Circle community, or whatever it is, you don't have any action for interested and engaged fans to take once they get to your social profiles.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Then yes, you are building on rented land, and we are not encouraging you to do that. But if you are using your social media channels as a discoverability tool, as an audience engagement tool, as a way to gather people at the top of the funnel and bring them into your owned areas, then you're doing it right. And then you're not building on rented land, you're just using it as an invitation to get people to the house that you're building on your owned property.
Matt: Yep. We beat that horse pretty dead.
Lauren: Yeah. Well, I think it's an important, important thing to start with.
Matt: Yeah, I agree.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Sorry, I got caught up in the pattern of our, our wallpaper for a second.

[6:25] - Understanding (and Admitting) Your Marketing Goals

Matt: All right.
Lauren: All right. Yeah.
Matt: Before we jump in, there's one thing that I put in my notes that I really wanna make sure we address. It's being honest with yourself about what do you actually want from social media, right? Everybody's telling you you need to be on it. Not us, not just other people, but the world is telling you that you need to be on social media. Whether it's for personal or business, it doesn't matter. And, and to a degree, you know, again, if you're trying to sell books, if you're trying to build an author platform, then yeah, you do. I mean, that's where discoverability happens right now. But you need to be honest about why you want to be there. What's the, the end goal? Like, what is your primary goal? And it can't just be to be on social media. Are you gonna be there to sell more books? Are you specifically trying to grow an email list? What is that one goal? I think the easiest is to sell more books. I think some authors struggle with being so, just bold with like, I wanna sell a ton of books. But quite frankly, come on like, that's the dream.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: So, you know, I think that's probably the most common and admirable goal, to a degree. Like, if you're gonna be on social media, which in my opinion is just a cesspool, at least have the goal of furthering your career, making some money, getting your author name out there a little bit further. I mean, everybody uses it for different reasons, but be honest with yourself. Have a goal, have a primary goal. And then move forward with that, with intention. And I think everything we're about to talk about will help you kind of achieve that primary goal. Then there's obviously secondary goals and tertiary goals that will follow. So.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Be honest with you– we talk to a lot of people and it's like, why are you on social media and… well, cause I need to be on social media. Yeah, but why? Cause I, I just need to be there. But why? It's like that game your kids play with you, if you have kids, or maybe your dog plays it with you, I don't know. But why? Cause everybody's there. But why? Why are you there?
Lauren: And there is a why.
Matt: Absolutely there's a why.
Lauren: There is –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: If you genuinely think the answer is well, because everyone's there and I'm supposed to be, and I have to have – there is still a why.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: You and you have to know what the answer to that question is.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So make sure you do.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Completely agree. And make sure that you have goals that align with that why, and that you are moving – we are past the point of time where it is sustainable to just approach social media with no content strategy, no plan, no actionable goal, anything like that. Just throwing things at the wall for the fun of it. Nobody has time for that.
Matt: I'll take that a little bit further and, and quote our good friend Joe Pulizzi, which is not only should you have a goal, but you should write that goal down. And it should be present in everything you're doing in that particular area. So for social media, you know, if your goal is to grow an email list, then you should write that down and literally have that in front of you. Like, I wanna use social media to grow an email list of 1,500 subscribers by the end of whatever. By the end of the summer, by the end of the year, whatever that might be. But write it down, make it very specific. And every time you're creating content for social media, that should be there in front of you. Like, you should have access to that. You should see that.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: So if your goal is to sell, I don't know, a thousand books this year, then write it down. I want to use social media to sell one thousand books before the end of 2026. But if you don't write it down, if you don't look at it all the time, if it's just this sort of abstract goal in your head, then it has room to, to move around and shrink and grow, and that doesn't help you. So write it down, stick to it, look at it all the time, literally, and move forward.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: You have some really good things written down. So when we talk about, being honest about why you're on social media, picking that goal, you also need to understand that there are three basic main ways that social media can help you achieve that goal and, and grow potentially your author brand, your publishing brand, your business brand, whatever that is. What are those three things?
Lauren: Discoverability. Probably first and foremost, that brand awareness, that discoverability. Then also the brand and authority building. So not just people seeing you, but understanding who you are, what you stand for, what value you can add, things like that. And then of course the customer aspect of it. So customer connection, maybe support, community, loyalty building, things like that.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So I think those are like the top kind of three things that we're gonna focus on. Plus whatever secrets Matt has in his notes.
Matt: I don't know if I'd call 'em secrets. They're just…
Lauren: Surprises?
Matt: A bunch of stuff I didn't get a chance to put into your outline, so.
Lauren: That's okay.

[11:12] - Knowing Where to Show Up on Social Media

Matt: I figured it'd just be easier. And you know, it's one of those things where you find a couple really good data sets, which doesn't always happen, but thankfully, because social media is like such a thing, like it is the thing right now, there's a lot of data out there. There are other things we talk about where it's so hard to get our hands on data, and so we either have to use internal data and then sample that out, or we just don't have it and we have to use feedback from actual people in the community. Which is fine, but when you have access to as much data as we do around social media, it's, you know, it does send you down a bunch of rabbit holes.
