Converting any kind of social media traction into sales, follows or anything else is really really hard. It takes a boat-load of dedication, time, patience and the sheer will to move mountains to sometimes feel like you are making any progress – that’s how it feels to me every so often but it is not impossible to turn your social media into some level of success. This post will highlight the difficulty us creatives can face on social media whilst also providing a few solutions to help move the needle.

The inspiration for this post came from my recent ‘break’ from social media, now I say ‘break’ but really I just reduced my efforts for a few weeks for a little self repair. For all the things social media can be, it can be a drain on one’s mental health and can also be addictive so its good to take a break every now and then and focus on the to-do list.

Tip: When it comes to social media, you always come first. So does your mental health. There is no shame in practicing self-care and you can only do what you can do. Take a break if you need to.

For someone who has built their Twitter presence from zero to 30,000+ it took a long time to get to where I am now and so I went forth into this recent break knowing the majority of my numbers across platforms along with sales would drop, and I was right.

So for perspective, let us look at the Twitter numbers for May before I reduced my presence and tweeting whilst cross referencing that with book sales:

Now everyone’s Twitter is different, including numbers but May was an awesome month for me which was mainly driven by the grey bars on this graphic which represents Tweets. In simple terms, the more you Tweet, the more you get back eventually.

For me, any impressions over 20k a day is the sweet spot and means good things should eventually happen such as more followers and even book sales. Anything below that for a period of time and everything slows down. Because everyone’s Twitter is different, you’ll probably have a different sweet s[pt number. Using the Twitter analytics via the browser version should help you dive deeper into your own numbers.

Here are my book sales for that period:

Now these a pretty good numbers, with a little paid advertising thrown in at the mid point but most of my regular day-to-day sales come from Twitter and so I have to keep those numbers up.

Let us now look at what happens if I reduce my Tweeting which I did in June.

The numbers pretty much halved and then after the 60k spike, they dropped below that ‘sweet spot’ and over time the sales dipped.

So the numbers say it all. Less tweeting for me equals way less regular sales. Now by July I decided to do something about this and began upping my Tweeting. It took a few days but I managed to push the numbers back up to that ‘sweet spot’ and even sold a book for my efforts.

I keep a close eye on the Analytics of my Twitter and its pretty good for indicating what is needed to get the numbers up. But what was I Tweeting about?

Tip: As long as it aims to inspire, inform, entertain, give value or incentive then a Tweet with these things should be well-received eventually. Quantity is key.

Now this post is just a slice of the Twitter pie and you can read so much more for free via the resources section of this very blog.

If you want a detailed deep dive at how I have turned my Twitter into a book selling machine then do check out my Twitter Coaching Sessions here. As you can see one of my students A-M is benefitting from it. Thanks for reading!