How critical is social media for marketing and sales?

[Steve 7,540]

How critical is social media for marketing and sales, from your experiences?

I've talked to a few authors who said they spend very little to no time on social media but still find success. I've spoke with others who say it's critical and without it or when they aren't as active their sales drop significantly.  I would imagine staying up to date on all of the platforms or just one platform could be a part time or even full time job. Do you think the time investment is worth the amount of sales and attention you get from social media? What platforms do you spend more time on, typically?

[Susana Imaginário 436]

Six months ago I'd have said: yes, absolutely, social media is crucial for marketing and there's a clear correlation between the time spent 'playing the author' and the number of sales, especially on Twitter. Not anymore. I used to get annoyed when my posts/promos reached the wrong audience. Now, I can't even reach most of my followers. Can't keep up with their stuff either... if I want to know what someone's up to, I have to check their feed directly. Right now, I'm trying to decide if it's worth getting the damn blue tick or just not bother with it anymore. I'm fairly active (as in, I check it once a day or so) on Facebook as well, but mostly because my oldest friends are there. My author page gets little attention. Not even DMs. I get more engagement from posting silly memes than anything related to my books. Vero is just for fun and pretty pictures. The few times I posted about my books, I got very little response, which is just as well. I rather keep using it for fun rather than work. Gave up on Instagram. 
So, is it worth the time? It used to. Not anymore.

[Amazing Worlds 387]

Writing is a slow process of months or years. Social media is for people with the attention span of a goldfish.

I got bored of authors talking about anything other than their books, so I quit Facebook and Twitter. Toying with the idea of deleting instagram but I like the videos of drunk people hurting themselves. 
I’d say authors are better off talking to booktubers directly or posting their own stuff than trying to create a presence that has little to do with their writing. But that’s just my perspective.

[Steve 7,540]

It must be so frustrating having the platforms and their algorithms change so often. 
 

Twitter seems to be getting worse, I don’t know if that’s my imagination or reality but I don’t see the people i engage with the most anymore. It’s a lot of people shouting into the void, asking stupid questions for engagement (But is listening to an audio book REALLY reading??) or promoting the platform their going to next.  I would imagine twitter is still one of the better places for engagement. 
 

I tried Facebook for the first time last year and gave up a few months later. Apparently pages aren’t promoted the way accounts are from what I’ve read and they are almost a waste of time if you don’t already have a following. It felt like playing an old MMORPG that had millions of players but no one is around. 
 

Instagram I just don’t get. It’s so hard to even comment back and fourth and that format seems like an odd pairing for books, but some people I know swear by it. 
 

With Amazon are you able to see referring sites that resulted in sales for your books? 

[Holly Tinsley 562]

Because of social media, a very small number of people know I am. Without social media it would be exactly zero people. Like anything, it's a tool to be used as part of an arsenal of different things. A lot of people like the accessibility that comes with being able to engage and interact with their favourite authors. I find that only posting exclusively about my books leads to a big drop off in sales and interaction, which is why I post about non writer things as well. It just depends on your audience and what they want to see. You learn as you go and find some things work for you and some don't. 

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 900]

Social media got me here, and this place has been an invaluable source of writing knowledge.
I have yet to find out if it will help me sell any books. My instinct says no as I will just be another voice amongst millions. 

[chibipoe 300]

From what I've gathered in observation, with trad-publishing, it became something of a chore for authors when publishers basically dropped responsibility for social media promotion, etc, onto their shoulders. For some, that works, but for others, it was a significant chore. It isn't helped at all, regardless of publishing type, by situations like(for a genre specific example) r/fantasy cracking down on self-promotion from authors. And even though I get why, they went kind of crazy about it. To say nothing of twitter increasingly going off the rails because it's run by a, well, never mind that.