Lauren: Oh, for sure.
Matt: Some of the stuff that we found is, there was a survey done by Adobe this year. 59% of consumers unintentionally discovered a new product on TikTok. I would argue that number is probably a little bit higher.
Lauren: Oh yeah, I agree.
Matt: But nonetheless, again, if you're in the business of selling books, or writing, or trying to build an author brand, TikTok is unescapable.
Lauren: Right. Right.
Matt: And when you hear a number like, again, plus or minus 59% of consumers have unintentionally purchased something, you know, or discovered a new product on TikTok. That's a big number.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. The very specific usage of unintentionally discovered, because there's also then people that are intentionally using TikTok as a product or brand discoverability platform. And especially, as we're talking through all of this, your platform of interest is going to vary based on what your content is and who your target audience is.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: If I'm sitting here and saying, 41% of Gen Z consumers use social media and specifically TikTok as a search tool, instead of turning to the more traditional search engines. If your target demographic is not Gen Z, that might not be super interesting to you. But if it is, or even if that's your secondary audience goal and you're looking for new ways to branch out into that audience, these are the kind of things you have to be paying attention to.
Matt: Yeah. And I think a lot of people, including myself, often times equate TikTok with like, younger people. Like much younger than me. But that's not necessarily true. So, again, Pew did a bunch of research and they released some numbers a little earlier this year: 37% of adults surveyed have used TikTok. That's a pretty big number for what they consider to be an adult, and probably more than I would've thought, were hanging out on TikTok. So if I was trying to sell a book or market a book–which, consequently, I am.
Lauren: Crazy.
Matt: Yeah. TikTok is now all of a sudden on my radar.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: You know? Nonfiction or not, if I hear that 37% of adults are using TikTok, that's a big enough percentage for me to go, all right, let me check this thing out.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: Let me see what that's all about. And it may be a great channel for me, and it may not. You know, when you look at other adult usage of social media, obviously the big one is Facebook, seventy some odd percent, according to Pew, also using Facebook. So if you are writing in those genres or those styles that tend to be a little more nonfiction or just more on the, the other end of that spectrum in terms of age, not the YA or the, you know, teen or young adult. But Facebook, whether we like it or not, is still kinda the reality for you.
Lauren: It absolutely is. Unfortunately, you know, we can sit here and say we don't like Facebook or we don't wanna be on Facebook, but it doesn't change the fact that it, it is still a very large market. There are still a lot of people using it, even if we aren't. We even got some…in the last episode of 2025 we kind of talked a little bit of smack about Facebook at some point during it, and we, we got some push –
Matt: Me?
Lauren: You? Never. You would –
Matt: I would never, ever throw any shade on Mark Zuckerberg or anything that he has done.
Lauren: No, of course not. But we did get a comment from Karl, who replies to all of our YouTube episodes, so shout out to Karl.
Matt: We like Karl.
Lauren: Really appreciate – but he, he did push back on us talking smack about Facebook, and he said, I, you know, I have a lot of success on Facebook and it's still, and I think that's valid.
Matt: A hundred percent.
Lauren: I know a lot of creators, whether it's authors or otherwise, that do still see a lot of success on Facebook.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Whether we like it or not.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So I think that is unavoidable.
Matt: As far as genres go, Facebook is still one of the leading platforms, from a social media marketing standpoint, for mysteries and thrillers.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: Believe it or not.
Lauren: Again, it comes down to what your goals are, what your intention is with social media. The context that we were talking about it in that last episode was talking about community building and talking about how, unfortunately we are still in this void where there is no universally accepted replacement for Facebook groups or Facebook pages.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And if that is your goal, if you are attempting to grow community with your social media engagement, right now Facebook might still be your best option. So.
Matt: Ugh.
Lauren: I know. I know. But we have to, we have to eat crow when we're wrong about things. And that's, I think that's fair.
Matt: I don't. I don't think we were wrong. I just don't like –
Lauren: I know.
Matt: – Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook.
Lauren: I know.
Matt: I never said it wasn't effective. I just said it's garbage.
Lauren: Fair enough.
Matt: I think my exact words were everything Meta does is garbage.
Lauren: I think that, I think that is accurate. I think that is exactly what you said.
Matt: But it doesn't mean that garbage doesn't work for some people. I, I'm not gonna fall back on that one.
Lauren: Okay.
Matt: It's garbage. But it –
Lauren: Fair enough.
Matt: – it very clearly works for a lot of people. And I'm not saying don't try it. In fact we're saying the opposite right now. You should find, and we'll get to this too, but you should find the channel that works best for you.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: That's your primary channel. And then pick a secondary once you're comfortable. But you know, if it's Facebook, it's Facebook. Yeah don't, don't stray from that. I mean, if that's bringing in the book sales, if that's helping you build the community, then by all means –
Lauren: Right.
Matt: Yeah, lean on that garbage pile that Mark Zuckerberg built. Who cares? Especially who cares what I say? But yeah, I, I don't, I'm not saying it's ineffective for people. I just – it's garbage.
