author platform

The Telling Signs of Content Flops, and 6 Ways To Fix Content Marketer’s Worst Nightmare

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This post by Olsy Sorokina originally appeared on the Hootsuite blog in 3/15.

Even the best-love brands have their haters—that’s unavoidable. So for marketers, it’s often better to focus on being memorable and stand out from the crowd. Think of all those commercial jingles that just won’t get out of your head, or anticipation of products associated with the coming of a new season (Pumpkin Spice Latte, I’m looking at you). Brands that achieve this do so by straying off the beaten path. Marketing guru Seth Godin calls this “finding your purple cow,” a term inspired by a short 19th century nonsense poem and used by Godin to describe being remarkable, and succeeding in advertising by thinking outside the box.

Should you be thinking about finding your own brand’s purple cow? Finding that truly unique way of telling your story means taking risks and surprising your audience. That means the first step down the path to a more memorable bovine brand is to figure out if you’ve been boring your followers.

 

3 warning signs that you might be boring your followers:

1. Your Twitter engagement rate is low

Once Twitter has rolled out their analytics tools to all users, determining how well your messaging is performing on the microblogging network is easier than ever. Perhaps the most telling of all metrics available to users is the engagement rate, a number calculated based on the number of impressions (i.e. how many people saw the Tweet) and the number of engagements (link clicks, favorites, retweets, etc.) with your Tweets. Obviously, the higher the engagement rate, the better you’re doing. We experienced this ourselves when we doubled our Twitter engagement rate in two months.

 

Read the full post, which includes two more signs you may be boring your readers and six tips for fixing boring content, on the Hootsuite blog.

 

Everything You Need to Know to Set Up Your First Twitter Chat

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This post by Matt Diederichs originally appeared on the Hootsuite blog in 4/15.

You see the hashtags on Twitter every week: #SBizHour, #MediaChat, #CMGRHangout, and on and on. These tags refer to Twitter chats, one of the best examples of community building on Twitter. Using a shared hashtag, users meet at a pre-determined time to discuss issues of community relevance. These chats generate tons of conversation, and build deep connections between the people partaking and brands who host.

That kind of engagement has benefits for brands and personal brands alike. A successful Twitter chat community builds advocacy, loyalty, and community with participants. You’ll grow the social following of your accounts, generate valuable discussions and feedback, and show thought leadership with an outspoken audience.

Could you host your own Twitter chat? It’s not as simple as you’d think, but we’ve got your back. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

 

Before Your Chat

As tempting as it is to just jump in, you’ll need to build a plan. We recommend you consider well thought-out answers to the following questions:

Why am I hosting a chat?

 

Read the full post on the Hootsuite blog.

 

Author Websites, Blogs, and Book Sales Pages

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This post by Joel Friedlander originally appeared on his The Book Designer on 5/11/15.

Last week Stephanie Chandler invited me to do a presentation for the Nonfiction Writer’s Conference, an online event featuring lots of speakers on topics of interest to self-publishers and nonfiction authors.

The topic was “Essentials for Author Websites, Blogs and Book Sales Pages” and it was designed as a 40 minute teleconference presentation, so no visuals or slides like we would rely on in a webinar or live presentation.

(Stephanie also interviewed me last month for the Nonfiction Writer’s Association blog, and I got pretty personal in the interview. You can read it here: Expert Interview: Joel Friedlander)

For the last several years I’ve been giving talks, keynotes, and presentations to a variety of book industry groups and, to be honest, it’s one of the more enjoyable parts of my own platform building efforts.

But that’s a subject for another day.

Today I wanted to share with you the some of what went into this presentation, because thinking through your online strategy is never a bad idea. Because I use mind mapping to prepare many of my presentations, I’ll use the mind map for this event to illustrate the main points I wanted people to walk away with.

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

12 Writing Tips I’ve Learned After 20 Books and 3,000 Articles Over 20 Years

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This post by Andrew Griffiths originally appeared on Inc.

As much as we might think the written word is slowly being phased out in favor of video, right now we are writing more than ever before, both in general communication and in sharing information through content. But very few people are actually taught to write the type of copy that we have to produce these days.

I write a lot. I write books, blog posts, magazine articles, newspaper columns, and much more. I’ve learned a lot, to the point where now I teach people to write and publish everything from books to blogs.

The following 12 tips have really helped me over the last 20 years, and they might prove helpful to you.

 

1. Always visualize a person who is your ideal niche whenever you write

For example, when I am writing an article for a small-business audience, I put a picture of three small-business owners whom I know on my computer and I write as if I were sitting and talking to them (in fact, as if I were sitting and having a cup of coffee with them).

