This is a guest post from Dave Thomas, Business.com:
Some authors are reluctant to use the social media to promote their craft. The reasons can be include the notion that not much is gained from the time expenditure, there is no perfect way to track a return on investment (ROI), and social media is essentially a fad that will come and go.
If those are your concerns, take a minute to consider these benefits:
- It gives the author the ability to have real-time interaction with your readers. You are able to get instant feedback from readers, both good and bad;
- It puts you in the conversation. Authors can participate in chat rooms, forums and more, to interact with readers and other authors;
- It gives you the ability to stand out as a respected writer in your area of expertise;
- When you use a site such as LinkedIn you can join groups specific to your targeted areas of writing to share and discuss your work and that of others;
- It assists you in promoting upcoming book tours and signings, conferences, etc. Instead of sending out a press release you can simply go to social networking sites and alert readers to where you will be.
Marketing Your Writing
Use social media to determine where your most likely readers are hanging out online so you are using targeted marketing.Try some of these tips:
- Register on a number of social media sites so that all your eggs are not all in one basket;
- Update on a regular basis so that you stay engaged with the public. If you have a blog, promote it without coming across as a spammer. Exchange promotional links with other authors so that you are helping one another out;
- With more than 700 million users, Facebook is still the king of social media. If you don’t already have one, start a Facebook fan page for your writing.
- Consider all the different audio and visual opportunities. Use the formats you are most comfortable working with: videos, podcasts, blog posts, article marketing, guest posts on others’ blogs, slideshows, etc.;
- Market at optimum times. Look for patterns as to when people seem to be chatting with you or other authors in order to best enhance your get-togethers;
- Use online tools such as Google Analytics with your blog to see which topics, lengths, and styles are most popular with your followers. Do more of those.
If you have been hesitating, this is the time to get started. You’ll discover that you can get results with even a modest investment of time—and you may also enjoy it more than you think!
(Dave Thomas, who covers among other items advice on small business loans, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.)