Lauren: Just explore it with intent, I think is the point.
Matt: I think –
Lauren: And if it works for you, great.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And if it doesn't work for you, move on.
Matt: I think the, actually what I had written, so my first one, point I wanted to make was, again, be honest with yourself, what's your goal for being on social media? The second thing I literally wrote out was like, understand where your readers are. And again, that's part of it, right? It may be Facebook. And so you just have to suck it up and deal with it.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: And, I hope that's not the case for me in my book, but whatever.
Lauren: Well, good luck with that.
Matt: Yeah, well.
Lauren: But.
Matt: We'll see.

[17:56] - Knowing How to Show Up on Social Media

Lauren: I do also think that it's, you know, as we're talking through this idea of discoverability and using these platforms as discoverability tools, I want to caution people against the idea of using these social media platforms as, I'm just gonna get up here and shill my book. Like, every single post that I make is going to be buy my book, buy my book. Because that's not what we're talking about. If like, selling more copies of your book is the goal, you're using these platforms to make people aware of you, aware of your brand, aware of the value that you can add, aware of the problems that you can help them solve, and the solutions that you can offer them, and the way they can do those things is by buying your book. But first you have to be able to convince them and show them who you are, what you can do for them, and why they should spend that money on your book.
Matt: That's right. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Well there's two, I think, guiding principles for how you show up on social media.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Right? So we just talked a little bit about discoverability and figuring out potentially which channel or channels you should be on. But the two key things, you know, around how you show up is one, you have to show up consistently. That's how most people are winning social media right now. Broaden the definition of social media out to include YouTube, Goodreads, it doesn't matter. The way you win is by showing up. Consistently. Consistently. Don't show up once a month to shill your book. Absolutely not. Don't show up once every two weeks, post a picture of your dog holding your book in its mouth thinking you're gonna do the cute thing, and then they don't see you again for two weeks.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: Don't show up once a week with a decent post, but then never respond to anybody, or never comment on anybody else's posts, or never like anybody else's posts. So, showing up consistently is number one. Number two is designing content, right? Creating content for social media that actually sells books. And that's different than just showing up to shill your book.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: So creating content that sells books means you are actively engaging with existing and new or potential new fans. If you just show up like Lauren said, and you just say, buy my book, buy my book, and then you disappear for a couple days, you come back, buy my book. You're not offering them any glimpse into you, your content, your world, why they should care. Even the most stark raving mad of your fans will get tired of that very quickly. They'll want more. And if you don't offer it, there are ten billion other social media creators out there, authors, it doesn't matter, that can capture their attention. So understanding that you need to create content that will help you sell books, but it has to be more than just buy my book. Sounds counterintuitive, or counterproductive, but it's not. So, there's a lot of different things that you could do –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – content-wise, right?
Lauren: Hootsuite put out a 2025 survey, one of the pieces of data they included in it was that roughly 60% of social content aims to entertain, educate, or inform without direct promotion. And that's the point. That's where you should be at with that, is that you should be trying to create content that adds value, that is going to lead people down the pipeline of…who is this person? Because again, we're all playing the algorithm game, right? We're all playing the game right now of even the people that I follow aren't showing up in my feeds anymore. Because they're just like, whatever platform I'm on, they're giving me –
Matt: No, they actually gave you a feature to toggle now. Like, do you wanna see content from people you're following or not? Like, duh, why would I wanna see…? That's how bad it's gotten.
Lauren: But then even then, like I'll go on the, the people that I'm following page, and I'll look for people that I'm following and not see their content. And then I'll go look at their profiles and they do have new content out and it wasn't on my people I'm following page.
Matt: Which, as a side note, is why you really need to make sure you tighten your profile and your bio up.
Lauren: Oh yeah, we'll get to that.
Matt: It used to be not such a big deal.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Because a lot of people didn't go to your profile, they'd just see you in their feed, right? Or in their Stories or Reels or wherever you're at. But now because of these issues, right? This fact that there's so much white noise out there on these channels, and in these algorithms, even in your following. You have to make sure your profile is, is tight. You have to make sure your bio is really well done. And, and I think we'll touch on that a little bit later, but if not, I know we talked about it in another episode and we'll put that in the notes. But –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – you really gotta make sure that bio and that profile looks good these days.
Lauren: Yeah. Just in case we don't get a chance to come back around to that, cause we do have so much to talk about, it was episode number 86, which I'll make sure we have linked in the show notes. It's on maximizing your first impression in the attention economy. One of the four key things that we talked about in that episode was social media, and specifically how to make sure that your profile and your bio and all that stuff, that you're using that real estate with intent and impact. We can't just play the game anymore of like, if I use a trending hashtag, my content will show up in the right people's feeds. It's just not the case anymore.
Matt: Katie Brinkley just did a really good episode on hashtags and whether or not they matter anymore, so.
Lauren: Really?
