So, you have a BookBub Featured Deal coming up (exciting!), and you want as many readers as possible to know about the limited-time discount. Social media can be a great place to announce your BookBub deal to get it into the hands of more readers.
But this type of social media post is distinct from others. You will need to account for the time-sensitive nature of the deal, as well as ensure your audience understands the discount and how to purchase. It can be a little tricky! That’s why we’re going to break down the most effective ways to share your deal so that you can get the most out of your run time. We’ll focus primarily on Instagram, where the format and features are uniquely well-suited to time-sensitive promotions.
Leading with urgency
First things first: When advertising your Featured Deal, you have to communicate urgency. The goal is to get readers to see the post and immediately engage by purchasing your book. It’s best practice to use language in your post that points to the time-sensitive nature of the deal. You also need to make it clear how the reader can get to your deal.
To do that, put text in your Reel or grid post that says “Link to purchase in bio.” You should include all of this information in the caption, too. You can even put something like “AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME AT LINK IN BIO” in all caps at the very top of your caption (before any other information) to really grab the reader’s eye. This checks both boxes: driving urgency and educating on how to access.
Here’s an example from BookBub’s Instagram:
Keeping momentum going
Since deals are short-lived, you want to maximize the chances that your followers will see the sale while it is running. To keep momentum going, you can follow a formula such as this:
Deal Day 1: Post an alert that your deal is live to your grid.
Deal Day 2: Share your grid post to your Story (this does not require you to make new content).
Deal Day 3: Post a reminder graphic to your grid.
Deal Day 4: Share your reminder post to your Story.
Last day of the deal: Post a “last chance” graphic to your grid.
This ensures that you’re pushing out deal-focused content every day that your deal is live — without it being too redundant for your followers. And it gives them more chances to hit that link!
Directing readers to your deal
While your deal is running, ensure the link is clearly labeled in your bio, since you will be directing your followers there. Instagram allows you to have more than one link in your bio, so you don’t have to worry about deleting your author website or other links while your deal is live. If you’re posting a Story, you can add a clickable link directly to the post — here’s a video explaining how to do that:
Choosing your content format
Now let’s get into what exactly you’re going to post. Whether it’s a Reel, a carousel, or a simple one-shot grid post (the social media world is your oyster!), your post needs to do three things:
- Explain a bit about your book
- Explain that your book is on sale for a limited time
- Give a call to action
Stories are a fantastic way to publicize your deal because they only last for 24 hours. This drives urgency (get it while it’s hot!) — and since the Story disappears, you don’t have to worry about removing the post once the deal expires. The downside is that Stories get pushed out to existing followers, not a new audience.
BookBub regularly posts Featured Deal Stories to our followers. Our Story content follows a simple template: the book cover, a one- to two-sentence description, and the link to purchase.
Another great way to share your deal is via grid posts and Reels. This article outlines some easy and powerful ways to promote your book on Instagram, and these ideas can be adapted to sharing your Featured Deal. For example, if you choose to create a Carousel, then your content could look something like:
Slide 1: Enticing hook related to your book (e.g. “What happens when the man you’ve always hated is the one to steal your heart?”)
Slide 2: Picture of the book cover, text that alerts to the deal and price, and call to action
You can follow this same structure with a Reel. One great format for a video is showing your book sideways with some text to hook readers, then flipping your book to show the cover, with text that says “Available for $1.99 at link in bio.” In your caption, tell your audience that the deal is available for a limited time. Here’s an example of a Featured Deal Reel BookBub made in collaboration with Jennifer L. Armentrout:
View this post on Instagram
Static posts are great, too. The example below shares that Alchemised is now on sale, and it also uses the automated DMs tactic we mentioned earlier! Notice that in this example, there’s no information about the book’s contents on the graphic itself — that information is in the caption.
View this post on Instagram
The caption is important real estate when it comes to sharing Featured Deals. There, you can add more color about your book, how to get the Featured Deal, and the fact that it’s a limited-time opportunity. You can make it as long or as short as you want, but always include your call to action. Here’s the caption on BookBub’s post with Jennifer L. Armentrout:
Romance lover? Then you need to read WAIT FOR YOU! With over 65,000 5⭐ ratings, it’s the perfect combination of swoony, sweet, and heart-wrenching.
Head to the link in our bio to get WAIT FOR YOU by Jennifer L. Armentrout for only $1.99! This deal is available for a limited time so grab it fast!
In these posts we’ve made in collaboration with authors, the content went out to both the author’s audience and BookBub’s, and each account linked the deal in their bio in addition to sharing it in their Story.
When your deal expires
Now, what happens when your deal has expired and these posts are still up on your page? There are a few ways to go about this. One is to edit the caption of your deal post. You can add “[DEAL NOW EXPIRED]” at the top of the caption and leave the rest of the post as is. You might instead choose to archive the post so that it’s removed from your page entirely. Once your deal ends, you’ll also want to delete the link from your bio.
What about other platforms?
As I mentioned, Instagram is a great platform for promoting your Featured Deal — both because of the massive book community there, and because its feed and features (like Reels) are weighted toward recency, making it the most amenable to the time sensitivity of your deal. When content goes live, it gets pushed out quickly. Compare that to TikTok, whose algorithm is geared more toward long-tail content, i.e., content that stays relevant for a long time. In fact, TikTok will often push out content you make days, weeks, or even months after you’ve posted.
This is not to say you can’t share your deal on other platforms, but it will require a different approach. For example, on TikTok, you’ll want to prioritize the Story format. If you prefer X (Twitter), a simple “PSA” post with the link is a great way to get the word out. If you have Facebook, you can connect it to your Instagram account, and the content you post on Instagram will automatically post to Facebook (if you toggle that feature on).
All in all, social media is a great way to share your Featured Deal with both existing readers and a larger audience. At BookBub, we’ve seen great results from deal sharing, and we look forward to working with more authors to get out the news about their promotions.
