As an author embarking on social media promotion, it’s imperative that you develop a content strategy plan and avoid doing things online that will repulse — rather than attract — an audience.

Almost every author has been told at some point, “You gotta get online and promote.” But only a small percentage of authors have actually been coached on social media best practices, so hundreds of authors are misusing social media and turning readers off rather than attracting them.

1. Overusing hashtags

A hashtag is not the secret to getting discovered and no one meaningful is going to follow you based on a tweet where 8 out of 10 words are hashtags. Instead of trying to game the system and latching on to various trending hashtags, consider posting meaningful content that attracts your target audience.

2. Oversharing

As authors, your social media followers extend beyond your friends and family. Your followers are your readers, your publishing team, librarians, and booksellers. I see too many authors forget this and post about all aspects of their life, from photos of their breakfasts to complaining about writing and publishing. You are a public figure; your social media content should reflect that.

3. Auto-tweeting Facebook posts

We’re all looking for ways to save time, but this isn’t one of them. If your Facebook posts automatically aggregate to Twitter, you’re not using either platform effectively. Facebook posts tend to be long and meaty, tweets are short and pithy. If your lengthy Facebook content is tweeted, those tweets will be cut off with ellipses and followers won’t understand your content. If you post shorter, pithy content to Facebook, that content won’t perform as well. Take an extra few minutes and translate your content for both platforms.

4. Messaging people about your book

I can safely say that all of us, at one point or another, have received a Facebook message or @ reply on Twitter from someone asking us to check out their book. Social media is not about the hard sell — and the hard sell is the quickest way to have your account blocked.