Finishing a book is quite an accomplishment. Once you’ve published your masterpiece, it’s time to start marketing! Fortunately, you can successfully market your book on social media platforms like LinkedIn even if you’re not a professional marketer. And because there are plenty of free marketing methods, you can start at a very low cost and allocate a marketing budget if you choose.

Free LinkedIn marketing options for your book

You might’ve noticed that self-publishing costs can add up quickly—including book promotion expenses. However, LinkedIn offers some free marketing options that you can take advantage of. LinkedIn provides helpful support for both business and individuals hoping to market their products and services—you just have to know where to look.

How does LinkedIn support marketing?

As a social media platform built mainly for professionals and businesspeople, LinkedIn is a fantastic venue for marketing. Many companies use tools like a customized LinkedIn company page or targeted ads that cater to their followers. They can even create a full LinkedIn campaign as part of their overall content marketing strategy.

In addition to corporate marketing, LinkedIn is a great book promotion venue! You can create posts about your book, join groups to discuss your work, and track your success. When you effectively market your book on LinkedIn, you can start getting ready for some serious book sales.

How does marketing a book work on LinkedIn?

Marketing your book on LinkedIn requires some work to get started. However, since it’s a user-friendly system, you’ll be on your way to book sales in no time. Here are a few elements to include in your LinkedIn strategy for book promotion:

• Update your LinkedIn profile to include all your published books and create a custom URL for your LinkedIn page.
• Write at least one LinkedIn post per week about your book to stay in front of your followers.
• Include four or five relevant hashtags in each LinkedIn post to attract your target audience.
• Link your other social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter to your LinkedIn profile so your followers can find you across multiple platforms.

You can spend money marketing your book on LinkedIn if you’d like. However, there are some free options that you might want to check out before you create a marketing budget.

What sort of free LinkedIn marketing options can you use to promote your book?

LinkedIn has plenty of free book marketing tools—especially if you’re willing to spend some time and energy on it!

One of the best ways to market your book for free is to create a great LinkedIn profile. Include a nice picture of yourself—never use a stock image or an avatar. Add all your publications, links to your other social media platforms, and a link to your author page. The easier you make it for your target audience to contact you, the better chance you’ll have of earning book sales through LinkedIn.

Another helpful free LinkedIn marketing strategy is to join a few groups. Each LinkedIn group is a lead generation opportunity. Your posts should create buzz about your book and help the other group members get to know you as both an author and a person. These are the first couple of steps toward effective LinkedIn marketing.

Effectiveness of paid book marketing on LinkedIn

Authors hoping to make money from their books sometimes have to allocate money to paid book promotion. Although digital marketing might sound expensive, you can easily and effectively control your costs if you do your research and keep a close eye on your overall spend. Just get to know your options!

What sort of paid marketing options does LinkedIn offer for books?

There are a couple of paid marketing options that LinkedIn offers for books. The first is sponsored content, which is sometimes referred to as native ads. In this type of paid media, you basically purchase advertising space on your target audience’s LinkedIn feed.

Sponsored content is available in a few different formats, including a single image or a carousel that rotates a few different images. You might include your book cover, your author picture, or some illustrations. Make sure they’re eye-catching so your followers click on your ad instead of just scrolling right past it!

In addition to native ads, you can create an entire LinkedIn campaign to market your book. This process will include a few steps:

• Set your budget. Many ads are “pay per click,” which basically means you’ll be charged a fee every time someone clicks on your ad. You can set a daily budget so you don’t spend more than you want to.
• Identify your target audience. To maximize your marketing dollars, choose the demographic that you want to see your ads the most. Narrowing your audience increases your odds of earning a book sale.
• Schedule your campaign. Instead of logging into the social platform every day, you can schedule your LinkedIn campaign to run on particular days of the week. Think of it as putting your campaign on autopilot!

Book marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don’t see results immediately, it doesn’t mean your LinkedIn campaign isn’t successful. You just have to be patient and sometimes make small adjustments to your campaign to ensure that it’s effective.

How can you track the effectiveness of LinkedIn’s paid marketing options?

To ensure the effectiveness of your paid ads on LinkedIn, you’ll need to track a few different metrics. The first is impressions, or how many people your ad reaches. Even if people scroll past your ad, it counts as an impression.

The second paid social media advertisement metric to track is engagement, which is how many people interact with your ad. To calculate this, divide your total engagements by your total impressions. You want your engagement rate to be between three and five percent.