Matt: You should check that out, yeah. I think when you start to craft your content plan for social media, like the things that you're gonna post, which is important to have a content plan, or at least, you know, again, write out, what are the things that you're gonna be posting, the frequency. You're also not selling a single book. I only have one book, but I'm not selling a single book. I'm selling a relationship –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – with that expertise, right? So, I'm selling myself, to a degree. I'm selling my expertise, I'm selling the expertise found in that book. The same is for fiction. Like, you're not selling a single book, you're selling a relationship with that type of story. Your readers enjoy a certain type of story. You're selling the relationship with that story and the way that you write it and subsequent titles to come after that. So you're not there to just sell a single book, and you have to remember that. And that's why you need to create content in that fashion.
Lauren: Yes. And I think that's really important to remember. This is something that I was thinking a lot about with not just products, but just brands in general. I have my professional yapper sweatshirt that I love so much. I get compliments every time I wear it. That was a TikTok ad that I couldn't even tell you where – I couldn't even begin to guess the brand where it came from. It was a one, it was delivered to me while I was doomscrolling on TikTok. I liked it. I laughed. I bought it. I never thought about the brand ever again. If that's all you want to do, if all you wanna do is I, I wrote this one book, I published this one book, I don't really plan on doing anything else other than that. I just wanna sell as many copies of this book as I can.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Then yes, understand the ways to do that. Understand the ways to use something like TikTok Shop or just in general, any of the different like, social commerce plugins that you can use to do that. If your goal is to promote your brand, the end result is yes, you hope people buy more copies of your book, but you also want them to be a fan of you.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: So that when your next book comes out or your next product comes out, or your mastermind comes out or whatever it is. They're interested in that too. Then you have to make sure that the value that you're adding to social media, the way that you're showing up on social media is that. Like –
Matt: It's the selling of the relationship.

[25:20] - Using Your Content Strategically

Lauren: Yes. So doing things like getting your content in front of new people by commenting on relevant trends or posts or stitching, retweeting, sharing, remixing, whatever –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – the verbiage on –
Matt: Giving shout outs to other authors is a great way, you know –
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: – to work within the community, but also, yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: Or just like participating in the conversation. And that's where people start to say, oh, like, this person knows what they're talking about. This person has interesting value to contribute to this, or interesting insight to contribute to this. This person is recommending some really good books, or they recommended four books and I've read two with them and really liked those two, so I'm gonna like, trust their judgment on these other two books now.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And that's where you start like edging into the conversation. And get people like, more and more engaged with you that might not have known you before you were participating in these conversations.
Matt: Yeah. There's no shortage of lists of content you can create, but making sure you're creating content that, again, adds to the conversation. It brings some value one way or the other, whether it's entertainment or education or whatever that might be. And again, you're just sharing more things than just buy my book. So. Day in the life posts, behind the scenes stuff an occasional meme or something that's relevant to your niche or genre. Things like that. There's no shortage of content. There's no excuse to just show up and say, buy my book and leave.
Lauren: Right. But I think that it's also really important to remember while you're doing that, while you're building… we're assuming that we're past the discoverability stage now, people are building on their initial introduction to you, whatever it is. Make sure that, that the content that you're putting out there aligns with the whole intention behind your brand in the first place. If you are somebody who is creating like, serious educational content about how to grow your business and your Instagram is nothing but funny memes about going to Disney... Great. You might get like, a fun audience of people that really like going to Disney and really like your memes about going to Disney. But how does that help support your brand?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Like, what do those people that like your Disney memes have to do with taking a serious deep dive into growing your business? Are they gonna
buy your business how to book? Probably not. Maybe you'll get one or two of them, but like, the audience that you built with the content that you shared does not align with the goals for your brand. Make sure that as you're like, deciding what your content strategy is and stuff like that, that it does serve the purpose of attracting the intended audience. I'm not saying don't share memes. I'm just saying maybe...
Matt: No, I, I, yeah, I agree. I'm sorry. I was just thinking I was processing that last little bit.
Lauren: You were just thinking about Disney memes.
Matt: I was – yeah, you got me on the sidetrack here. I'm still actually debating annual season pass or not.
Lauren: I think you should.
Matt: Yeah. And I keep going back and forth on it. I, I just, my travel schedule, I'm just worried that I'll... but I feel like that's why I need to buy one.
Lauren: I know.
Matt: Because it will make me go more in 2026. It will make me take some more time off and... Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, we can't talk about this. You – you're just gonna get me sidetracked.
Lauren: I know. This is how I derail every time. I'm so sorry. If only I had my own platform that I could talk about Disney on.
Matt: Well, anyways. I think that's important though because regardless of which channel you look at, which data you look at, which metrics, who says what, these days social media is basically where people are going to get trusted information from.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: I hate to say that. I wish it wasn't true. But it doesn't mean there's not trusted individuals and organizations and data sets to be found on social media. Regardless of how you feel about that statement, that's what's happening. Doing the things that you just said, keeping things somewhat relevant to your content, making sure that if you're there to establish authority or credibility that you're doing that. That you're showing up, like we said, consistently with those things. There's a study that Deloitte did, 83% of consumers said they see influencers or creators they follow as trusted sources of information. Again, scary statement, but nonetheless, it's a reflection of the world that we live in right now. So if you can put yourself in a position where you are providing value, where you do seem to know what you're talking about, where you are bringing to the social media table, so to speak, valuable information that is relevant to what you do. I saw this really cool quote the other day, from a tattoo artist, by the way. If you don't bring anything to the table, don't expect to eat.
