Reading the Writing Social Signals

What are Social Signals?

The social media landscape is vast and varied. But one thing the sites all seem to have in common is algorithms. And those algorithms work by way of counting and weighing what are called social signals.

In our offline lives, we emit social signals all the time although some are muddier than others. If you proactively join your school’s alumni association, then you are emitting a signal which says you value either your education or your school or maybe the friends you made there. When you insist on referring to yourself as Doctor … then you are also discharging a signal.

Other signals come from our choices of everything from mates to dining establishments to screen names or even to how we decorate.

Let’s Go Online

So, the truth is that the way social signals get an interpretation depends, in large part, on whether you’re a human or a bot/computer.

So, let’s look at both means of interpretation in turn.

Social Signals for People

Human beings are essentially wired to prefer what the group likes. And there is a very good, evolution-style reason for this! Fitting into a group means you have help with everything from child rearing to food gathering.

Yes, of course there are hermits out there. And the crowd is not always right. Not by any stretch of the imagination. And when a crowd turns into an angry mob, well, all bets are off.

But as a species we love popularity. And, at the same time, we also love positive things. Usually. So, if everyone else loves X, then we can often feel the need to check out X, whatever it may be. Signals of positive appreciation are meaningful to us.

These signals include:

• Star rating systems
• Rankings
• Number of positive reviews
• A lack (or a dearth) of negative reviews
• Endorsements from people we listen to and admire
• Shelf space or “want to read” lists
• Prominence on a shelf or in a collection
• Number of followers/admitted readers

An online seller or social media platform will often put its virtual thumb on the scale. Hence, a certain number of reviews of any stripe might result in Amazon delivering your book to more pages. Also, rankings are likely to generate more suggestions for readers. E.g. if you liked X, you should check out Y.

Apart from newness and uniqueness, this is the way many algorithms work online.

Rankings on Amazon in particular also offer up another signal—the happy orange ribbon that says “#1 bestseller”. Amazon also gathers together bestsellers for their own grouping, which is at the top—prime real estate.

How to Use ‘Em

To take advantage of some of these signals, watch your rankings on Amazon. If you ever hit #1, take screenshots! You can easily use them in your marketing materials.

In April, 2023, my book was #1 in the ___ category. And then just add the screenshot to whatever you like—tweet, FB post, newsletter, blog post, Instagram image, etc. Even a year later, that can still look impressive. And no one really needs to know that your genre is tiny and your category is even tinier.

This is one manner of leveraging the signals. Further down, I’ll get into some more ideas. But for now, let’s turn to the bots.

Bots/Apps/Algorithms/Search Engines/Computers

I’ve already alluded to some of this. If there is a line of code in the algorithm that says something like feed more profiles this book if there are a lot of reviews — it’s probably going to be very numbers-oriented. The code (in English) would be something like:

If a book has 10 reviews, feed the info to 5% more profiles. Change to 10% profiles if there are 30 reviews. For 100 reviews, change to 25% more profiles. And for 1,000 reviews, double the number of pages where the info is fed.

Are these numbers accurate? Probably not. And I am deliberately being somewhat vague here because Amazon and any other site guards these secrets closely—and they test and change them, anyway.

But no matter what, a bot or other non-human won’t be able to follow social signals unless they are extremely well-defined.

Another signal, in addition to the ones above, is tags.

Tag, Tag, What is a Tag?

It’s a subcategorization system more than anything else. When Amazon was first in business, it’s highly likely that no one had come up with the idea of anything like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. So, when it was published, where was Amazon supposed to put it? With Austen’s Regency romances? With Stephen King’s horror? Miscellaneous?

The answer to both may very well be yes. And with proper tagging, readers can find it. Also, they can get an idea of what’s inside the book. If someone needs a trigger warning, tags (and even categories) can provide some assistance to readers.

Proper tags and categories clue in readers. They also provide a means of comparison. If you loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you might like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer. But it’s less likely (albeit not impossible) that you’d like a pair of fuzzy slippers for your dog.

Leveraging Social Signals

First and foremost, ask for reviews! I found that the best thing to do was to respond to people. That is, if someone messaged me and said they liked Untrustworthy, then I asked them to review it. And I made it clear—even a short review is fine.

For people who would not review (or even didn’t like it!), I just asked them to rate a review as helpful to them. Whichever review it was, even a somewhat negative one, that would work for me.

On an Amazon author page, shoppers can sort by (among other methods) number of reviews and average customer review. Making it possible for shoppers to view my list of works a few different ways is, in a way, another of the social signals. It creates a bit of novelty, and that attracts people. We’re also hard-wired to like variety and novelty.

Sales drive up rankings. But rankings can fall fast. So, why not talk to people who have expressed an interest in buying your book? Ask if they’ll buy within a particular time frame, or if they’ll preorder (yet another of the social signals!). Offer a discount for a limited time. Any of these can, legitimately and ethically, drive up sales.

And, in turn, sales will drive up rankings.

Beyond Amazon, social signals also take the shape of likes on Facebook, retweets on Twitter, and even reblogging on Tumblr.

Speed, positivity, and novelty are your best friends, when it comes to social signaling.

Takeaways

Ethics are paramount. Don’t jack up social signals as a means to cheat readers or platforms. But there is nothing wrong with having good timing. Oh, and your characters? You can even use a character questionnaire to try to inform their virtual, fictional social signals as well.

Social Signals – can YOU read them? #amwriting

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