Book Marketing Blogs
by Penny SansevieriMarch 30, 2012
Here’s a look back at some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include what to pin to your Facebook Timeline, the top 10 social networks for marketing, tips for hitting the #1 spot on the Amazon store, how to drive more traffic to your site with Google+, and much more. Happy marketing!
**************
* 7 Steps to Gain More Fans and Followers Organically
Discover the secrets to growing your following with these practical tips:
http://socialmediatoday.com/lauren-parajon/473583/7-steps-gain-more-fans-and-followers-organically (more…)
March 28, 2012
At one time or another it could happen to all of us. We’re attacked online. Whether it’s an errant blog post, a misunderstood tweet, or something more serious it’s out there and if it’s coming up in search, it’s always bad news. Unfortunately, with the Internet you are often guilty until proven innocent.
Image via CrunchBase
I recently presented a webinar about this topic; in the wake of the Komen disaster, everyone is wondering, “what if this happens to me?” Likely you won’t be as visible as Komen, or as viral, but at the same time when you’re attacked it all feels the same: bad.
A few years ago someone visiting my website was unhappy with the navigation. Candidly, she was right. It was just before our new site was launched (we were going live with the revised website a week later) and some of the pages ended up in dead links. With an older site this is bound to happen. She was irritated by this and decided to lash out by putting up a YouTube video showing the faulty navigation. She said we were marketing experts and we should know better. In the end, she was right which is why we were redesigning the site. Her complaint, however, should have been brought to us directly and not put up on YouTube. The video was a painful eight minutes long, during which time she blasted us for not knowing our own website, offering a link (and a promise) that went nowhere. It was horrifying. She finally took the video down, and I’ll explain in a minute how we got her to do that. (more…)
March 26, 2012
Host Penny Sansevieri discussed the upcoming changes to the Timelines for Facebook Pages with social media expert Amy Porterfield in this informative interview.
About our guest: Amy Porterfield is a social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. She helps entrepreneurs across industries establish strategies to maximize the power of social media and increase the success of their online marketing efforts. https://www.facebook.com/AmyPorterfield
Check out Amy’s blog post on the new changes (it also includes a link to her webinar on this topic):
http://www.amyporterfield.com/2012/03/timeline-for-facebook-pages-what-you-need-to-know/
Explaining the Facebook Changes
Facebook is rolling out the Timeline layout for all Facebook Pages – this is mandatory as of March 30. It changes how the Pages look – Pages will have big cover photos, and there are new ways to engage with your fans. Amy believes some of these changes will be extremely beneficial for businesses.
The problem or challenge business are having with these changes include making new plans now that the welcome pages are going away. The welcome pages used to be the place new people would land on when they visited a Page for the first time, and they would receive a call to action. The second thing that’s not ideal, on that Timeline cover photo, there are huge restrictions – you cannot use it to promote. This means you can’t have a call to action, you can’t include your website url, you can’t provide your address, etc. Facebook wants you to make the photo visually appealing. (more…)
March 23, 2012
We’ve collected some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include SEO tips for your author blog, a refresher for online press releases, why Facebook’s Interest lists matter, 50 must-have social media tools, and much more. Happy marketing!
**************
* Online Marketing: How To Make the Most Of the New YouTube
YouTube has incredible power; users upload 48 hours of video each minute and watch more than three billion videos per day. Learn how to make the most of the site:
http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/online-marketing-how-make-most-new-youtube (more…)
March 21, 2012
We had a great show with host Penny Sansevieri discussing the social media phenomenon Pinterest with SEO Expert Susan Gilbert.
About our guest: Search Engine Marketing Expert Susan Gilbert has been an entrepreneur since 1987. She has evolved years of traditional business experience into several cutting edge projects, which includes her Web 2.0 Internet Business. As co-author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee Bar,” she understands book promotion and has also been a regularly quoted resource in USA Today, Entrepreneur, Inc Magazine and many more.
Author and publisher of “The Land of I Can,” Susan has demonstrated her “hands on” success in both traditional and online publishing. Well known for turning her dog Spencer into a superstar thanks to his ebook, How to Take Your Small Dog EVERYWHERE, and building his expert status as Ambassador of Small Dog Travel, she combines savvy marketing and search engine understanding with her entrepreneurial experiences to create buzz marketing online promotions for both authors and publishers. Learn more at http://www.susangilbert.com/.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social media site that has exploded in members and visits over the past few months, reaching 11.7 million users. This made Pinterest the fastest social network to break the barrier of 10 million users.