 

2. To keep continuity with your writing voice, at the beginning of each session, go back and read what you wrote last time

This is a great tip to ensure that your writing style and voice stay constant. Great writers and popular columnists have a consistent voice and your writing will develop the same style if you follow this tip.

 

3. Don’t waste a whole session on a piece that isn’t working

 

Read the full post on Inc.

 

8 Common Facebook Mistakes To Avoid

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This post by Donné Torr originally appeared on the Hootsuite blog. It’s targeted to social media managers, so if you’re an author acting as your own “social media manager” this will be valuable information.

Among the many tasks social media managers face, one is learning how to navigate the ever-changing world of Facebook. Previously on our blog, we discussed the most common social media strategy mistakes. Today, we want to focus on specific Facebook mistakes social media managers need to avoid.

To put it plainly, there is much anxiety surrounding the do’s and don’ts of social media, especially when it comes to what social media managers should do. In light of the recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm, the following are 8 common mistakes that can be avoided on Facebook.

 

8 Facebook mistakes social media managers should avoid

Overly promotional posts

According to the recent changes with Facebook, they will be reducing the number of overly promotional page posts in users’ News Feeds. This is as a result of an ongoing survey with Facebook users, in which the most common feedback was that people wanted to see more stories from friends and Pages they care about, and less promotional content. An overly promotional post is one that solely pushes people to buy a product or install an app, enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context, or reuse the same content from ads. The best way to avoid creating overly promotional posts is to leave product promotion to Facebook Advertising.

Example of this type of post:

 

Read the full post on the Hootsuite blog.

 

Authors Vs The Marketing Rabbit Hole

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This post by Deborah Riley-Magnus originally appeared on SavvyAuthors on 4/21/15.

Authors are as innocent as Alice when it comes to marketing, but nowhere near as fearless to take the plunge. What’s really down that rabbit hole? It’s called the MARKETING rabbit hole so it must be dark, terrifying, and worse yet, ineffective. After all, everyone knows that marketing is hard to do, takes way too much time, and just plain doesn’t work. You’ve already tried everything, jumped on all those cool promotional ideas your author friends are doing. You’ve tweeted like crazy, held Facebook launch parties, and guest blogged on all your best author friend’s blogs. You’ve purchased book markers and some really cool swag, and participated every time your author friends pulled together for a live or online event. Still not happy with your bottom line results? No? So that’s proof positive that marketing doesn’t work, right?

Nope. Not really.

See, the problem isn’t that you’re not trying hard to market; the problem is that you’re not marketing SPECIFICALLY for your book alone. Really taking that leap down the Marketing Rabbit Hole isn’t about just doing what everyone else is doing, and it certainly isn’t about doing it with other authors—your competition. A true trip down the Marketing Rabbit Hole is a personal adventure that focuses on your book and nothing else. It’s a different way of looking at marketing, and a clearer way of understanding what makes marketing really work for you.

 

Read the full post on SavvyAuthors.

 

Social Media Without Draining Your Day

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This post by W. Terry Whalin originally appeared on TWJ Magazine.

How in the world, have I tweeted more than seventeen thousand times? Yes, that is an accurate accounting of my activity on Twitter.

First, I was an early adapter and have been on twitter for seven or eight years. While there are times when I have not blogged or put out my newsletter or other ways to touch my audience, there are very few days that I haven’t sent out consistent information about publishing on twitter.

The result is that I’ve built a large following on this platform. Publishers are looking for authors who have a large and on-going social media presence. I’ve often written about platform-building ideas and even have a free Ebook on this topic (use the link to get it immediately).

Social media doesn’t have to consume your day and hours of time. It can—but doesn’t have to do so. It does not drain my day and I’m active in the social media area. For example, I have over 130,000 twitter followers. I want to give you several tools and insights of what I’m doing to consistently have a growing social media presence yet I do it with focused effort.

 

Read the full post on TWJ Magazine.

 

Setting Up A Book Tour

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This post by Trish Nicholson originally appeared on The Writer’s ABC Checklist on 4/16/15.

A book tour is an excellent way for you to increase the exposure of your book, to meet potential readers, and to make many useful contacts for the future. It can also be fun. Even if you have a publisher, they rarely offer their authors book tours these days, so here are some tips from my own recent experience to help you create your own book tour whether you write fiction or non-fiction.

Where to tour: it’s not necessary to jet around the world – with a little imagination a successful tour can be arranged within your own region. It’s a good idea to boost your confidence by beginning the tour locally where you are already known, and then extend your reach to new opportunities beyond your comfort zone.

When to start: a book tour is not something you can do entirely alone. You need co-operation from others to host events, or provide venues and local publicity. So begin planning well in advance: eight to twelve months beforehand is not too soon to start looking for potential hosts and ‘partners’. Many bookshops, festivals and interest groups set their programmes a year ahead.

