social media

13 Great Tools to Analyze and Measure Your Social Media Results

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This post by Frances Caballo originally appeared on The Book Designer on 3/5/14.

Many writers make the mistake of thinking that by being on Facebook and Twitter and other social media channels they’ve already accomplished the goal of using social media to market their books. They haven’t.

Furthermore, just being on social media and occasionally posting information isn’t a genuine outcome of your marketing efforts.

First, you need to define the purpose of your online activity, become clear on your purpose, and determine whether the outcomes you achieve will enable you to reach your overall goal of selling books, becoming better known as a writer, and receiving the recognition that you and your books deserve.

 

How to Find Your Online Groove

Let’s assume that you’ve been curating great content to post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and perhaps even Google+. We’ll also assume that you’re scheduling your posts throughout the day and allocating time in the late afternoon to be social. In other words, you are perusing your news feeds, liking and possibly sharing some posts, leaving comments, and thanking your Twitter followers for retweeting your tweets.

There’s something else you need to start doing: analyzing your metrics. It’s important to spend few minutes every week analyzing your efforts to make sure that you are on your way to achieving your established goals.

 

Why Are Social Media Analytics Important?

Here are some examples of why you need to pay attention to analyses of your social media activity.

◾ What if you started to use an application that helped you discover that your Facebook posts were appealing to more women than men? Would that information prompt you to adjust your messaging?

◾ What if you discovered that your tweets were most often retweeted at five a.m. Eastern Standard Time? Would that information cause you to start scheduling your posts when East Coast residents are more likely to be online and using social media?

◾ What if you were to discover that a significant number of your Facebook fans were from Great Britain? Wouldn’t you want to schedule some of your status updates to the United Kingdom’s time zone?

The obvious answer to the above questions is yes.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Book Designer.

 

Anne Rice Owns the Bullies

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This post originally appeared on STGRB on 1/26/14.

We’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. Sorry we are so late in doing it.
In our last post on Anne Rice, we showed you how she has been lighting up the Amazon fora with her wisdom and advice for authors. We also mentioned her unfortunate encounter with the bullies:

Note her Warning to Authors at the bottom. Unfortunately, like everyone else who has braved the discussion threads of Amazon, Anne too has noticed the hostility and general contempt that the AFT (Amazon Fora Trolls) have for authors. In fact, we published some of her comments on this topic in our post, Words of Wisdom From Anne Rice.

So… do you think she got attacked for her warning? You bet.

Has she stopped posting and offering her advice to authors? Nope.

In fact, she has responded to the trolls with such sophistication and eloquence, it seems they don’t really know how to respond to her. She’s too smart and trolls tend to be … well … not so smart.

In our post today we’ll show just how smart she is. She was immediately able to see right through the Amazon bullies and make intelligent observations that get right to the heart of the matter and reveal these nasty people for who and what they are: internet trolls. What’s more, she managed to isolate all of the most well-known trolls who stalk authors and their books simply because they have nothing better to do with their time.

First we’ll show you her general view of the Amazon bullies:

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes many screenshots of exchanges between Amazon reviewers and Anne Rice, on STGRB.

Death By Promotion

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This post by Heidi Cullinan originally appeared on her blog on 2/11/14.

Getting Real About the Costs to Authors and Readers in the Current Marketing Environment

My name is Heidi Cullinan, and I’m here to write stories and publish books.

I’m not here to market. I’ll do a little of that because one must, because there is no cultural bulletin board right now my books can exist at, especially not mine as I’m a bit niche and still largely in my own pond. I strive to lift awareness of not just my work but works like mine, the whole LGBT romance pool, but even that is not the main purpose of why I’m here. I like to thank bloggers with ad purchases and guest posts and ARCs. I’ve made a forum for fans to chat, and if you link/@ reply me on social media and I’m able to see it, I’ll do my best to reply or at least like your post. I don’t buy reviews. I don’t ask people to buy books on a certain day at a certain hour at a certain place to game the system. I don’t send mass invites to “events” on Goodreads or Facebook. I don’t add people to newsletters who haven’t asked to be, and in fact I try to parcel out sub-newsletters for the truly die-hard to get ALL THE DEETS and those who just want release dates to not be spammed. I don’t cold-email other authors and ask them for pimpage or, even crazier, give them book recs. I don’t copy other people’s work because I can’t think of my own stories or hump sideways on someone else’s work because I’d sure like to scrape off some of their overflow. I don’t run around to ten million social media sites making sure I comment on every blog post, every review, every single mention of my work. I don’t join every new social media site and work up a huge presence there. I don’t stick my nose into reader conversations unless invited, and even if invited, sometimes I might decline. Because I’m a writer. I write books. I try to write a lot of books. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I do.

