social media

Secrets Of A Small Press

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This post originally appeared on Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified on 5/5/15.

Can it really be two months since I blogged? Wow. Well, I always said I wouldn’t blog unless I have something to say, so I guess the last couple of months have been pretty thought-free.

The idea for today’s post came to me after reading about the death of Ruth Rendell, one of mystery’s luminaries. This isn’t something I’d necessarily say in public, but I didn’t like her work. Nor was I a fan of the late P.D. James, either. I found Rendell’s work to be cold, and James’ to be unbearably snobbish. Both had a tendency to write books that were much too long, and I suspect both women liked the sound of their own voices (words on the page) a bit too much.

Are you clutching your heart, gasping in horror that an editor who publishes mystery fiction should dare say such things? I should say that I love any writer who has a loyal following and whose name sells books; I’m not snobbish that way. But I recognize that an effective brand name doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to like the brand myself. Would I buy stock in Pepsi? Sure I would, but I never touch the stuff. I’m a Coke man.

Anyway, this crazy desire to admit that I think both Rendell and James are overrated made me think about the other “secrets” that we small publishers keep close to the vest (but not any longer). Here are a few:

 

Read the full post on Mysterious Matters.

 

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.

 

Whose Game Are You Playing?

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This post by John Pettigrew originally appeared on Future Proofs on 5/4/15.

We hear a lot about Amazon, the new giant in the playground. But Amazon may actually be the least of the industry’s problems, because they at least play by rules we recognise. There are plenty of other giants out there who are playing entirely different games – but who may still stomp all over our playground. The question is, what do we do about them?

The publishing industry feels under threat from a lot of places these days. And the most commonly mentioned cause of this fear is surely Amazon. Starting off as just another book retailer, Amazon has grown hugely and very cleverly to become a true global giant.

Amazon seems to be the kid everyone’s afraid of – bigger, stronger, and not afraid to use its muscle to get what it wants!

Playing by the rules
However, Amazon is still playing in our playground, basically working with the same rules publishing companies are used to – getting books to customers more effectively and more cheaply than ever before. This is a game that publishers understand and play all the time. And we can see this by the way that publishers and Amazon are always talking about this or that, arguing about a particular situation and coming to new agreements.

The problem, it seems to me, is that Amazon isn’t actually what publishers should be most worried about. We fear Amazon, I think, because we understand it pretty well and so can predict clearly what effect its actions are going to have on us.

 

A different game
The true danger may not be Amazon but other giants who are playing entirely different games. Companies like Google and Facebook, who use content (including content from publishers) as part of their business but who don’t really care much about that content because their real business is selling advertising.

 

Read the full post on Future Proofs.

 

BuzzFeed Books Won’t Kill Literary Criticism — But Book Snobbery Might

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This post by Michelle Dean originally appeared on Flavorwire on 11/8/13.

So here’s the thing: yesterday BuzzFeed Books named its new editor, a sometime friend of mine named Isaac Fitzgerald. I knew Isaac as the Managing Editor of a literary site known as The Rumpus, where I was a weekend editor for several months in 2012. 

Yesterday, he gave the following quote to a media reporting site:

BuzzFeed will do book reviews, Fitzgerald said, but he hasn’t figured out yet what form they’ll take. It won’t do negative reviews: “Why waste breath talking smack about something?” he said. “You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip.” Fitzgerald said people in the online books community “understand that about books, that it is something that people have worked incredibly hard on, and they respect that. The overwhelming online books community is a positive place.”

It’s likely that you, dear readers, have not have been following the latest scintillating round of slapfighting in book critic circles about the “state of criticism.” It’s always a subject of dubious interest to the general population, I think, but let me explain briefly anyway, because the debate is crashing into the perennial concern about the declining popularity of books in our culture, and we all care about books here at Flavorwire, so.

 

Read the full post on Flavorwire.

 

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.

 

Facebook Ads: Should Indie Authors Buy Them?

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This post by Frances Caballo originally appeared on his The Book Designer on 5/14/14.

If you have a Facebook page, have you noticed that fewer of your posts are reaching your fans’ news feeds?

You’re not alone. As Facebook moves further in the direction of monetization, and as it adjusts its algorithm, fewer of our Facebook page posts are reaching our fans.

Facebook’s reasons for the recent improvements make sense to some extent. A brand page (also called a company page or an author page) you liked when you were 37 may not be a page you have any interest in when you’re 42. Similarly, a friend you were close with four years ago could have moved away and may no longer be in your tight social sphere.

Facebook whittles your news feed to reflect your changing preferences based on your actions in the form of Likes, Shares and Comments.

According to a February 2014 Pew Research Center report, half of all adult Facebook users have more than 200 friends in their network. Users who are 29 and younger have even more.

In addition, last year AllFacebook reported that the average user had liked 40 pages but that figure is higher for residents of the United States, where the average user likes an estimated 70 pages.