 

Read the full post on The Writer’s ABC Checklist.

 

The 10 Commandments Of Authorial Self-Promotion

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This post by Chuck Wendig originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 4/15/15. Note that it contains strong language.

*wheezes while stumbling down a mountain carrying ten stone tablets*

*dumps stone tablets on the ground and most of them break*

*coughs for like, 40 minutes*

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE COMMANDMENTS ON STONE TABLETS. IF GOD’S SUPPOSED TO BE ALL POWERFUL WHY DIDN’T HE JUST HAND ME AN IPAD. DOES HE HAVE A THING AGAINST APPLE? GOD’S ONE OF THOSE STRIDENT ANTI-MAC PEOPLE ISN’T HE. SO HEAVY. IT HURTS. IT HURTS SO BAD.

Ahem. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Hi!

It is time to speak about the sticky subject of self-promotion. You’re a writer. You’ve written a book and somebody — you, a big publisher, a small publisher, some spider-eating alley hobo — has published it. And now you want to know how you promote the book so that the world can fling money at your face in order to greedily consume your unrefined genius. But it’s not easy. You don’t know what works. What makes sense. You don’t want to just stand on a street corner barking at passersby and hitting children with your book. But you also recognize that you’re just one little person, not some massive beast of marketing and advertising, hissing gouts of pixelated steam and vacuuming up potential buyers into the hypno-chamber that is your belly.

What do you do? How far can you go? What should you say?

Thus, I bring you these ten tablets.

Ten commandments about self-promotion for authors. In a later post I’ll get into the larger practicalities of self-promotion — what seems to work for me, what seems to do poop-squat for me — but for now, we’re going to cover the overall basics.

Let us begin.

 

Thou Shalt Throw Pebbles

The self-promotional reach of a single author is not very far.

Big publishers and companies have giant cannons.

You, however, have a satchel of pebbles.

A publisher will ideally dp outreach that puts your book in front of various folks within the distribution process — book buyers, librarians, the secret tastemaker cabal that operates out of a warehouse in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. You, as lone author, do not have that effect.

The best you can do is pick up one of your pebbles and throw it.

 

Read the full post on terribleminds.

 

7 Lessons Learned from Publishing 300 Guest Posts

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This post by Neil Patel originally appeared on Quicksprout on 4/13/15.

Over the last three years, I’ve ramped up the amount of content I create. Not only do I blog three times a week on Quick Sprout and a few times a week on my personal blog, but I also write guest posts all over the web.

In fact, currently I publish slightly more than 100 guest posts a year. As of today, I have officially published my 300th guest post.

My experience writing guest posts taught me a lot. And I can tell you that if you want to generate a positive ROI from guest-posting, you can actually do so as long as you learn from my mistakes.

Here’s what I learned from writing 300 guest posts:

Lesson #1: Go after a broad audience
Your blog already attracts a narrow audience. If it doesn’t, you should reconsider the type of content you are publishing. By going too broad on your blog, you’ll end up gaining visitors, but no conversions.

I learned this the hard way by attracting thousands of visitors to my corporate blog who wouldn’t convert into customers.

But going after too narrow an audience with your guest posts is a terrible idea. Why? There usually aren’t a ton of niche places you can go to guest-post. And if you find a handful of them, they probably won’t have the traffic volume you need.

 

Read the full post on Quicksprout.

 

My Haters, Myself: Mastering The Art Of The Haterbrag.

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This post by Amanda Hess originally appeared on Slate on 4/13/15.

Jennifer Weiner has sold millions of books, spent a combined five years on the New York Times best-seller list, and amassed 109,000 followers on Twitter. Last week, she descended into the basement of New York City’s Ace Hotel to share a handful of her self-promotional secrets. The talk, sponsored by the PEN American Center, was titled “How to Be Authentic on Social Media,” but its true subject was how to promote your book on the Internet without making everyone hate you. Weiner advised authors to tweet about the things they love (for Weiner, it’s the reality TV romance competition The Bachelor); to tweet about the authors they love (Roxane Gay and Gary Shteyngart are two of her favorites); and to tweet about their own projects “sparingly, carefully, modestly, thoughtfully, and absolutely as little as possible”—and let their now-loyal crew of social media followers spread the word. The talk was a handy primer, charmingly delivered. But it referred only obliquely to Weiner’s true social-media innovation: Co-opting her haters into her personal brand.

 

Read the full post on Slate.

 

How to Have a Successful Book Launch

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This post originally appeared on ChatEbooks on 4/7/15.