A third metric is cost per click, or CPC. This basically tells you how much money you’re spending to attract each potential customer. CPC helps you keep track of your return on investment (ROI). If an ad isn’t earning ROI, you might want to change it up so you earn money back on your marketing investment. The higher your ROI, the higher your book sales!

What else should you know about LinkedIn’s paid marketing options?

If you invest in paid media on LinkedIn to promote your book, keep in mind that you can’t actually sell books directly through LinkedIn. Digital marketing on social media is great for lead generation and letting your target audience know that you have a new book. However, you’ll have to include links to wherever your potential readers can buy your book.

For example, your LinkedIn profile and posts should include links to Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and any other websites where people can make the purchase. If you’re also selling print books at a local bookstore, include links there too! In other words, you can use social media to generate leads instead of earning actual book sales.

What to do with LinkedIn leads generated by marketing your book

Lead generation is one of the biggest goals of every marketing campaign. This is also true in your book promotion strategy! Leads are potential sales that haven’t happened yet. Once you start earning leads, you’ll need to put in some work to turn them into book sales.

What are LinkedIn leads?

In all marketing—including indie book marketing—you might think that a “lead” is anyone that could potentially be interested in purchasing your work. However, LinkedIn leads go through more of a vetting process.

When you cater your LinkedIn ads to your particular target audience, the leads that you earn though this social media platform will likely be legitimate. LinkedIn can help you generate targeted leads so you’re not wasting advertising money.

How does LinkedIn generate leads created by marketing your book?

As a social media platform, LinkedIn is a great venue for discussion. That means that every content marketing effort can start a conversation. LinkedIn can generate leads for you as long as you dedicate some time and energy to talking about your book.

Use LinkedIn to create buzz and excitement about your book. Post your book cover design or some teasers about your book. Make people excited to read it. The more effective your marketing efforts, the more leads LinkedIn will generate!

What can you do with LinkedIn leads?

Once your LinkedIn marketing efforts produce lead generation, you’ll have to follow up with your potential customers to guide them to actually purchase your book. You basically have to nurture these leads to earn a book sale.

Fortunately, LinkedIn makes it easy to communicate with your followers—including the ones who are interested in buying your book. You might send a message to a book sale lead through LinkedIn’s platform to see if the person would like to know more. You can also gather data about your sales leads, find similarities, and cater your next LinkedIn post or article to what they want to read. You can also feature your book on LinkedIn for a marketing boost!

Featuring your book on your LinkedIn profile for marketing purposes

As your online presence grows, your marketing job gets a little easier. Your followers will increase and you’ll reach a larger audience. People begin to recognize your name—and your book’s title! If you need a little help, you can also feature your book on LinkedIn.

What is the difference between featuring a book and featuring a book for marketing purposes?

Anyone can feature their book. However, when you feature your book for marketing purposes, you’re really homing in on a potential reader. The whole point of marketing is lead generation and sales. When you pay to feature your book on your profile for marketing services, your audience sees that you’re serious about your writing career. This legitimizes you as an authority on your book’s topic, which can lead to even more book sales.

How do you feature your book for marketing purposes on LinkedIn?

One of the best ways to feature your book for marketing purposes on LinkedIn is to add a publication to your LinkedIn profile. This isn’t just a free marketing tactic—it’s quite easy to do! Here are the steps to follow:

• Log into your LinkedIn page.
• Click on “Add profile section.”
• Click on “Add publication.”
• Fill out the online form and click “Save.”

Additionally, you can create a featured post about your book on LinkedIn. Featured posts highlight what the account holder is most proud of. And you should certainly be proud of your book! To add a featured post from your LinkedIn page, just click on “Add profile section,” then “Recommended.” You’ll see an option to “Add featured.” Click on that link and follow the prompts to create a featured post!

What else should you know about featuring your book on LinkedIn?

Remember: the more successfully you market your book, the more attention and book sales you’ll earn. However, one thing to keep in mind is that your job as an author promoting your book doesn’t end with featuring your work or buying some paid ads. You’ll also have to post at least once per week and respond to any incoming messages or interactions with your posts.

In other words, get seen on LinkedIn to earn book sales!

Get seen on LinkedIn—and earn more book sales!

When used correctly, LinkedIn is a fantastic marketing tool for indie authors hoping to sell books. It’s easy to use and cost efficient, and it allows you to reach a huge portion of your target audience.

If you’re not sure how to effectively use LinkedIn for your book promotion, don’t worry! Elite Authors is here to help. We won’t just increase your book sales—we’ll show you how to do it so you have the knowledge moving forward. Visit our website to learn more!