Lauren: Ooh.
Matt: Right? Like, super cool. But, just a great way of saying don't show up to social media and just think you're just gonna create a profile and again, randomly post things and then, you know, walk away with a ton of benefit. You have to show up every day and you, you know, you have to bring stuff to that table. So, when you see a number, like 83% of consumers say that influencers or creators are their trusted source of information. That should tell you something. Move on that. Go out there. Become one of those that the 83% are going to for their information.
Lauren: We've talked about this in other episodes. I actually think that the quote from the beginning of this episode of me saying Matt said, virality is not stability. I believe the episode that that came from was one that we did on repurposing your book content for social media. Which I think is an important part of all of this, to keep in mind with all of this, if you're trying to approach this and going like, I don't wanna think of myself as an influencer. I wanna think of myself as an authority in my, in my niche, or I wanna prove that I am an expert in my particular industry.
Matt: Good.
Lauren: Yes. That's the point. Social media is one of the ways that you are delivering proof of that expertise. If Matt and I are talking about, like, I think we're gonna try, we're both gonna try to go to Disney more in 2026. Like, this is something that we're both gonna do. I always am trying to look for new experiences when I go to Disney. I wanna do one new thing every time, eat at a different restaurant, do whatever. There's a new restaurant that I wanna try and I'm Googling like, is this place any good? And I see three results come up, and two of them are Yelp and Google reviews from angry people that had never been to Disney before. And they're, they're, they're giving it a thumbs down. And I'm like, eh, I don't know if I'm gonna take that. But if the third result is a quote from Lou Mongello talking about his feedback on that. Yeah, I'm gonna take that. Because –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And it's not just because Lou's a friend, I'm gonna trust his advice on this. Lou is an authority that has proved his –
Matt: Credibility, yeah.
Lauren: – expertise and credibility, and that's enough for me to go oh, cool, great, okay. Like, that's a trusted person. And that is something if you're trying to build that trust and authority, you wanna do whatever you can to have that content delivered in places. And social media is one of the ways that you have that proof of concept. Proof of authority. Proof of expertise, delivered to new and existing fans and audiences.
Matt: Yeah. We gotta get off the Disney topic.
Lauren: I'm so sorry. I keep, that's bad.
Matt: My brain just keeps going off in other directions. It's not –
Lauren: You're right.
Matt: It's not helping me. But it's a great way to wrap up the idea of using social media, one of the goals being, you know, to create that authority, establish some credibility in a particular area, have that brand awareness and brand building happening in real time on social media. Like that is a thing. It does work.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: And there, there are many long tail benefits of that too. Which, you know, again, will help you in various organic search efforts, whether it's a Google search or a ChatGPT search or any of those other things. So, great way to establish authority, build brand awareness –
Lauren: Generate social proof.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren: And not just social proof in the sense of testimonials, reviews, influencer feedback or anything like that, but just to prove that you are somebody who is actively engaged in the community and industry in which you are trying to prove your value in.

[33:26] - Using Social Media to Build Community

Matt: Yeah. Let's talk about community. Connecting with your readers, your customers, your buyers, your followers, however you choose to describe and identify. Community is the obvious term that always comes up when people talk about social media. Community itself, also like social media, can have a very broad definition. Or a very narrow one, I don't necessarily want to get into that, but what we will start off with is, again, Deloitte did another survey where they found that 73% of consumers expect brands to respond to them on social media.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Which I always have an internal conflict with, right? Like, as somebody at a brand, I hate the idea that we kind of have to monitor social media and respond to certain things. Because honestly, and quite frankly, most of the time, what we find in general, not just with us, but what I see out there is when people are out there on social media talking to a brand, it's usually in the negative. Right? And it's very purposely done to highlight something that they consider to be a negative experience and to draw as many eyes on it. And I know that it has its benefits to do that. Because sometimes some brands just, if you follow all official channels, don't respond to you, or don't have a really good support system or structure in place, and it can be very frustrating. So I get it. But then there's a lot of other brands who have a great support structure in place. And people's first instinct these days is to just go, oh, they have a Twitter account? Great. I'm going right on Twitter. I'm gonna fully blast this, you know, blah, blah, blah. Without even first acknowledging that, okay, this could be a very simple problem. There's probably a support workflow in place. Let me go to their website first, or let me check my order email, or... you know? It's become like this default way that people – so I see both sides of it. I get it. But the data's there. 73% of people expect brands to respond to them on social media. They're gonna expect the same thing of a non-branded entity. Right? So understand that when you start to build this social media, you know, plan, people are going to expect, to a degree, responses. And you need to be very clear about how you as an individual are going to or not going to address those things. But nonetheless it's there. And so that's the foundation, I think, of community. I think it's oftentimes misdiagnosed. It's, in many cases more of like, just support, but the two run hand in hand. And I think it's important to talk about those two things.