In light of these numbers, Facebook assumes that the average user doesn’t have sufficient time to review every post from every friend and author page they’ve liked in the past several years. So the network steps in and determines which friends you’d prefer to hear from, based on your most frequent interactions, and decides which of your own posts from your Facebook page will appear in your fans’ news feeds.

In other words, if all of your fans don’t engage with your page on a regular basis, fewer and fewer over time will see any of your carefully written Facebook posts.

 

Research Proves that Organic Reach on Facebook Is Plummeting

 

Read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Socially Awkward: A Simple Guide to Social Media

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This post by Jandra Sutton with Steph Rodriguez originally appeared on San Francisco Book Review on 3/20/15.

Chances are you’ve read countless articles about the best ways to use social media outlets, like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, or LinkedIn, and devoured list after list of quick-tips—even “for dummies”—at an attempt to implement a wealth of information with varying degrees of success. It’s great that you’re using social media, but that’s only one part of the equation. You’ve already mastered all the basics to be accepted by the social media in-crowd: “like,” “share,” “tweet.” Yet, what about the things you should avoid at the risk of becoming a social media outcast? By following these simple guidelines to online etiquette, even the most socially awkward computer user will roam the halls of social media with much success.

 

Tasteful Self-Promotion by Online Appeal

Facebook and Twitter are perfect outlets to express a variety of thoughts and experiences like: how great the bike ride to work was, photographs of a tasty dish from that new, swanky restaurant in town, an interesting article you read, or even as a means to self-promote your brand or new novel.

Still, as a general rule, only 1 out of 5 posts should be blatantly self-promotional, like those including a link to buy your book. The other four, leave open to share a new blog post, comment on a topic relevant to your book, ask followers a question that interests them, or retweet that insightful article you read over the weekend. Flesh out your social media pages with more than just attempts to sell. This will further engage your loyal followers.

 

Read the full post on San Francisco Book Review.

 

Google+ Is Being Dismantled, And That’s A Good Thing

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This post by Nate Swanner originally appeared on Slashgear on 3/2/15. It’s being shared here because it should be of interest to the many authors who’ve used Google+ as the foundation and hub of their author platform efforts and web presence.

In a recent chat with Forbes, Google’s Sundar Pichai turned a few heads by noting Google+ would be considered as parts — not the sum of those parts. Rather than a social network, Plus would be a stream. And Photos. And Communications. Adding a bit of fuel to the fire was the subsequent dismissal/resignation of Dave Besbris as the head of Google+. Besbris took over for Vic Gundotra, who spearheaded Plus from inception. With a new boss in Bradley Horowitz, the circumstance around Plus might sound confusing. That’s because they kind of are.

The first thing to note is that Google+ isn’t going anywhere yet. It’s still Plus. Google has no plans to change that right now, regardless of how anyone considers it. You’ll still log on, and it’ll still be Google+.

Though Google isn’t saying Plus is dead, it was also never really lively. From the jump, it was dogged with a ‘ghost town’ moniker, and seen as just a bit too different to really latch on. Worse were those nearby streams, often full of people asking how everything worked, and being shamed by knowledgeable users or ignored. Plus was/is just weird.

 

Read the full post on Slashgear.

 

How Authors Can Build Their Audience on Instagram

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This post by Adrienne Erin originally appeared on Duolit on 7/14/14.

One of the fundamental rules writers strive to follow is “show, don’t tell.”

While this is meant to prevent clunky exposition (or the dreaded exposition monologue), it’s also a great piece of advice for the modern writer on social media. Although it might seem more natural for authors to flock to word-based sites like Twitter to promote their work or build their fan base, an image-based site like Instagram can also serve as a great promotional and relational tool for writers.

Here are six ways writers can harness the power of Instagram to build their audience:

 

Find a Brand New Audience

Each social media platform attracts a unique audience. While there will always be some crossover (from Twitter users to Facebook users, and Facebook users to Instagram users), the fact remains each site meets a different need and will therefore have a different user base.

 

Read the full post, which includes five additional Instagram strategies and details of each, on Duolit.

 

Lemons Into Lemonade: How To Deal With Online Harassment, Share Your Story

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This post by Christina Katz originally appeared on The Christina Katz Writing & Publishing Studio on 2/18/15.

I am always encouraging my students to turn their lemon life experiences into written lemonade. And this is me following my own advice.

I was persecuted and harassed in a huge online community yesterday, and lemme tell you, it was WEIRD.

The person doing the bullying seemed quite fixated on me and was following me around as I moved from group to group, offering me chastisements in a private Facebook message thread that she initiated.

I persistently asked to understand what her issue was with me, and my question was never answered.

The only comment that came close was, “I want you to buy into what I’m trying to do, that’s all.”

Sooo, yeah. Let’s just say chasing me around on social media is not a good way to get me to buy into to WHATEVER you are trying to do. Especially when you fail to communicate to me what that is.

In the end, I could not reconcile with the person, so I left a group she facilitated that I was part of, and reported her to the folks responsible for the larger groups’ existence.

But I did not get away from her before she took some totally uncalled for swipes at me.

 

Read the full post on The Christina Katz Writing & Publishing Studio.