How are you using the social media?
Learn a few tips from our panel:
LaShaunda Hoffman - SORMAG
LaShaunda Hoffman - SORMAG
L. Martin - Urbanliterary Review
Tiffany Amber Stockton
Stop in and share how you are using social media to market your books.
12 comments:
Some of the things you should avoid when using Twitter the social networking site.
• Do not sell in an overt way.
• Do not limit yourself to only speaking about how you want leads, or how you want to sell houses, or how you want to make money. This will turn most prospects off.
• Do you already have a Twitter account for personal communications? If so, do not send personal messages to potential clients or site visitors. This is very unprofessional.
• Do not spam. Spam is a big violation on Twitter.
• Do not pressure your followers to buy. Your followers are those who signed up to receive your tweet updates. They chose to do so of their own free will. But they can also choose to end these updates. That’s why pressure shouldn’t be applied. Users do not want to feel used; therefore, use clever forms of advertising, as there is less pressure and everyone is happy.
• Don’t be the minute to minute guy or gal. It’s an instant turn off to see 19 posts detailing your minute by minute dismal morning.
• This is a social site and you should be creating (or joining) conversations. If your tweets are just you speaking to your following at large, and not any specific person, you won’t grow your followers,
Be patient. Don't try to get immediate results. Build your network one sound relationship at a time.
When you are building relationships and making friends, you must bring added value to the table. That’s the best way to experience success with marketing on Facebook and Twitter. Selling should be done after you've have given your audience something meaningful.
L Martin Johnson Pratt
co - founder of Urban Literary Review
founder of Iluvblackwomen Brand
Social Media Manager/Writer for Rolling Out Magazine
Radio Host of Technocolorradioshow in NYC on 90.3FM WHCR
Come Back and I will discuss marketing on Facebook....
L. Martin gave some excellent tips on Twitter. I'll piggy-back on them to share about Facebook, blogs, Twitter and merging your online presence to maximize your time and double or triple your efforts.
Let's face it. We're all busy. We have other jobs, spouses, children, family, household responsibilities and so many other things demanding our time. We can't spend all day on the computer making connections and networking.
So, here are some tips to help you make one or two updates and have it post to all of your online media outlets.
• First, if you have a blog and you have Facebook, you can set your blog to automatically post on Facebook as a note each time you post to your blog. This way, you'll reach twice the audience with single effort. You do this by logging in and going to your profile, then clicking on Notes and looking on the right-hand side for Notes Settings. It will tell you that you're not linking a blog, and you can click to add a blog via RSS.
• Second, utilize Twitter to post a teaser for your blog and add a URL for where your readers can find more. If the URL is too long, use www.tinyurl.com to shorten it.
• Third, set your Twitter account to update your status on Facebook. There is an application that will automatically do this.
Now, for your blog, it's critical to offer value to your readers.
• Visit other blogs. Comment. Get yourself out there. Link to them on your blog and make sure you visit others as often as you can. When you leave comments, make sure they're relevant and provide something unique that might entice followers of that blog to come follow you too! And always include a link in your comment.
• Offer value to your readers. Readers want to feel they are getting something out of what you're giving them. Don't just make it all about you; rather, make it something readers can take away or
• When you do any public speaking, talk about your blog. But even more than that, offer a chance for a free book to those who sign up for a monthly newsletter. Building your email distribution list is really, really wise. And it translates into more sales than simply blog traffic.
• Pay to have a great blog skin (blog background and color scheme with graphics) created. It's not that expensive. My company, Eagle Designs, offers this service.
• Comment back to your readers. Engage with them and share a bit more about yourself on a personal level. Readers love to feel connected to those they're "following."
• Post frequently, preferably on average of 3 times a week. You will lose readers if they can't determine a reliable schedule of their own for when they'll find new posts by you.
Now, just dive on in and have a great time. You'll be better for the experience!
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Tiffany Amber Stockton is an award-winning author and freelance web designer who with her husband owns Eagle Designs, an online marketing solutions company that's ready to serve you. Visit her web sites to learn more.
Amber Stockton - Author
Eagle Designs
Here are some useful links I referenced in my previous comment:
Tying Twitter to Facebook
Tying your blog to Facebook
Have fun!
Hello everyone, thank you so much for stopping by our workshop. My name is LaShaunda Hoffman and I consider myself the princess of promotion. Everything I learned about promotion, was by trial and error. I’m not complaining, but it was great experience and I try to learn something everyday.
Our topic today is social media. I know for some of you, you’re cringing. Not another way to promote.
I like social media. It’s a great way to interact with others. I’m fairly new to this new way of promoting so I’ll share about my learning curve.
• Know why you want to join different social media.
I learned this lesson after the fact, but I stepped back and reevaluated why I was on certain networks.
I joined different networks to meet other writers, to promote SORMAG and to learn.
Since I’m a writer and a promoter I decided I would have two accounts. I joined twitter as LaShaunda and as SORMAG. This way I keep my personal stuff under LaShaunda and SORMAG stuff under SORMAG.
• Do you have the time
This decision hinders a lot of people when it comes to joining social medias. They just don’t have the time to get on the internet and do all this mingling.
However I disagree, you have to make time. If you want to get your name in front of people you have to network. You can’t spend all your time writing and none on networking.
