Weekly Social Networking Quota

Curious about how often you should post on your social networks? You’ve come to the right place.

Here's the quota we suggest an author fulfills each week:

Overall:
-3 to 5 posts a day.
-2+ posts on weekends.
-Try to mix it up between a self post, link post, and picture. Use a social media manager like Hootsuite or Plant Social to easily post everything.

Facebook:
-Like several related pages from your author page. Interact with 1 to 2 a day via comment or share.
-Acknowledge all comments. By acknowledge, that doesn’t mean you should reply to every comment. You should only reply to comments you can provide a meaningful response or which the writer put plenty of thought into it. You should, at the very least, like the comment.

Twitter:
-Retweet 1 to 3 times a day.
-Interact 2 or more times a day. There’s no limit on your interaction, although it should always be meaningful.
-If you’re building a following, follow at least 5 people a day. Although there’s nothing wrong with following in large bursts, it’s better to even it out so you can learn more about those you’re following.

Blog:
-Respond to all comments, even if not necessarily worthwhile. Blogs tend to have less interaction, so you want to thank everyone, short and sweet, if they leave a simple comment. If it’s a longer comment, respond to the points they bring up. "Thanking" is not sufficient if they put thought into the comment.
-At least twice a week, interact by commenting on other blogs. On each post, leave a link to your preferred social network to make it worthwhile.

Interaction around the web:
Depending on the time you have, this may be difficult. However, whenever you find an article or post that piques your interest, do not hesitate to respond. You’re establishing yourself on the web, so don’t hold it back. Good examples of sites you can interact on:

1. Blogs
2. News articles (especially from Publishers Weekly, Galley Cat, and other book news sites)
3. LinkedIn
4. Reddit (especially certain subreddits like r/books, r/writing, r/selfpublishing, etc.)

If you follow all of these guidelines, you should have a solid week of at least 19+ posts and 35+ interactions. If you maintain this constant activity, you can easily grow your social networks to an impressive, book-selling level.

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—Kirk Cunningham, principal consultant at Cunning Relations 

& head publicist at Jolly Fish Press.