The Power of Word of Mouth
A Barely Scientific Case Study
Hello Friends,
I want to show you what I mean when I, or agents or editors or social media people, talk about word of mouth. What we usually mean is get people talking about your book. You know when you finish a book and you want to tell everyone about how good it is? That is what you’re aiming for. It sounds easy! But uhhhhhhhh how do you actually do it? I want to show you a little case study, emphasis on little. Or maybe consider this an illustration of how word of mouth works, instead of a case study.
Last week I wrote about How to Have an Agent, aimed at those who’ve DIYd their publishing career so far. I thought it was pretty good! I went to Twitter to “promote” it (lol), and tbh I’m a little burned out on sharing this newsletter on Twitter. I don’t think the algorithm feeds my posts with newsletter links to that many people (conjecture <gavel> overruled) though I don’t have the means, skills, or overwhelming interest to prove this. I try to vary my posts so it’s not all “Today on Agents & Books we talk about….” though I definitely do that when I am busy and can’t think of anything else and am tired. Social media is hard, right??? So Friday (because I was late on my Tuesday post lol) I did this:
I figured at least some people would click to see what I meant. It was a really bad Star Wars joke, too.
And here’s what my twitter stats looked like for that:
Not nothing but no big shakes, tbh. Twitter does not drive the majority of my newsletter traffic so I said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and went about my day. I could have written some other tweets. I could have screenshotted the joke or other glossy pull quotes, but I was finishing up an auction and it was Friday and I was busy/tired.
But then, literary agent extraordinaire Erin Murphy tweeted about the post.
Four times as many likes! Three times as many retweets! (I know we’re not breaking any social media records here, but the point stands). You might be thinking Erin must have a lot more followers than Kate. But no! I have 34.5k and she has 12.7k! (And she deserves many, many more.) How can this be????? But wait! There’s more! Check out the engagement on her tweet!
Her tweet did almost double everything more than mine did! (And I don’t know why it’s not showing how many link clicks I had?? Maybe NONE??)
HOW AND WHY?????? Well, frankly I can’t tell you the why. I don’t know why so many more people saw her tweet than mine, or why so many more retweeted it. Content of the tweet? The algorithm? People like her more than me? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I really don’t know and probably can’t tell.
But I can tell you the how. Erin and I are internet friends. We’ve been following each for I have no idea how long and we like each other’s stuff. She has kindly retweeted and liked my work in the past. (Thank you, Erin!) I didn’t DM her and say can you boost this? I didn’t tag her in any posts like agents friends amirite???? I just did what I wanted to do, people liked it, and naturally wanted to share it. THAT is what word of mouth marketing is. People share things they like or feel compelled to share or think are important or want other people to know. This is one part be so good they can’t ignore you (lol saying that about myself) and one part do what you want and people will find you.
The tricky thing is that when it comes to using word of mouth to promote your book, you can’t start today and have it work tomorrow. You can’t start three months before pub and have it work on pub day (necessarily). And it’s why people tell you to start building your social media platform now, well ahead of when you might need it. It’s not because you need X number of followers to get a book deal. It’s because you need established, genuine relationships with real, live people related to your field/genre/interests etc in place to even have the chance to benefit from word of mouth marketing. Buying followers doesn’t work. Tagging hundreds of people doesn’t work. SponCon and influencer mailings only work to a certain extent and in certain cases.
If you’re feeling lost and behind schedule, because your book is coming out in X weeks or months and you don’t have this in places, don’t worry. You can only do what you can do. Keep putting out what you love. Talk to people online who also love what you love. Play the long game and build something for your next book. It’ll be worth it in the long run.
Take care, my friends. See you on the internet.
OXOXOXO,
Kate
Thank you for this excellent explanation!
It's similar to organizing childcare while you're not even pregnant yet.
I needed this today. Spending a lot of time lately trying to speed learn the ropes of social media, only to discover the robots have the upper hand! I recently joined Twitter to simply 'exist' on the platform and to participate in an upcoming pitch event. So far it feels like walking into a party over and over again, each time saying the wrong thing in exchange for a hearty round of crickets. A friend reminded me that it takes time to grow online relationships, and the ones you actually want to nurture take even more time. I'm trying to remember that as I navigate the school dance of Twitter, where the noisy, popular crowd is often rewarded over the try hards. But hey, that's high school. Wait... thought I did that already. :)