Lauren: Well, I think there's also the element in that that is, a subconscious like proof of authenticity. Which is something else that we haven't really talked about in this episode, but absolutely should, when it comes to social media, is showing up authentically. This is your opportunity to prove that you are somebody who actually has a personal vested interest in your brand. You believe in your brand, your brand values, whatever it is. And you know, we've talked about, we did an episode, um, fall of last year. We talked about customer service and how to provide customer service. And in that episode we did talk about, kind of discouraging solopreneurs and small business owners from providing customer support on social media. And I stand by that. A lot of the, the surveys that these, like big companies are putting out, they're talking about major brands that have an in-house support team, that have software and tools that they can use to integrate with their social channels. If you're like a one person team trying to do all this, it can be difficult to provide customer support on social. And I would still encourage you to respond to people and say, hey, please email me or, or fill out this form here, and I'd be happy to help you, just so that you can streamline that. I stand by that recommendation. But even just the action of responding to people publicly.
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: And saying, hey I'd be really happy to help you with that, just reach out to me here. Or if it's a really quick one-off question. Hey, does this come in black? Does this come in, in paperback or is it only in hardcover? Whatever. If you can answer those one-off questions, when people are looking at your profiles later and they're looking at your content later, they see you are somebody who is engaged. You are somebody who is gonna respond to people. You are somebody who is putting intent and care into their things. Even if it's not customer support. The Lost Bros dropped a t-shirt today that I really liked. After I purchased the t-shirt, I went on their Instagram and commented on their post about the t-shirt that they dropped today. They responded to me so fast that I didn't even have time to close Instagram before I'd gotten a response to that comment. It wasn't a support question, it wasn't a, it was just a me being like, love this t-shirt, and they responded to it and I was like, hmm. That was nice. Like, you know, that, that was like one point, one point brand loyalty.
Matt: I would not wanna be within a twenty foot radius of you when Lost Bros responds to one of your comments.
Lauren: Oh, relax.
Matt: Or even recognizes the fact that you exist.
Lauren: Please.
Matt: Please. Your aura must have lit up like the redness that surrounds the Upside Down when you're first peeling back the layers to crawl into that thing.
Lauren: Oh God. What a combination of visuals happening right now.
Matt: Yeah, well. Let's move on.
Lauren: Yeah. Okay. I think that's where there's, there's a lot of value in, to Matt's point, community building, but not necessarily community building in the way that we think of like a formal, gated community, or like formal community space, something like that. You are just building customer connection. Also, this is your really valuable opportunity to build subconscious connection with customers in terms of things like, this is where you prove what your brand values are, what you stand for. Are you promoting the fact that you publish a book with a certified B Corp, so you believe in sustainability efforts?
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: What matters to you, what doesn't? People are absolutely shopping with intent. There was a stat somewhere in here, I'm sorry, I don't remember where it is at this point. And it was something like 62% of consumers prefer to shop from brands that align with their values. In 2025, or as of 2025. And that continues to be the case. And maybe it does not align with your content strategy for you to post like big, bold statements about what your values are. But the way that you, like, come to the table on social media will highlight those values anyway. And your customers will see that in the ways that you interact with them, respond to them, the content you're sharing, posting, things like that.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

[40:02] - Common Mistakes to Avoid with Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Matt: Okay. We're running short on time, as we knew we would.
Lauren: That's okay.
Matt: So we're gonna move into the last little bit about common mistakes people make or, or where they go wrong with social media, things not to do, whatever. I separately had written, you know, a list of things, common mistakes that I find and things that we've talked about and just, you know, some of the other stuff I saw out there. And I think they pretty much align with what you've got too. I had roughly five things that I think are common mistakes, and I've actually made some of these too. So, you know, there's a little bit of personal there as well. But the, the, the number one thing is trying to be everywhere at once. Right? Number two, again, only posting buy my book and that's it. Number three, we didn't talk about this, but this is a very prevalent problem and that is purchasing followers. So a lot of people in their desire and quest to build up this follower count because they feel like that's a metric that signals to everybody else that they are somebody of importance or that you - people aren't stupid these days. It's very obvious when you buy followers. Organic growth cannot be beat. And the reason why is you might buy 10,000 followers. Great. Congratulations on wasting money on 10,000 bots that will never, ever purchase a single book from you. But had you just organically, slowly taken your time, done a lot of the things we're talking about, you would've built up a follower list of, I don't know, let's say 500. But if even half of them bought a book from you, you're still in a much stronger boat. When it comes to selling books and building a long tail audience. So, yeah, we didn't talk about it, but number three is, is purchasing followers. And, and a lot of people do this and you shouldn't, it's just not worth it. And I know it's cheap these days. You can get 10,000 followers for like fifty bucks, but it's not worth it. It really isn't. And people see through it and it just makes you look bad. Number four, again, ignoring your reader's demographics. So when we talk about understanding where are people within your genre or age group or however you're sort of slicing and dicing your audiences, where are they hanging out? Understand where that is. Don't ignore those demographics because that's really, if you show up to Facebook, but you're posting content on Facebook, that really needs to be over on, you know, Instagram or TikTok, you're gonna be wasting a lot of time. And then lastly, again, we didn't talk about this yet, but social media is a marketing tool. Give it the appropriate amount of time. But don't let it eat into your writing time or your creativity time. So make sure that you're not over-posting. Make sure you're not spending too much time on these things. If you find yourself spending too much time and neglecting your writing, there are a couple things wrong. One of which is you're not creating the right content on social media. Cause if you feel the need to over-create, then that must mean what you're creating is not resonating and you're feeling like you have to overcompensate. So you need to look at that. The other thing going wrong is that…the obvious, you're not writing, you're not creating more books. So those are kind of the five things I put. Many of them overlap what you have so we can run back through a couple of the ones where we have overlap.
