Confused, ambivalent, overwhelmed when it comes to utilizing social media in today’s book market? Well, if my recent launch has taught me anything, it’s that you simply cannot be a commercial author today without participating. In fact, the social media effort is such a big part of my current launch for VIVIAN RISING I figured all of us authors could use a little crash course in what we should be doing and how to do it. I hope it helps…and saves you a lot of time trying to cobble together a media strategy in the dark! If you want to add to the conversation, or share your tricks of the trade, we’re all ears!
THE EXPERTS:
Karen Robinovitz is a Digital Brand Architect, consulting with brands on social media strategies and initiatives, as well as Creatrix at beauty brand Purple Lab—where she certainly practices what she preaches.
Lyn Mettler is founder and co-owner at Step Ahead Inc., a company specializing in social media campaigns.
Here, Lynn and Karen give us the inside scoop on what authors should be focusing their attention on in the giant, daunting world of social media…and how to do get it right.
Q: How does social media fit into a complete marketing and PR plan?
KR: I think it’s become incredibly vital – communications have changed fundamentally and consumers and everyday users of social networking platforms are now publishers, the new media, just as important as the WSJ or the NYT or Vogue. But the key is for whatever happens on the digital front to be holistic with everything that happens across the traditional media space.
Q: Which things should authors be doing daily? Weekly? Monthly?
LM: I believe authors should put social networking on their to-do list at least twice daily. Spend 10 minutes, open up Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Foursquare and spend 15 minutes following people, interacting, responding to comments, etc. Weekly, you should write two blog posts and a week’s worth of Facebook and Twitter posts (20 or so each) and schedule them using a tool like SocialOomph, then you can spend your daily time interacting instead of planned posting. You might also spend a few minutes a week browsing Mashable.com for articles on the latest tools to make sure you’re not missing any new tools that could be of benefit. It’s also great about giving successful examples and tips for using social media. Monthly, consider hosting a podcast through.
Q: What is the single most important thing an author can do to increase awareness via social networking media?
LM: I think the most important thing for authors is to be on social networks consistently. That means every day several times a day and not just posting, but actually interacting with people. This makes all the difference in building a large audience online.
KR: I think it’s really about being authentic and communicating. Social networking has to be social – not one-sided.
Q: What is an example of being “one-sided?” We want to avoid it!
LM: Being one-sided is only posting about yourself or being too self-promotional. This turns people off, especially in social media. No one wants to be sold to. They want to talk with you, to feel like they know you, and that will go a long way toward keeping them interested in your work. It’s OK to every now and then work in some self-promotional posts, but try to keep them as conversational as possible. Another good rule is to try to make 3 out of every 5 posts a response to someone rather than a post by you.
Q: How important is it to respond to other Tweeters?
LM: It’s extremely important to respond to other people’s posts. On Twitter, for example, pull up your feed a couple times a day and spend 5-10 minutes just responding to people. You can also use a tool like Tweetdeck to actively monitor for people using your name or your book title (beyond those who you are following) and respond to them in real time. I also believe that running fun promotions really helps build friends/followers and engages your audience. We regularly run small and large promotions, such as friend drives, bingo games, Twitter parties, etc. for our clients to keep social networking fun for their followers and give them a chance to win prizes. A video chat with the author might be a cool prize for a novelist that wouldn’t cost anything!
Q: Can you explain what these Twitter parties and friend drives are all about?
LM: Sure. There are all kinds of creative promotions you can run on social media. You’re only limited to your imagination. One that’s popular on Twitter is a Twitter “party”. Essentially you choose a time on Twitter, create a “hashtag (#INSERTWORDRELATEDTOYOURPROMOTION – we used #BeachBash for a promotion for a group of hotels in Myrtle Beach) that people can follow on Twitter. And simply type that (ex: #BOOKS) into the body of a tweet in which you ask fun trivia questions, give prizes, offer fun facts, etc. It’s a great way to get new followers.
We’ve also done friend drives on Facebook where we ask our current page friends to recruit others to be friends of the page. We then give away a prize to the person who recruits the most new friends and a prize for one of their “recruits” that we randomly select. As a final example, we ran a game of bingo on Facebook for a vacation rental company in Hilton Head. You submitted your email address to get a digital Beach Bingo card and then every day we posted a new square on Facebook. Whoever got Bingo and posted “Bingo” on Facebook first was the winner of a $500 gift certificate toward their vacation.
Get creative and have fun and you’ll be successful in engaging your audience!
Q: What should authors be tweeting about?
KR: I think everyone tweets about whatever is interesting to them – a funny thought, an article they’ve read, a quote that inspires, news, a new discovery. Again, it’s all about personality and being true to what you have to share. It has to be REAL! It’s conversational marketing at the end of the day. Think of it as the same thing as talking to a friend – what would you want to say, hear, respond to, share, repeat? Definitely put up links though!
Q: What about retweeting?
KR: Retweeting is great when you read something someone else says and you want to share it. Don’t retweet (RT) for the sake of RTing or it won’t have any real integrity.
Q: Why should people put up links? Is there a technical benefit in getting more followers to check out your page?
LM: One of the most important goals of social media, besides generating and maintaining awareness, should be driving traffic to your website. Wherever possible link back to your blog or your website for more details or videos. Use a trackable linking service like BudUrl or Hootsuite to track which links are clicked on the most. This will give you an idea over time of what topics people are most interested in. There really is no technical benefit to getting more people to your site; it’s simply more eyes.
Q: How important are blogs and how do they fit in with all these other platforms?
KR: Blogs are amazing. It’s almost a Renaissance, what’s going on in the media and it’s a creative explosion where everyone has a platform to express themselves and communicate. Some have more power and influence than others, of course. And I think it’s important to not look at blogs by “numbers” and impressions but who they reach. Sometimes a few of a targeted audience is better than thousands of a non-targeted one.
Q: Which individuals do you think do a stellar job with their social media presence and why?
KR: Coach is really doing amazing things right now, as is Tory Burch and J. Crew. Of course, I’m biased so I definitely think my beauty brand is using social media well – I have to be super creative with how we do things because we don’t have budgets and it forces us to be innovative.
LM: Comcast does a fabulous job. On Twitter @ComcastCares, they are actively monitoring for people mentioning Comcast and responding to them in real time. I’ve heard from many people what great service they got from the Twitter account after trying to call Comcast and getting nowhere.
Scott Sigler is a good author to emulate. He’s on both Twitter (@ScottSiglar) and Facebook and is very responsive to people. This is so important because your fans think of you as a celebrity and to actually be able to talk with a celebrity is very cool and makes a huge impression on people! He also has YouTube channel where he posts “trailers” of his latest books, and a podcast you can subscribe to on iTunes.
Another good company is Southwest airlines. They have a blog, are very active/interactive on Twitter (@southwestair) and handle service issues there. While they got criticized for their handling of ousting director Kevin Smith from a flight because he was too large to fit in the seat, they actually handled his rants very well over social media. They responded to him very quickly on Twitter and shortly after the incident had blog posts up noting their side of the story.
Here’s a great list of authors to follow on Twitter doing a good job:
http://mashable.com/2009/05/08/twitter-authors/
Q: Where would you point authors to learn more about social media networking?
KR: Everywhere – go to conferences, read mashable and Fast Company, subscribe to Ad Age and Brand Week, check out mediapost.com. And lastly, learn by doing.
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