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Get out there, and get social. Wattpad readers are everywhere. You should be, too.
Wattpad is itself a form of social media, but that doesn’t mean that it 100 percent replaces all other forms of social media. In fact, if you’re not complementing Wattpad with other platforms, you could be doing your readers a disservice.
As an established Wattpad author, I figured that my audience had a good sense of who I was. I interacted with them in the comments and on my message board, and I answered all of the private messages I received through my profile.
Still, I didn’t realize how little my Wattpad readers knew about who I was until a few years ago. As I was answering comments on a particularly controversial chapter in my new novel, I noticed that my readers tended to think that I shared my characters’ opinions and beliefs on certain topics. That’s when I realized that, outside of my interactions on Wattpad, my readers didn’t know the real me.
And it could be that your readers don’t know you either.
It’s important to expand your audience outside of your Wattpad platform. Wattpad is a great resource to grow your audience, but it’s also important to utilize other social media platforms at your disposal. A large percentage of readers genuinely want to know and support you.
Here’s a look at the most popular social media platforms and how to use them to support your Wattpad efforts. Before you begin, don’t forget to include links to your other social media accounts on your Wattpad profile. That way, your readers know how to find you.
The platform that I use the most to promote my work on Wattpad is Twitter. In 280 characters, you can offer your readers short snippets of upcoming chapters, quotes from previous chapters, and teasers for unreleased works. Readers also enjoy tweets that reveal a side of my characters not found in my stories.
However, for me, Twitter is more for personal use than for business, and my readers tend to gravitate toward that approach. In today’s technology-saturated environment, people like to interact and build relationships. Even if it’s just a tweet checking in about your readers’ day, they really appreciate it. I’ve found that letting my readers get to know my sense of humor, personality, and style helps them see me as a real person rather than just an entity behind a computer screen.
Creating Twitter polls is another way to involve your readers in the writing of your novel. It gives your readers a personal connection to the story since they’re getting to decide a concrete part of your work. I recently did this when I was unsure of what point of view I should use for my new novel. The response was overwhelming and very helpful to my writing process. I used Twitter to connect to my Wattpad platform, and the poll helped create excitement about my unreleased novel. People were genuinely excited to see how my new book would play out through the chosen character’s point of view.
I also use Twitter to reinforce my Wattpad updates. After each update, I take a quote and share it on Twitter (usually a funny one). That way, if my readers missed the Wattpad notification, they can see it on my Twitter, too. Wattpad makes sharing these quotes easy. I just highlight a passage on my smartphone, choose “share as quote,” select a background, and send it all to Twitter. It looks clean, professional, and eye-catching.
Not only is Twitter a great tool with which to engage your existing Wattpad audience, it’s a chance to grow your audience as well. There are several Twitter hashtags that are inclusive to the writing community, too, most of which are a direct line to people who will welcome you with open arms and advice.
One of the most popular writing tools employed through Twitter is #1linewed. This is where, every Wednesday, people tweet lines from current works in progress that are associated with a certain theme. It’s a great way to put your name out there and connect with other authors.
The other social media platform that I gravitate toward is Snapchat. With short snippets of your day posted onto your story, readers get a piece of who you are as well as what you’re currently working on.
I have a segment on my Snapchat called “sock game” that shows my Snapchat viewers what pair of zany socks I’ve chosen to wear that day. I started this as a joke for myself, as I own multiple pairs of crazy socks. It turned into something my readers love to see, and the phenomenon is sometimes a topic in my Wattpad comments section.
But as far as my writing career goes, I use Snapchat to post quick teasers about where I’m at and what I’m working on. I often write outside of my home, so I might post a quick picture of my writing location and how inspired I’m feeling by it. If I’m working on an update that’s scheduled to go up later that day or week, I’ll post a couple of paragraphs solely on my Snapchat, allowing for those viewers to get a sneak peek of what’s to come.
This is also a great social-media app with which to involve your readers in your daily life and introduce your personality quirks. Outside of my writing, I tend to post when I’m at family events, football games, or even the gym. My readers like having this personal level of interaction with me, as it gives them an idea of who I am in my everyday life.