You would think, you really would, that such a declaration would be rather like stating the obvious. Except every goddamn day that passes, I feel more and more like the last unicorn, and even though I can’t find anyone actually turning the screws, I feel more and more pressure every day to market, promote, to be a flaming brand across the literary horizon. It’s killing me, and I think it’s eating a lot of our souls.

 

Click here to read the full post on Heidi Cullinan’s site.

 

An Author's Guide To Acing Pinterest

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This post by Sima Thakkar originally appeared on the San Francisco Book Review on 12/11/13.

Pinterest is so much more than just a pretty interface. While the UI (user interface) does boast a beautiful display of amazing visuals that you can mindlessly scroll through all day long, Pinterest is an extremely powerful tool that can drive potential readers back to your website. And we’re talking masses. Ready to get started? Here’s a 5-step process to get your Pinterest author page up and running:

Step 1: Claim Your Username
Just like all your other social networks, you want to be sure to claim your Pinterest URL. Your Pinterest name will read as www.pinterest.com/username. Try to keep this username consistent with your Twitter and Facebook handle names, so your audience knows exactly where to find you.

Step 2: Complete Your Profile
Just like any other social media profile make sure you’ve uploaded your profile image and filled out all the necessary information including your website URL, links to your other social media profiles, and a short description.

Step 3: Create Interesting Boards

 

Click here to read the full post on the San Francisco Book Review.

 

12 Most In-Demand Content Types for your Website

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This post by Jeremy Powers originally appeared on 12Most on 2/5/14.

Business is all about giving customers what they want. On your website, your prospects expect an awful lot from you. Your visitors want proof you are trustworthy, human, and smart. At the same time, however, your web visitors want, DEMAND really, you keep them entertained, informed and engaged.

How can you keep visitors to your website engaged?

The best method to keep your customers and prospects interested is to make your content interesting. The tactic we are focused on today is diversity of content type. Here are some content types readers enjoy. I encourage you to make your website more interesting by using all of them throughout the year.

 

1. Video

There are many ways you can use video to engage your website visitors. Sam Fiorella covered some great options using video just last week. I don’t think you need to use video all the time, but you can consider video your secret weapon. Video can give your website a serious traffic boost. As an added bonus, your regular visitors will appreciate the new medium.

 

2. Infographics

Infographics have been talked about for some time as a great source of link-bait. For our purposes, I want you to forget all that SEO mumbo-jumbo, and I want you to just think about creating something truly unique for your visitors. A one-of-a-kind graphic can be a simple thing. Some of my favorite infographics are hand-drawn, and they are my favorites because they are so memorable.

 

3. List posts

What is a list post? Ummm, I want you to open your favorite article here on 12 Most. That is a list post. List posts can be done in a variety of ways. You don’t have to expand on each individual item, but I recommend it. The nice thing about list posts is that these posts tend to encourage reader comments. The posts are “scannable,” and easy to appreciate with minimal effort by the reader.

 

Click here to read the full post on 12Most.

 

Facebook Is About To Get More Friendly—Just Not To Brands

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Authors and publishers who use Facebook Fan Pages as part of their platform will want to read this article by Selena Robinson on ReadWrite.

Yes, Facebook is about to change its newsfeed algorithm yet again. Here are some highlights from the article:

Facebook went on to say that users weren’t as engaged with the service when shown more text updates from Pages. So Facebook is now telling Page owners that if they want their posts to appear in newsfeeds, they ought to feature photos or links.

The change is the latest in a slew of newsfeed tweaks that aim to put “higher quality content” front and center in the newsfeed. Facebook is trying to eradicate annoying memes and Upworthy-style articles by encouraging pages to share only interesting and relevant posts.

But Facebook’s algorithm changes also risk minimizing the exposure small businesses and brands can expect from the social network. Mark Cuban, billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, pointed out last year that Facebook’s policy of charging pages huge fees for his team’s posts to reach more newsfeeds forced him to look for other outlets to share team updates.

 

Click here to read the full article on ReadWrite.

 

100 Tips to Be a Smarter, Better Twitterer

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This post originally appeared on the Computer Colleges site on 5/12/09.