The site is very visual, and as its name suggests, Pinterest encourages users to create boards and pin items of interest to those boards. Pinterest users also can “like” and repin posts from other boards. Approximately 80 percent of the pins are repins. Susan thinks of Pinterest as a shopping network, and it’s true that the visual nature of the boards makes it easy to show off products. (more…)
March 19, 2012
It’s a question I get asked a lot: “Why isn’t my book selling?” This question isn’t reserved for the author who is clueless about marketing. I’ve been asked this by savvy authors, even business people who can’t seem to figure out the system for selling.
Image via Wikipedia
Sometimes the reasons why a book isn’t selling are easy: the cover is poor, the content is not edited or the topic is unappealing. But in most cases that I’ve seen, you need to dig deeper. So, overlooking the obvious, let’s go a step further because the mysteries of selling might be a lot easier to fix than you think.
- Start Early: In many cases starting early means earlier than you think. Often, I see authors beginning their campaigns a month prior to book launch. If you do that, keep in mind that your results won’t show up for months (and months), often it takes up to six months to see anything you seed start to grow. That’s partially why marketing people will encourage you to start early because it can take so long to see results. (more…)
March 16, 2012
Here’s a collection of a few of the top book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include getting the most out of Pinterest, using Quora for marketing, developing a brand strategy, writing readable and retweetable tweets, and much more. Happy marketing!
**************
* 7 Components That Comprise a Comprehensive Brand Strategy
Image via Wikipedia
You need a brand strategy so you are clear on your audience for your marketing efforts: who will you reach and how? Learn how to develop your plan:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31739/7-Components-That-Comprise-a-Comprehensive-Brand-Strategy.aspx (more…)
March 14, 2012
If you are ready to take your business, speaking career or book to the next level, consider becoming an expert. There’s a lot of talk these days about “being an expert,” and many folks who say they are experts really aren’t. Becoming an expert isn’t an overnight process, it takes time. In my view, however, it’s time well-spent.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I often get requests from folks wanting me to make them an expert and while it’s somewhat doable, it’s not entirely realistic that someone else can bestow you with expert status. Even if you pay them. You might argue that that’s what a media/marketing person should do and to some degree, that’s true. But what a lot of speakers, business owners and authors fail to understand is that becoming an expert isn’t something you do overnight, and if you hire a company to do this for you you’ll need a pretty big budget and a whole lot of time.
First, why would you want to become an expert? Because experts get considered for potential speaking engagements, acknowledged by the media, and noticed by potential customers. But being an expert, in a sea of experts, isn’t always easy. Doesn’t it seem that these days everyone is calling themselves an “expert?” Yet so few are. Being an expert shouldn’t be an ego thing, you should do it only if it benefits you, your goals, your business and your book (if you have one). (more…)
March 12, 2012
Guest post by Adria Saracino:
It’s finally over. You sat at your desk every day, plugging away at your manuscript. You got every one of those tens of thousands of words on the page. After endless tinkering, you even got most of them in the right order. Now all you need is a publisher.
The problem is that the traditional publishing model isn’t working, and publishers don’t want to spend time and money on something they aren’t sure will sell. That’s why Snooki was published by an imprint of Simon & Schuster and your lovingly crafted tale has been left behind.
That’s changing, though. You can build up an audience and bring the publishers to you – or end up leaving them out altogether – with social media marketing. The key is to have a plan. Simply Business made this interactive visualization that takes businesses through the process of creating a social media campaign. You can take notes from some of the most successful companies and utilize them to create your own campaign with the goal of getting published. (more…)
March 9, 2012
We’ve rounded up some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include getting started with Internet marketing, setting goals for self-publishing, making the most of Goodreads, understanding the latest Facebook changes, and much more. Happy marketing!
**************
* 10 Quick Tips on How to Get Started with Internet Marketing
Image via CrunchBase
Self-promotion may not come naturally to writers, but an online presence is vital:
http://kathymirkin.com/2012/03/ten-quick-tips-on-how-to-get-started.html (more…)
Comments Off