The post Marketing a Book on LinkedIn appeared first on Elite Authors.

You’re probably aware that most of the world checks their social media platforms frequently. Because social media attracts so many users, many authors use these platforms as part of their book marketing strategy.

What you might not be aware of is that social media marketing goes beyond Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is also an extremely valuable resource for authors to earn book sales. If you set up your LinkedIn profile and page the right way, you can successfully market your book to your target audience as well as publishing professionals.

Tips for book promotion posts on LinkedIn

Social media is one of the greatest book marketing resources available to indie authors and freelance writers. And since most people on LinkedIn are professionals and businesspeople, this platform is a wonderful source for connections. In addition to promoting your book on LinkedIn, you may also find work as a freelance writer.

How do freelance writers use LinkedIn?

Just like an indie author can promote their book on LinkedIn, freelance writers also use this platform to seek out clients. The first step is to include a title like “Freelance Writer” on your LinkedIn profile. Then, include links to your author website, some writing samples, and even your résumé.

If you want to invest in your LinkedIn marketing strategy, you can pay to boost a LinkedIn post or purchase a LinkedIn ad. Both of these methods will put you in front of a larger pool of people, and you can customize the settings to really home in on your target audience.

In addition to LinkedIn, freelance writers should also post on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter—and link the accounts together! Make it easy for your target audience to find you. You can also attract potential publishers or freelance writing clients by earning LinkedIn badges that support your skills.

What are LinkedIn badges?

Badges on LinkedIn are icons on your LinkedIn profile showing that you have certain skills or certifications. You can earn badges by taking assessments and tests through LinkedIn. When prospective clients view your profile, badges help them easily see your talents and skills.

For example, as a writer, you’re likely proficient in Microsoft Word. You can take a skill test on LinkedIn and earn a badge that shows people viewing your profile that you have proven your proficiency. This gives your target audience peace of mind knowing that your skills have been vetted.

As people scroll through your LinkedIn profile, your badges and publications will catch their eye. It’s a built-in way to promote your writing skills and your published books!

What are some tips for book promotion posts on LinkedIn?

Marketing on LinkedIn isn’t as simple as just setting up your profile and hoping for the best. It takes some work! Here are a few tips to promote your book on this social media platform:

• Include links to your other social media pages like Facebook and Twitter in your LinkedIn profile.
• Establish and maintain your LinkedIn presence by posting consistently.
• Use relevant hashtags so your target audience can easily find you.
• Join a LinkedIn group or two to help expand your network.
• Consider purchasing a LinkedIn ad to increase your visibility.

Get creative with your LinkedIn marketing strategy! Link to a blog post you’ve written, share an inspirational post that another LinkedIn user created, or advertise your freelance writing services. You can even use a full company page instead of your individual profile to promote your book.

Using a company page to promote a book on LinkedIn

You already know that you can use your LinkedIn profile to promote your book. However, did you also know that you can set up a company page as part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy? Many organizations prefer to follow and partner with other businesses rather than individuals. When you set up a business page, you’re casting an even wider net for your blog and book promotion.

How do you effectively use LinkedIn to promote your book and blog?

All successful digital marketing takes time and creativity. Once you’ve set up your individual LinkedIn profile and your business page, it’s time to have some fun! Here are some examples of other ways to promote your book and blog on LinkedIn:

• Ad a publication to your LinkedIn profile so your followers can easily find every book and blog post you’ve written.
• Include the link to a recent blog post you published and invite people to comment. You can even ask your followers what they might like your next blog post to be about!
• If you’re an indie author who has recently self-published a book, post your book cover design or some teasers about your manuscript.
• Write a LinkedIn article and post it on every LinkedIn group you’ve joined.

The more time and energy you put into promoting your book or blog, the more successful you’ll be. You can even target specific groups with your posts. Because writers can easily reach people interested in reading their work, LinkedIn has become a fantastic tool for authors.

What is the purpose of LinkedIn for authors?

Many authors use LinkedIn as part of their overall marketing strategy. Build your profile to establish and maintain your author brand and advertise your publications. Include links to wherever your books are sold and connect with publishing industry professionals. You might even find a literary agent to help increase your author brand!

How can you use a company page to promote a book on LinkedIn?

A company page legitimizes your professionalism. Instead of just being a person plugging their book or blog post, your business page shows your audience that you’re serious about your writing career.

