5 Reasons Why You Should Use TikTok for Authors

As an author, it’s important to keep up with your industry. Did you know that social media platforms such as TikTok now make up a big part of the writing industry? Your competition, target audience, and current and potential readers are all on platforms like TikTok.

It’s crucial to stay in touch with social media so that you can produce books and content that succeed. You may be wondering how an app that posts short videos has any relationship to the world of books. In this blog post, we dive into the importance of using TikTok for authors, so you don’t let the opportunities from social media pass you by.

The Rise of Social Media

Social media has become a major influence on the content we consume on a daily basis. As trends, hashtags, and challenges take over the world, we need to learn how to use them to our advantage.

You may think of social media as your worst nightmare because it’s a huge time-consumer that massively impacts each one of our lives in some way. But it’s important to let social media become your rise to success in the writing world, instead of letting it set you back in your career.

TikTok’s Rise to Fame

TikTok is an app which was launched in 2016, but it only became one of the most popular apps in 2018. It’s become one of the most downloaded social media apps, which means there’s a wide variety of content at your fingertips. The video above portrays how massive TikTok has become as a social media platform.

There’s a lot of diversity on TikTok, and you’ll find videos on practically any topic out there. As an author, you need to get to the book side of TikTok so that you can keep up to date with your community.

There are different sides to TikTok, and the types of videos you get depends on your algorithm. If you watch videos about books and fiction, you’ll find a lot of videos based on these topics on your ‘for you’ page.

This is why TikTok for authors is such a valuable tool to use. You get to see videos that are suited to you and the content you’re interested in. This helps you to stay relevant, and you’ll keep in touch with your audience and competitors.

Understanding Your Target Audience

To write successful books, you need to understand your target audience. Although you write your book for yourself, you have to write for your readers. At the end of the day, it’s your readers who will determine whether your book is a success or not.

How To Identify Your Target Audience Through TikTok

As a writer, you probably have a general idea of your target audience, especially if you’ve been writing for a long time. Learning how to find your target audience can be tricky, but luckily for you, TikTok has changed the game. Your target audience is not just the group of people you expect to buy your book because your horizon has broadened, containing people from all different walks of life!

When you put your book out there on platforms like TikTok, you may find a variety of different people interested in your work. You should also search your genre and competitors on social media so you can see the type of people who may be interested in your books.

Staying in Touch With Your Target Audience

Staying in touch with your target audience is a crucial part to succeeding as an author. It can be so tricky to keep in touch with all the different types of readers of your book. Luckily, TikTok has made it easier for you!

You can easily stay in touch with your target audience by following them on TikTok and keeping up to date with their interests, monitoring the content that they post, and reading the comments they share.

Social Media for Writers Keeps You Relevant

It’s crucial to stay relevant as a writer, as you want to be able to keep up with the times. To achieve this, you need to be on social media platforms such as TikTok. This helps you to keep up with the current trends.

The Importance of Staying Relevant

Being relevant is important in this day and age, especially if you’re producing content. You need to understand what’s popular and what will grab the reader's attention. Without staying relevant, you may find that you produce content that doesn’t intrigue and engage your target audience like it used to.

These are some ways you can benefit by staying relevant as an author on TikTok:

Use trends for your stories. Adding trends to your story is a great way to entice a larger crowd to read your book. People love to keep up with the latest trends, and a book that incorporates this is fresh and fun for readers.
Take note of criticism. Understanding and using criticism is an important part of staying relevant. You need to be open to hearing readers' concerns and opinions, because this will help you to grow as a writer.

Keeping Up With Your Competitors

When you’re in the writing industry, you’re bound to have a long list of competitors. These are writers who produce books of the same genre with similar topics as you. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of your competition, but you can learn to stand out from the crowd.

Using TikTok to Stay One Step Ahead of Your Competitors

Believe it or not, most of your competitors are already on social media platforms such as TikTok. When you’re on TikTok, you get to keep up with your competitors, especially if they have an online presence.

As established earlier, using constructive criticism is critical as an author. You shouldn’t only take note of criticism toward your book, but you should also consider criticism toward other authors in the industry.

Using your competitors’ criticism from readers helps you to learn what mistakes to avoid. From this, you’re able to write books that are more suited to what your target audience wants.

Your competitors can also be your inspiration as a writer. In life, we often learn how to grow and improve in our career when we watch others around us succeed. When you watch your competitors on TikTok, you’re able to see their success stories, which will inspire and motivate you.

TikTok for Authors Can Promote Their Work

Marketing is a critical part of selling your book. Without it, you may not make the number of sales you had hoped for. There are countless forms of marketing, but one form that is super effective and affordable is using social media.

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Book

Social media really is the way of the future. Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone, and most people are on at least one social media platform. This makes marketing through social media an effective and successful way to get your book out there. These are some ways to effectively market your book on TikTok:

Use clickbait. Clickbait is a great way to gain intrigue and excitement for your book. Often people don’t choose to read a book because it looks too long, the book cover doesn’t pique their interest, or the title doesn’t sound interesting enough. Filming a teaser video gives TikTok viewers a taste of what your book is truly like. If you make your teaser thrilling enough, you’re bound to get readers eager to hear more!
Take part in a TikTok challenge. As silly as they may sound, TikTok challenges can do a lot of good for your book sales. For example, if there’s a dancing challenge or a song has gone viral, you can use it in a creative way to promote your book. This will get your post to trend, and your promotion for your book can reach a larger variety of people.
Collaborate with TikTok stars! Unfortunately, TikTok has also taken business away from the book industry. Many people prefer to scroll through TikTok instead of reading a good book. Collaborating with public figures on TikTok can get your book out there to people who aren’t that into reading anymore. This also influences them to try your book out, because if their favorite TikTok star is reading it, it must be something worthwhile.
Use alternative methods. Although TikTok is a great way to promote your book, it’s also important to consider alternative methods. Using marketing strategies such as SEO and email marketing will get your books out there effectively!

Final Thoughts

TikTok should be your best friend as an author. It can really elevate your career if you learn how to use it to your advantage. When you’re an author, you want to consider feedback, criticism, and interests from your target audience, because this is what will help you to write your bestseller.

Remember that using social media platforms such as TikTok can be really beneficial for your career, but this doesn’t mean you should get consumed by it. At the end of the day, it’s not real life, and you shouldn’t take all the negativity to heart.

Enjoy your journey on social media as an author. Keep writing and sharing your gift of words with your TikTok audience! If you need further help on your journey toward integrating TikTok into your writing career, we offer writing packages and SEO for TikTok scripts.