Reaching Readers: Hashtag Your Heart Out

Hi all! This week's topic at the SFF Seven is Marketing: What's one thing you do (or know you should do) to expand your reach/reader awareness?

I feel like I could list so many things, but after some thought, I settled on one: Hashtags. 

As a visual person, Instagram quickly became my social media of choice for reaching readers. Also though, as a romantic fantasy author, that's where many of my readers and potential readers spend their social media time. Bookstagram is still a very active community.

One of the biggest things I've done to find potential readers on Instagram is incorporate hashtags. With regular posting, I've met book lovers who only found my account because they follow a hashtag I happened to use. Often, they tell me that they saw one of my posts, checked out my account, and went on to read my work. 

Another part of Instagram where hashtags can be used is in stories. I see so many authors using stories without connecting to a different audience other than their followers. Once I began incorporating a bookish hashtag in each story, my views went from roughly 24-40 per story to 150-250.

I also learned to do my best to maintain an active story stream with at least five hashtagged stories at any given time. This keeps authors and their work in their readers' minds. Given how many things authors compete with when it comes to vying for reader attention, stories are equivalent to free advertising. They also seem to reach different Instagrammers since some viewers are more likely to scroll through stories than the main feed. It's like a having a second demographic in which to market.

No matter which platform you prefer, I highly recommend learning where your community is, studying how to get your book and name in front of them, and then testing the method. With Insta, hashtags are the way to go because they're such an easy adjustment to make. It might take a bit of research to learn which ones are the most active and grant the most visibility, but it can be done. And trust me! You never know what tag might lead someone to your work, so don't be scared to hashtag everything you share!

So that's my tip! Now come find me on Insta and let's chat about books!

~ Charissa

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