Lauren: I think some of them overlap too in multiple ways. You know, Matt said – your first one was, trying to be everywhere at once. And then one of the other ones was also like, not knowing your, your audience demographics –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – and being in the wrong place.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Those are pretty much overlapping in the sense of like, if you, if you're trying to be everywhere at once and you don't know where your audience is, you're not gonna have the time or effort to dedicate any real time to where your audience actually is.
Matt: It's a chicken in the egg problem too though, right?
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Because you can, you can start off like, not understanding your reader audience demographics, and that's going to drive you to be everywhere.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: When you shouldn't be. Or you can just jump into social media and say, I'm gonna do all these channels. And you're not gonna come away with a solid understanding of where your audience is.
Lauren: Right? Right. So, you know.
Matt: Either way it sucks.
Lauren: Do whatever you have to do. Whether it's test it out, whether it's make your best educated guess, whether it's start on one platform and, you know, grow it over time and then add another one and add another one and add another one. Whatever it is. Again, for like the umpteenth time this episode, approach it with intent. Have a strategy, have a plan, approach this with intent. Paul and I talked about this in the episode that we did on content strategy. Where we talked about the difference between a channel, like a blog or a podcast that is your primary content channel, and then something like social media is your delivery channel. Which is to come back to Matt's point about if you're spending all your time creating social content…then you're not writing, you're not creating new projects, you're not creating new products, you're not growing your brand, you're not working on your business. That's the difference between building on rented land and building on owned land. You're using your social media as a content delivery platform to get people interested in your content that you're creating. And then they're coming to those content channels from social media. And that's one of the big mistakes we see people make where they're not doing that. They're not using their social as a delivery tool, but instead using it as a, like i'm just engaging on here.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: And then, what was your second one? I'm sorry.
Matt: My second one was only posting buy my book.
Lauren: Right.
Matt: So again, making sure, making sure that that's not the only reason why you're showing up. So you're showing up to talk about other things. All those things we talked about that you can, you can post whether it's behind the scenes things, whether it's cover reveals, whether it's giving a shout out to another author or an event, or – there's so many things you could be posting about. But having a plan, even if you have to write it out in a little notebook, like week by week, like Tuesday, I'm gonna post this. Wednesday, I'm gonna post this. Thursday I'm gonna post.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Like, you need to have a plan. You can't just show up and say, buy my book.
Lauren: Yeah. And I think that combined with the buying followers thing can be summarized in people make the mistake of not showing up authentically. People are so focused on –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: I gotta get those numbers up. I got to get this content out there. I got people, I need people to buy my book. I want it, I want it to look like I have a bunch of followers and they're all buying my books. Like, that's not showing up authentically. That is not providing value, that is not proving who you are as a brand, and it's more likely going to blow up in your face than it is to actually like, serve the purpose that you're hoping that it's going to.
Matt: Yeah I mean, the goal is to become an author who sells books –
Lauren: Right.
Matt: – and makes money from the writing. In the very rare instance where your goal is to just look like a successful author, then you shouldn't be doing those things like buying followers and just showing up to shill your book.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. It seems like it's, it should be an easy one, but you'd be surprised how many people get it wrong. And not always out of any sort of malicious or nefarious intent or anything like that. I mean, sometimes you just, you don't have a good content plan and you just show up and you're like, oh. You're looking at that cursor blinking, you know, and, and you're trying to come up with a good Instagram post or TikTok post, and the first thing that comes outta your head is buy my book.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: You know? It can't be.
Lauren: My last one was not one that Matt said actually. And that was failing to adapt. And failing to, to stay agile with your content strategy. And also just understanding changing trends –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – changing priorities on the different social channels. And I think that can even be, those two things can be related. If you are still –
Matt: It's also a full time job.
Lauren: I mean, absolutely. Of course it is. Trust.
Matt: Just kidding. Don't get scared.
Lauren: It can be, if you're trying to do too much at once. If you're still operating on these outdated methods or recommendations or trends.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Your content is going to suffer from it. Your discoverability is gonna suffer from it. Like you're not going to be, it doesn't matter how much work you put into it, if you're not understanding what is currently working on these platforms, if you're still relying on outdated ideas and information and strategies.
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: You're gonna run yourself into the ground.