Make time, if its 30 minutes a day. That’s better than no time at all.
• Choose a few networks not all.
I know I was guilty of this at first, joining everything, then feeling overwhelmed because I couldn’t visit all my new networks.
Choose one or two start with then add more if you have the time.
• Have fun
When networking becomes a chore, you will not want to participate in them. Have fun when you’re on your social medias. Read the posts and have a good laugh.
• Share your wisdom
One of the things I love about social medias are the links people post about different things. I’ve learned how to improve my writing. I’ve met different authors because of interview links. I’ve learned about a new technology because of links.
Don’t have anything to post about, think about the links you read, send them out. Share topics that have intrigued you. You’ll surprise yourself about what you know and what people want to read about.
Example: Talk about this conference. Tell your readers how you’ve been participating. Include a link to your favorite workshops.
Online networking is one of the easiest things you can do for your business. Yes it takes time, but you’re trying to grow your writing business. The more people you meet the more people you can share your books with.
See ya on the net,
LaShaunda C. Hoffman
SORMAG Online Conference Host
Thanks all. I'm on several social media outlets and just added tweetdeck to hopefully better manage my time on the social networks.
Tiffany thanks for those links on how to link to facebook/twitter because it will save me a whole bunch of time.
Good stuff!
I definitely encourage building relationships. You can't spend all your time on social media, but definitely find the ones you are most comfortable and block out time. I recommend at least 3 (with 1 being Facebook - it is the largest social network)
Make sure you know how to effectively connect your website, blog and social media together so you are using time wisely. Research tools to use whether it's online, desktop or an app for your mobile phone.
Make it fun, but beneficial.
Take note that good marketing is the successful combination of strategies utilizing the “Product, Price, Place and Promotion” model, which is the backbone of the process by which the producer satisfies the needs of the consumer.
Promotion is the method of informing your target audience that your product or service is available to them. Marketing combines strategies to reach your target audience, while promotions tells your target audience that you exist.
CC Chapman, managing partner of The Advance Guard, who can be followed at @CC_chapman on Twitter and Facebook, says “Facebook has tools that allow you to market directly to those people you want to get in front of. The addition of Fan Pages allow any company to find out who loves their product or services and then develop content to engage them. It is a powerful new marketing tool.”
Here are a marketing tips:
1. Keep in mind, Facebook is primarily for family and friends as well as their contacts.
2. Find out what is important to your audience. You can learn this information by talking to
them, not at them, and by sharing what you know is of importance to them.
3. Find a niche angle to discuss, write a blog and provide data about schools,
neighborhoods, government, families, nightlife, investment properties, etc. If it doesn’t
interest you, it probably won’t interest them either.
4. Get to know others in your service area; merchants, other agents, stay-at-home
moms, dads, and other business people.
The AdvanceGuard.com has a FREE Paper on Marketing on Facebook that you can download here
http://www.theadvanceguard.com/about_face_white_paper/
Thanks for the excellent comments. They were helpful ,practical, and told about the proper etiquette without being "techki". Thanks .I am one of those who initially wanted nothing to do with blogging or tweeting. I still have not joined Facebook. I started to and then change my mind. However, lately I have been "renewing my mind".
Linda ,
Faygo's Report-https//www.instanter.wordpress.com
Tiffany Stockton your advice about how to be more efficent was helpful.Now I have to work on what I consider to be the "techki" part of learning how to apply the right applications to merge the blog and twitter etc. You have, as all of the panelist have made it clear I need to start adding value to my blog a lot more. I love all of the useful comments by all. I could comment about each.
Linda Fegins
Faygo's Report http://www.instanter.wordpress.com
As I read LaShaunda's remarks and Ty's maybe I should get on Facebook. Also this is a silly question but I see that everyone talks about linking. Leave a link, send a link. Please explain this and the tools needed. Is linking leaving your blog site or website.How do you link? I know you are surprised I do not know this.
Linda Fegins
Detroit
LDFaygo@aol.com
LLadyLaw- twitter account
http://www.instanter.wordpress.com
Linda,
That's how you learn by asking questions.
When I say link, I mean an url address. Most pages on a website or blog have url address that you can use to bring someone to them.
http://sormag.blogspot.com
this is a URL address and when it is underlined it is called a hyper link.
I recommend facebook as the first to try. Its fun to read what people are saying and it stays up until you refresh the page.
I will be keeping the conference pages in the archives. I have the 2005 and 2007 on the blog too, do a search and you can find them.
To both Linda's. :) You're quite welcome for the tips. So much excellent advice has been posted here and some great leads on where to get started in social networking.
As LaShaunda mentioned, linking is simply including the URL of your blog in every comment you make on other blogs or Facebook pages. And if you have a separate web site from a blog, make sure your blog has an easy-to-find link to your web site. Then, leave a link to both your blog and web site in all comments.
For example:
www.amberstockton.com
http://amberstockton.blogspot.com
www.eagle-designs.com
You can also hyperlink them (which means people can click directly on the link and go to the site) by using the following code:
< a href = "http://www.amberstockton.com" >My web site < /a >
Only, remove all spaces. I inserted them to you could see the sample code. Replace "my web site" with whatever name you want to give the URL you're supplying. And replace my URL with yours.
Try it out. You're sure to become a pro at it in no time! :)
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