I have been going big on the social media lately. I start with Instagram, then cross-post to Facebook and Threads. I’ve been creating beautiful images with Canva with free templates from authors, as well as templates I’ve purchased from Etsy and Creative Market.

I’m trying to woo viewers with artistic, moody posts.

My original plan was bombardment. But after posting three posts on Instagram a day (and elsewhere), my engagement is awful. On Facebook, I get 1-2 likes. On Instagram, I get 1-5 likes (but mostly 1-2), and almost none on Threads. My reels occasionally get more views, but still, no interactions.

Something isn’t working. Some of my family members confessed that while the posts are gorgeous, they can’t keep up. I did a cursory Google search and while I don’t want to follow the AI-generated answer, I did click on its links to see where it sourced information. This Instagram post recommends 4-5 posts a week in the feed, and 3-5 times a day on stories.

So…in the feed, I’m overdoing it. Because 3 posts a day for 7 days is 21 posts! But…I don’t get posting so much for stories. They last 24 hours and usually feature people on-camera…which I am reluctant to do. It’s recommending I post 21-35 stories a week. That seems crazy to me.

Could my content not be working? I don’t know. I’ve gotten compliments on how good it looks, but again, I don’t have numbers supporting the posts.

My social media cover reveal bombed yesterday on this website, on Threads, on Facebook, and on Instagram. With the exception of this website, I made the cover reveal a reel with haunting music and a sort of gothic look to it. Here are the numbers:

• Facebook: 2 likes, 2 comments, 1 share, and 32 views
• Threads: 2 likes, 0 comments, 2 shares, and 14 views
• Instagram: 1 like, 2 comments, 0 shares, and 53 views

The reason why I went with a reel is because it’s been reported that reels snag more views than simple posts. As you can see, my views overall are crappy. The interactions are barely there.

I am stumped. I’m going to keep posting, but maybe not 3 posts a day, or at least, not 3 book-related posts a day. But this is a huge bummer. I don’t know how to get more people interested in my work…I thought for sure using beautiful graphics, moody images, and haunting music (for reels) would help garner some attention.

I’ll keep on rethinking my strategy.