Another popular social media platform to tie into Wattpad is Instagram, a photo and video sharing app. Instagram is highly visual, so I use this platform to tease covers and banners of unreleased novels. This helps keep my readers in the loop as to what projects I’m working on outside of Wattpad and keeps them excited for my future works.
As the release date for my novel gets closer, I continue to post teaser images that I’ve curated. My readers will interact in the comments, discussing my new story and encouraging one another to read it. This kind of hype about a new story helps draw more readers into the first chapter.
I also use my Instagram to post about my personal life. As I’ve mentioned earlier in this article, readers want to know you outside of your writing life. My readers particularly like to see my accomplishments. My most-liked picture on my Instagram is my college graduation picture, about which I received an influx of love and support for taking another step toward my future. My readers genuinely enjoy feeling included in these milestones with me, and I love knowing that I have their support as I continue on my life’s journey.
After I realized my readers didn’t know much about me, I decided to open up by answering their questions. I had them tweet me with a specific hashtag and post questions on my Wattpad page. I gathered as many as I could and sat down to film a video. This was my readers’ first proper time seeing me, outside of the tiny, circular photo I had on my Wattpad profile.
That video is still available on YouTube, with grainy image quality and poorly edited clips. I filmed it on my computer webcam and edited it on a MacBook available to me at my local college. My readers actually saw me and heard me speak for the first time, and it shocked a great deal of them. Through the comments, I learned that people had a much different vision of who I was in their head, from the way I looked to the way my voice sounded and even my belief systems.
I’ve done a couple of Q&A videos since then, and when I go on vacations, I’ll often film some things that I edit together for a quick YouTube video. I’m not an avid user, and I don’t upload frequently, but when I do, I often receive a positive response from my readers.
Beyond that, I began using the channel to talk about what books I’m currently reading, and in that way my platform helps promote other authors. This quickly became a popular series with thousands of views. While my readers enjoy my books, they like to know what other books I would recommend and why. I keep my reviews positive, as I know how much work goes into each individual book. But I also keep my reviews honest, which is what pulls my readers toward those videos. Offering my readers a slew of other books to read shows them that I’m continuing to actively improve upon my craft. I’m always reading and always taking notes from other authors, and I like to share these tips and tricks with my audience.
As a new creator on Wattpad, one of the first things I did was create a Facebook page. At the time, I created it for a single novel that I was writing, my first one to go viral on Wattpad. Now, however, I have an author page dedicated to my work as a whole.
I tend not to use Facebook as often as I used to due to its new terms that make it difficult to reach followers without paying for ads. But whenever I have a big announcement, such as a new book or project I’m working on, I’ll include a link on my Facebook page.
I also use my page to post user-submitted art. I’ve received fan art and book covers for the novels I’m working on, and I wanted a way to showcase them. I couldn’t post them all on my Instagram, as there are hundreds of pieces, so I began creating albums on my Facebook page. I sort the pictures by book, and I credit the people who created them in the post. Showcasing the work that my audience creates makes it more likely that they will continue to send me original pieces. It’s truly an honor to have my characters and novels act as inspiration for other people’s creations, and I want to showcase that as much as I possibly can.
Starting your own public social media accounts and continually growing them can be a daunting task because of the time commitments. It can also be difficult to transfer audiences from one site to another, and not all of your readers will follow you on all of your social media sites.
If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of expanding your platform through social media, here are a few quick tips.
Take it from someone who started posting to Wattpad on a whim during a boring Monday afternoon: Anything is possible. You just have to start somewhere.
Rachel Meinke is a writer from the Sunshine State of Florida. She’s a graduate of the University of Central Florida and is currently on her way to a masters in fine arts. In her free time, you can find her at the beach, the closest amusement park, or a used bookstore, browsing the bookshelves so she can add to her always-growing collection. She is a lover of animals and a collector of candles, and she is addicted to sappy books and movies.