1. Set up your profile: Give people a glimpse beyond what your tweets reveal.

2. Include a picture: Make sure you add a photo of yourself so that your tweets will be more personal.

3. Create a simple and short Twitter name: The longer your Twitter ID, the more space it takes up, and having a complicated name can make it hard for people to respond to or mention you.

4. Just do it: Don’t just lurk-jump into the conversation.

5. Make your profile link something that tells more about you: Share your blog, an about me page, or any other page that offers more information about the person behind the tweets.

6. Share photos: Post your photos on Twitter to shake things up a bit and add some interest to your stream.

7. Use proper grammar: Occasional abbreviations are passable, but make sure that your tweets are readable.

8. Use your real name: Build your personal brand by choosing your real name as your Twitter ID.

9. List your location: Many people use Twitter for local networking, so they’ll be more likely to follow you if they know where you are.

10. Learn the lingo: If you don’t know what DM, @, RT, and other Twitter symbols and words are, look them up or ask.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes 90 more Twitter tips, on the Computer Colleges site.

 

How to Curate Your Facebook News Feed

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This post by Kurt Wagner originally appeared on Mashable on 1/19/14. The post explains recent changes to the Facebook news feed design, and what users can do to control the content shown there.

Baby photos. News articles. Selfies. Advertisements. Job announcements.

It’s likely your Facebook News Feed contains some combination of these, if not all of them (and likely other categories, too). That’s both the beauty and the curse of News Feed: It provides updates from all aspects of your life in one place, including those you may not care to see.

In March, Facebook announced a News feed redesign. Mark Zuckerberg told press, “What we are trying to give everyone is a copy of the best personalized newspaper in the world.” The redesign has since stumbled, but the goal of turning Facebook into a “personalized newspaper” remains strong. And Facebook could use your help.

Mashable sat down with Greg Marra, Facebook’s product manager for News Feed, to discuss how users can best curate the content that they see in News Feed. The easiest way to change what you see? Engage with content, says Marra.

“The basic interactions of News Feed are some of the most important signals that we get,” he explains. “Unfortunately, those interactions aren’t able to capture everything that we want to know, so we also give people additional controls to tell us things we can’t figure out just from normal usage of News Feed.”

Here’s what we learned.

 

If You Want to Stop Seeing Posts From a Facebook Friend…

If you’re cold-blooded, eliminating News Feed posts from an annoying friend or ex-flame is simple: Unfriend them. But many people don’t have the heart to completely eliminate someone from their Facebook life.

 

Click here to read the full article on Mashable.

 

How Social Media Influences Purchasing Decisions

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There’s a terrific infographic over at Alltop / Holy Kaw! that breaks down some very interesting statistics about how social media can influence purchasing decisions. This kind of information can be very useful for authors and publishers who use social media for promotion. Here are just a few of the facts included in the infographic:

71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.

38% of Facebook users purchase an item after sharing or Liking it on Facebook.

50% of purchases inspired by social media exposure take place within one week, 80% take place within three weeks.

 

Click here to view the infographic on Alltop / Holy Kaw!

 

Brave New Bullying: Goodreads Gangs, Amazon Attacks—What Are Writers to Do?

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In this post, Kristen Lamb shares her own experiences with bullies, from childhood days right up to the present, as well as her tips for dealing with online bullies who may be stressing you out, wasting your time, or even negatively impacting your sales. From the post:

Brave New Bullying
Now we live in a Digital Age and bullies abound. The Internet gives them access to torment us 24-7 no matter where we go. I was so thrilled the day I was asked to blog for Huffington, yet unlike here, I have no control over the tone of the comments. There are people who are simply made of spite and hate and they will take it out from the safety of a computer behind the anonymity afforded by monikers. Now when I post, I simply scan and, if anything is hateful in tone? I won’t even read it.

Sad to say, this is why I don’t read reviews before buying any book. There are too many sock puppets and trolls. Goodreads and Amazon are RIFE with bullying. I’ve had friends bullied on blogs and even once had someone start a hate blog directed toward me, “Kristen Lamb The Face of Misandry” which is “Man-hating”, btw. I had to look it up.

It’s sad to say, but when researching for this topic, it seemed most of the information was for kids, schools and teens. But bullies never go away. They often can’t be stopped, but maybe we can make it tougher for them to spread their cruelty.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes concrete steps you can take to discourage online bullying of yourself and other authors, on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

7 Ways To Deal With Troublesome Facebook Fans

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This post, by Aubre Andrus, originally appeared on Mashable on 1/4/14.

