Online Clout Isn't Worth Much (And Is Rarely Helpful For Your Bottom Line)

The whole purpose of stepping up onto your soapbox and crowing about your books, your videos, etc., is so that people will actually take the time to check out what you're doing. However, this week I wanted to point something out. Because there's a lot of advice out there (including on this very blog) that focuses on getting yourself the widest possible audience by acquiring as much online clout as you can... but that doesn't go as far as we often think.

Talk is cheap... so cheap, in fact, that it's free.

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Sell To People Who Are Buying

The common wisdom when it comes to marketing is that you need to camouflage your sales pitch so that you look like any other post out there. Whether you're disguising an article about The Satanic Panic by asking folks to share their stories about it in a gaming community, or you're asking a message board to share their best GM advice to start a conversation around a supplement like 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master, the idea is that you're burying your lead. The goal is to get so many likes, shares, and comments from the conversation starter that the sheer amount of traffic your post gets is going to result in at least some boost in reads and sales, depending on your goal.

On its face, it's good advice. Hell, I've given this advice myself in 5 (Specific) Tips For Increasing Your Vocal Media Reads Using Social Media. However, I feel like this needs to be tempered with a big, fat asterisk... namely that this kind of strategy might get you clout on social media, but it doesn't usually put any money in your pocket.

Seriously, I cannot overemphasize the disconnect, here.

This can feel extremely frustrating as a creator, because you often end up with numbers that don't match up. For example, if you make a post on Facebook that gets hundreds of comments and thousands of reactions, or if you make a Reddit post that gets a slew of upvotes and comments, then your expectation is that people at the very least read what you had to say, and engaged with your content before promptly going to the comments to share their thoughts.

My experience is that this isn't the way things go. Instead of reading the whole post, and checking out the "further reading" link, most people are just going to react to the headline, or the cover image, without actually stepping on the land mine you've so carefully laid out for them. What that means is that, at the end of the day, you've put a lot of time, energy, and effort into starting a conversation that doesn't actually get you anything you can pay your rent with.

Generally speaking, you're going to get a lot more out of just posting a link your article, video, or book and making a pitch as to why people should check it out without all the smoke and mirrors.

Clout Isn't Worthless (Even If You Can't Pay Rent With It)

Getting upvotes, likes, shares, follows, etc., is a good thing, no question. It helps you get seen in the algorithm, it builds your audience, and makes your name a more visible part of the community you're posting in. It also breaks up your feed so that you're not just constantly sharing links to your work all the time.

However, while those things are positive, and will help in the long term... they don't get you paid right now. And that's a problem if you're actually planning on making a living off of your work.

Even if it's a small living.

As with so many other things in life, it's all about finding a proper balance. Because putting together a mix of straight-up links to your books, supplements, videos, etc., that will help pay the bills, and then breaking up that flow with longer, more involved posts that generate conversations and interaction, generally keeps moderators off your back, and allows you to keep yourself in the spotlight at the same time.

But, as with all other things, it's important to manage your expectations, and to remember that just because a post generates a lot of upvotes, shares, comments, etc., that won't necessarily translate to you getting a lot of reads, views, or making sales. It would be nice if it did, but unfortunately everything when it comes to finding your audience is taking shots at a moving target, and hoping for the best.

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That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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