Finishing your book, from writing to editing, is not the end of your journey.  Holding a book launch is one great way to promote your book. Here are some tips on how to organize a successful book launch.

After spending countless hours writing, editing, and creating a book, it can be a rewarding experience for an author to celebrate their hard work, and can also be beneficial to have a book launch event to market and promote their book. As an author, this event gives you an opportunity to celebrate all the weeks, months, or even years that led to the publication of your book. If not organized and managed properly, however, book launch events can end up being extremely expensive and a waste of time. If done right, these events can provide crucial momentum. There are many tips for you to take into consideration to ensure a successful book launch.

One tip for you to take into consideration to ensure a successful book event is to research potential venues. It can be beneficial to actually visit these venues in person. Potential venues should be based on who you wish to invite to the event and what goals you desire to accomplish by hosting the event. It can be helpful to host a book event at a retail location. Bookstores and other retailers will be content if you can bring in a lot of people to their store, and they are also usually willing to handle the sales. Another beneficial strategy is to locate a retailer that has connections to the book. For instance, if your book is about outdoor activities, a local recreational equipment store is an excellent venue to host the event.

 

Read the full post on ChatEbooks.

 

The Author Platform – You Definitely Need One and It Should Have Been Started Yesterday

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This post by Karen Cioffi originally appeared on The Working Writer’s Club on 3/28/15.

Did you ever hear the expression, “a stitch in time saves nine?”

Whether you’re an author or freelance writer, that’s how you need to think of your writing platform. Get it started first, as the foundation of your business. It’s much more effective than trying to play catch-up.

If you’re an author, your platform needs to be in place before you hit the submissions road (if you’re going the traditional route). And, it certainly needs to be in place before you self-publish.

If you’re a freelance writer, you need to have an effective website and marketing strategies in place before you offer your services online.

To reinforce this thought, let me tell you about my father. He was in construction – he built homes. The first thing that gets done, after the blueprints are drawn, is digging for the foundation. Then the foundation is created. Then the house is built on top of the foundation.

It’s the same when building an online platform. Getting a website is the digging part; the added content and optimization of the website is the foundation of your platform.

 

Read the full post on The Working Writer’s Club.

 

5 Cheeky Tips For Bloggers Embarking On The A-Z Challenge

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This post by Tara Sparling originally appeared on her blog on 3/31/15.

April is a month when thousands of bloggers embark on what’s called the The A-Z Challenge: where people blog on 26 near-consecutive days (every day except Sundays) – on a theme of their choice. It’s a fantastic exercise. It can get the blog blood flowing, prodding bloggers either out of a pit, or into a routine; and it’s a sure-fire way to either increase your audience, or get one in the first place.

Well, I’m not doing it. You’ll thank me later, when you realise how much blogging content increases next month, that I’m not going to be adding to it. I’ll be slow blogging as usual, but reading and cheering all challenge participants loudly from the sidelines.

And yet I’m going to do one bolshie post on this whole lark anyway. How dare she make pronouncements when she’s not even participating, you cry!

Because it never stopped me before, that’s why.

And so, as I sharpen my mouse in readiness to click on the content of others, here are a few tips from one of the people who might be reading you in April.

1. Use the opportunity to do something you wouldn’t usually do.

 

Read the full post, which includes further elaboration on the first tip plus four more tips, on Tara Sparling’s blog.

 

Deadly Proof–Anatomy of a Book Launch

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This post by M. Lousia Locke originally appeared on her blog on 2/21/15.

I am proud to announce that Deadly Proof, the fourth book in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series, is now available for sale (see links below).

As with the other three novels in this series, Deadly Proof finds Annie Fuller and her beau, Nate Dawson, investigating a crime that will lead them (and the reader) into an exploration of the lives of working women in the late 19th century—in this case women who held jobs in the printing industry.

If you read my last two posts on my marketing strategy for 2015, you will know that I decided to take all my full-length books out of KDP Select and upload them everywhere and make the first book perma-free. My hope was that this strategy would provide a fertile field for this newly published book. So far, my hopes have been realized.

First of all, Maids of Misfortune, the perma-free book, is still being downloaded at a nice pace, making it highly visible in the popularity lists on Amazon and on the free lists in the iBook and Barnes and Noble stores, and I can see sell-through going on. The sales of the second book in the series, Uneasy Spirits, and now the third, Bloody Lessons, have been increasing each week. And now, some of these new fans of the series should be just about ready to  try this new book.

Second, while more complicated than back in the day when I only had to upload my books on Amazon, the process of uploading Deadly Proof for publication in multiple online stores was quite easy since I had recently gone through the process for my other novels and my short story collection.

 

Read the full post on M. Louisa Locke’s blog.