I think, like most, I find marketing tough - very time consuming anyway. I've read a few books that have been helpful and completed an advanced social media marketing course as well as an advanced digital marketing course, but I find that largely paid advertising is the way to go to get your name out there. 

In my experience the direct sales approach doesn't work through social media, when it's a free post. An occasional advert is ok, but they don't want users to leave their website so avoid links. If you want people to find you, make your post from a Facebook page. They'll then find your page, if interested. Make sure you have a link to your website there in the head of the page. 

Free social media marketing should be more about brand awareness, so when someone comes across your logo / brand they recognise it. Building trust. 

With Facebook you can run a paid advert with links for about £1 / $1 per day. To do that use Facebook ad creator - do not boost your posts, that doesn't work. Target reach not traffic and define your audience. That's a great feature of Facebook ads. You can reach literally thousands of people per day. 

Second to that, Facebook re-marketing is great. Add a Facebook pixel (freely accessible code to your website), again about £1 / $1 per day. Anyone who looks at your adverts will have your book links / adverts shown to them again and again. Just like when you look at something online and see it everywhere. That is how re-marketing works. Both these things used in conjunction are very effective. 

Next, if anybody writes non-fiction, depending if the genre fits, LinkedIn is a great platform. Your book does need to be somehow business related. Your ad must be shaped towards business and then that is very effective. 

If anyone writes recipe books or books that are very visual, then definitely add those pictures to Pinterest. 

Then there's building an email list. Give something away, even if it's only the first chapter of a book as a PDF. To get it, users give you their email address and then you send them the PDF. Mail chimp or similar is great for sending out email newsletters etc because you can track who's opened it, when it was sent and so on. 

To do ads, for anyone who hasn't used Canva, the free version is really great for creating ads, which you can post directly from Canva to social media, all in the correct sized templates. Even better you can see everything you've posted and when on the calendar. This includes static posts and videos or even a few static frames as a video. Check it out! 

Further, use google Adwords keyword checker and google trends for checking your keywords. Set your keywords to get your books or what ever you're selling found. Another awesome free keyword tool is Ubersuggest. 

Ensure you use the front and back matter of your books to help you sell more. Add book links to the back matter and links to your website, author pages and most effectively the links to buy your books, both the US and UK links are worthwhile additions. 

Get other authors to put your links on their website and you put yours on theirs to create back links. This gives higher ranking in search engines and is the most powerful way to get higher ranking. If you do paid ads ensure that the landing page the user arrives at is both compelling and easy to use to buy your books.

I guess marketing is not just one thing, but a lot of work. Be prepared for that. Whether you go the indie route or publisher route you'll still either have to pay a lot or do a lot of the marketing yourself.

In conclusion, keep free adverts / posts socially viable.

Use reach for paid social media ads not traffic.

Use re-marketing in conjunction with paid ads.

Build your email lists using giveaways.

Ensure your website / landing page is compelling and easy to purchase your books once the user has arrived.

A final note, join lots of groups on social media and share your posts there too.

If anybody wants clarification on any of these points let me know. I'll try and help you in the best way I can. Time permitting, of course!

There's more to say, but I think this is enough to digest for now. Perhaps the next time we have a zoom meeting we can share ideas and experiences. In the meantime, I hope this information helps. Have a great day!