Matt: This is another reason why author events, publishing events, even marketing events are a great thing to invest in if you have the opportunity. Because, you know, many of them you'll have, or find sessions in most cases, where they're being facilitated by an author who has had some success. Whether it's with social media or email list building or whatever that might be. But they typically have done the work or worked with somebody to know what the most current... regulations, guidelines, algorithm changes, all those things. So being able to get yourself to an event, you know, a couple of times a year, where there's gonna be some good information around these things is extremely helpful. Finding a few people to follow, sign up for their newsletters where they're not authors, or they're not just authors, like their expertise is social media or one particular channel. You have to kind of broaden the way that you ingest information and what information you ingest. You can't just live in this little author ecosystem. You, you have to understand the mechanics of certain things like social media or some of these others.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.

[49:32] - Episode Wrap Up

Lauren: Oh man, this outline just keeps going.
Matt: Yeah. But you know, I think we've, we've covered a pretty good amount of it. I think there's some, some basic things to try and wrap this up and summarize a little bit. You know, again, number one, just be honest with yourself. Why are you there? It can't be because I need to be on social media. But why? Just remember me in the back of your mind going, but why?
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: Pick a goal and write it down. Because I wanna sell more books. Because I wanna build my email list. Because I want people to know what my brand is or what it stands for. Because, you know, I want to have people see me as the authority on. Whatever that is. The benefits of, I don't know, buying an annual Disney pass and combining it with a DVC membership, you know – oh, that's a terrible idea for me, but.
Lauren: Yeah, don't, don't even, don't
Matt: Be honest with what you want from social media. Pick a goal.
Lauren: Yes.
Matt: Write it down. Have that be something that you're looking at or that's in the back of your head every time you're creating content. Don't stray from that. You know what I mean? Again, the second thing was know where your readers are. Figure that out. If you don't know that already, figure that out. Chances are, you probably write in the genre that you also enjoy reading. So you already kind of have an idea of where a lot of the other authors in your genre are in terms of social media and where those readers and fans are. But don't ignore that. If it happens to be a channel you're not fond of. Oh, well. Figure it out. I hate Facebook, but if it turns out that the majority of the people that are looking for the content that I create is on Facebook, then I'm just gonna have to suck it up.
Lauren: Yep.
Matt: And get on Facebook and, you know, start funding another gold chain for Mark Zuckerberg, another toilet for his yacht. I don't know. But that's just the way it is, right?
Lauren: Another yacht.
Matt: Right?
Lauren: Yeah, I know, I know.
Matt: That's what, that's what this guy does.
Lauren: I know, I know.
Matt: He's king d-bag. Like, I don't know. Can I say that on here?
Lauren: You didn't say the whole thing.
Matt: D-bag?
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: Oh, okay.
Lauren: Yeah. So you're good.
Matt: Yeah. Well, anyways. Designing content that actually sells books that is not buy my book. Like you need to build a presence there. So make sure you're doing that right. What are some of the other highlights that we talked about?
Lauren: I think understanding the, the opportunity for customer connection –
Matt: Community, yeah.
Lauren: – with social media. Community in the informal sense. Support, also in the informal sense. The unspoken kind of opportunities to show what your values are as a creator, as a brand, as an author, whatever it is. This is the way that people get to know you until they buy into you. Like social media is the primary way for people that don't already know you, to get introduced to you and learn a little bit about you, enough for them to say, okay, I will sign up for their email. I will sign up for one of their online courses. And then you'll get a more personal experience with them. But until then, this is your opportunity to really introduce yourself to them and let them know who you are, what your brand is.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: Which is why you have to make sure that you're, you're doing the things like showing up authentically, showing up accurately and with intent. That you're not trying to just game the system and be everywhere at once. And that you are ultimately remembering that the goal of all of this is to find new people and bring them to your owned real estate. So.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: This is a tool, not an end all be all. I do think it's really important to acknowledge that not only does it vary so much from platform to platform.
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: But it also varies so much depending on what your content is. The content strategy that I would recommend to a fiction author posting on TikTok versus the content strategy that I would recommend for a personal growth coach working on one-on-one client relationships and publishing workbooks –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: – on Instagram. Those are two completely different content strategies. And so it, it's not really possible for us to do an in, in-depth episode into the how, the intricacies of the hows and whys, I do think that if you have questions about that, if there are, like if there is interest in specific channels or specific genres, maybe we could do some deep dives into that, but let us know. If there's anything that you're really dying to know. Like –
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: I would love to know more about specifically TikTok, or specifically this, or whatever.
Matt: Yeah.
Lauren: But yeah, let us know. Leave us a comment. You can leave us comments on YouTube.
Matt: Leave us a review.
Lauren: You can leave us reviews, you can comment on Lulu's social media.
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: Because we do have that.
Matt: Yep. And we do respond.
Lauren: Come give us, give us the engagement, and we do respond.
Matt: Yep.
Lauren: You can always email us podcast@lulu.com.
Matt: Yeah. So thank you everybody.
Lauren: Yeah.
Matt: If you listened this far. Lauren already went down all the ways you can contact us. But again, like, subscribe, give us a review. We'd love it. And we'll see you next week.
Lauren: Yeah. Thanks for listening
Matt: Later.