Social media managers know what’s up — with thousands of fans on a Facebook Page, there’s bound to be at least one who ruins the fun for everyone. He shoots down every post, is the first to call out a typo, and loves incorporating profanities into even his most positive comments.

Add your textbook spammers, angry customers and historically unhappy people to the mix and it’s no wonder someone has to keep an eye on your company’s Facebook Page at all times. It’s easy to consider banning every user who ruffles your feathers, but you should weigh multiple options before planning your attack strategy. Here are seven ways to deal with your least favorite Facebook fans: the a-holes.

1. Hide the post or comment.

To hide a comment, hover over the top-right hand “x” and click “Hide.” Now the post can only be seen by the person who wrote the comment and his or her friends. They’ll have no idea the post is hidden, and you can always click “Unhide” later if you like.

When someone posts on your Page’s Timeline and you’d like to delete it, click “x” in the top-right corner, then “Hidden from Page” from the dropdown menu. Be warned: If you hide a photo from your Timeline, it will still appear in your Page’s photo album. So be sure to delete it from the album if you’d like it to disappear for good.

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Mashable.

 

Building Your Platform

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This post, by Carolyn Kaufman, originally appeared on her Archetype Writing site in July of 2009. While it’s over four years old, the post’s coverage of the basics of author platform is still applicable to any author just starting out with platform.

What is a platform?
A platform is name recognition of some kind. Celebrity, if you will.

Why do you need one?
A platform will help you attract the attention of an agent and later a publisher. Why?

Because having a platform proves that you:

* Care enough about your project to promote it
* Have some marketing savvy
* Come with a built-in fan based (read: guaranteed sales)

More importantly, a good platform will help sell your book when it comes out. Fewer and fewer publishers are putting money into promoting books — especially books by unknowns and newcomers. That means that the onus of promotion falls almost completely (and sometimes completely) on you, the author. You are the one who’s going to be making people aware of the book, and convincing them to buy it. You are the one who’s responsible for making the book a success.

Just sit with that for a minute.

Your job doesn’t end with writing the book. It doesn’t end with landing an agent or even a publisher. These days, you must also be a marketing expert.

The good news is, you can learn how if you don’t know. And I’m going to help you get started.

Do you already have the makings of a platform?

 

If you’re writing nonfiction, do you have any of the following in the area you’re writing about?

* Advanced degrees or certifications (e.g. MA, PhD)

* Teaching experience

* Speaking experience (e.g. you’re the pastor of a large church, you give presentations to large corporate groups)

* Professional (i.e. on-the-job) experience

* Expert experience (i.e. have you been quoted in newspapers or magazines as an expert on your topic?

* Published articles in local (good) or national (better) magazines or newspapers

* A polished, professional-looking website or blog

 

If you’re writing fiction, do you have any of the following?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Archetype Writing.

 

How Twitter is Blanding Branding

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This post, by Kian Kaul, originally appeared as a guest post on Byzantine Roads on 5/3/13.

These days every writer is their own brand, we’re constantly told in advice columns on mid-ranking marketing blogs and rushed non-fic titles (many of which are only available in the Kindle or Nook store), but what does it mean to be a brand?

A brand is a name or title which represents a product, through an experience, communicated by a primary feeling. And that experience can change, sometimes drastically, depending on the needs of the market.

Coke is positivity, excitement and energy — but not too much energy, otherwise it would be Rockstar. Pepsi is all those things but in a blue can and with celebrity stunt casting. It’s also diabetes and tooth decay in excess, but that wasn’t included on the creative brief. Ralph Lauren was originally clothing intended for upper-middle class white people until “urban” black influencers assimilated the preppy style into their own cultural positioning. But these are the major brands, the celebrity brands.

When you’re a celebrity brand people just want to feel like they know you. When you’re not a celebrity brand you have to offer something. Anything. Don’t have anything? How about an intellectually unchallenging motivational message that may or may not have anything to do with the thing you’re selling?

If you’re a writer reading this, you’re likely not a celebrity or a major brand. You’re the fifteenth bottle of detergent from the left and you’re actively tweeting how “fresh” and “clean” your formula will make one’s clothes, but then again, so are all the rest. So, how do you stand out? Do you refine your message? Do you clearly define yourself and your approach so maybe your brand actually means something and carries some sort of significance?

 

Click here to read the rest of the post on Byzantine Roads.