Business profiles have different amenities than personal profiles on LinkedIn. So having a company profile can help you unlock additional resources and connect with more organizations throughout LinkedIn. When you create a company page and join a few LinkedIn author groups, you’re really starting to maximize your LinkedIn presence.

LinkedIn author groups where you can promote your book

As a social media platform, LinkedIn helps you connect with your target audience, other authors or aspiring writers, and many types of publishing professionals. One of the best ways to find these people is to join LinkedIn groups. These groups give you access to writers and professionals in the book industry so you can learn how to promote your book.

Why should you promote how your book helps people solve problems?

Many people read for pleasure. However, countless readers also read to find advice on solving their problems! Maybe you’ve written a self-help book on time management or a children’s book that helps parents and kids deal with a certain issue. Whatever your topic, you should consistently post on how your writing will make your reader’s life better.

You don’t necessarily have to write an inspiring manuscript to help people solve their problems. Nonfiction novels can accomplish this too! Maybe your target audience just wants to lose themselves in a beautifully written story or learn about a historical event. Regardless of your book’s topic or purpose, you can find your readers on social media.

Why promote your book on social media?

Social media marketing is a fantastic book promotion tool for indie authors. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are generally free unless you want to pay for advertisements. Plus, they let you connect with people all around the world who might be interested in reading your book!

In other words, social media marketing helps you attract your target audience, which can increase your book sales. You can further widen your connections by joining LinkedIn author groups that allow you to promote your book.

What are some LinkedIn author groups where you can promote your book?

LinkedIn is a goldmine for both published authors and aspiring writers. There are countless author groups where you can meet helpful people in the book industry—and promote your book! Here are a few group characteristics that you can look for:

• Geographic location. Do you prefer to connect with people locally, or do you want to branch out into international author groups?
• Genre. Some groups focus on certain genres, so join a few groups that discuss topics that you like to write about.
• Experience. Don’t just join a LinkedIn group for one experience level. You’ll be amazed what you can learn from experienced authors—as well as new ones!

Joining author groups is a great way to connect with a wider span of people, publishing industry professionals, and more potential readers. The more groups you join, the more you’ll be able to maximize your author presence!

How to maximize your author presence on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a wonderful resource for authors. You can join groups and read articles to learn about everything from how to self-publish to how to boost your Kindle book marketing. Connect with other authors and a wide variety of book industry professionals. This social media platform can also help you improve your personal brand and network.

How can LinkedIn improve your personal brand or network?

You’re already aware that creating a strong LinkedIn presence will increase your visibility to your target audience and publishing industry professionals. In addition to improving and expanding your network, you can also use LinkedIn to improve your personal brand.

Just like a business might use its company page to build its brand, you can do the same for your personal or author brand. Every time you create a LinkedIn post, you give yourself an opportunity to share your voice and help your target audience get to know you. Additionally, you can answer questions from your LinkedIn groups, endorse your connections, and share other LinkedIn members’ posts that you think would provide value to your network.

Touching as many people as possible throughout LinkedIn will help build your personal brand and network. However, don’t forget to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date so all your connections know what’s new and what you’re working on.

What is the best way to update your LinkedIn profile?

Your LinkedIn profile is your first impression to the rest of the LinkedIn world, so it’s important to keep it updated. Here are a few tips for creating and maintaining a strong profile:

• Choose a profile picture and background image that show who you are. You don’t need a professional headshot, but you should use an actual photograph instead of a logo or an avatar.
• Get creative with your headline. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, you don’t just have to use “Freelance Writer” as your title. Have some fun here! Try headlines like “Blog Guru” or “SEO Master” to make your title more interesting.
• Don’t forget to list your skills! Make sure people know that you’re an expert at writing social media posts or a creative long-form writer.

Keeping your LinkedIn profile is a great way to maximize your author presence. So dedicate some time to it!

How do you maximize your author presence on LinkedIn?

The best way to maximize your LinkedIn presence is to stay active on this social media platform. For example, every time you publish a book or a blog post, add a publication to your profile so your entire network sees your new work. Share other LinkedIn posts that have inspired you or brought a smile to your face. The more active you are, the more visible you’ll be!

Use LinkedIn book promotion tools to ring up book sales

As an indie author, social media platforms like LinkedIn are one of the most helpful marketing resources out there. When used correctly, promoting your book on LinkedIn can increase your potential readers and lead to lots of book sales!

Elite Authors is here to help you promote your book on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and just about any other platform you can think of. Visit our website to learn more about our book marketing services.

The post How to Promote a Book on LinkedIn appeared first on Elite Authors.