6 Social Media Sites, Essential for Writers

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Going through my list of tweets for the day, I paused at this one:
1. Why engage in yet another social media when I am already on Twitter, Pinterest & Facebook ?
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It reminded me of other statements from new writers, I hear on a daily basis:
2. None of my friends is on Google+ …
3. I have a website, why should I additionally have a blog?
4. Writing my book, I don’t have time for all these Social Media…

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Answer for question 1 and 2 – Google+
This says it all: Google+ = Google, the famous Search Engine… You don’t join Google+ to meet your friends and family as you do on Facebook!  You join to improve your Search Engine Ranking: As the main search engine, Google indexes and ranks its own site much higher than any other content. Google+ posts – with a main keyword in the first sentence / title – will rank well in Google search and often show up on the first page, for a long time.  And now Google+ outranks Twitter as no. 2 social network, having more active users than Twitter!

On Google+ authors can create a separate page for each of their books. You have immense space to show images, such as your books cover, even if it has 36 MB and you can show your book as often as you want. More reasons to be on Google+ can be found in a former article: “7 Reasons Why Google+ is Perfect for Writers”

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Answer to question 3 – Why should I have a blog?
Your website is something very static. You usually don’t do many changes or new content writing. A blog – either on your website – which would increase SEO – or on WordPress or BlogSpot is adding constantly new content. This means search engines index your blog site higher.
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Writing is fun – why else would you have written this novel!  As a writer, it is only a matter of minutes to write a blog post.  And you don’t need much fantasy to come up with topics. You can write about, well, writing, your writers life, the publishing process, what you have learned about marketing your book… the subjects you can write about are endless.

An important reason for a blog is that you can use snippets from the content to fill your social media sites. For sample: use one sentence and a link to your blog and post it as a tweet.  Readers see your post and click on your blog or website – and voila! they learn about your book. Here are two samples from the blog page you are just reading:

Author of “The Wolf’s Moon” Patrick Jones, in an Interview, talking about the characters in his book http://wp.me/p1uIFg-1il

9 Compelling Reasons to Get Marketing Help, Boosting Your Books Success
bit.ly/X3rwul
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Readers and fans have a reason to come back to your blog, as often as you write a new post, and will re-tweet your blogs and spread the message about your book. Plug-ins and share buttons automatically send your blog posts to all your social media sites.
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Answer to statement 4:
What you are just reading here, was automatically send to Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Reddit, Triberr, Yahoo and Goodreads – at the same moment I hit the “publish” button! I don’t need to go to all these sites to fill them with content. What more could you wish for? Writing one blog post, it can be as short as 300 – 500 words an it will be found all over the internet! You certainly can add more Social Media sites to your blogs sharing button, to spread the word even more.

Your post is yet sent more often among Social Media sites:

• Google+ can send your post automatically to Facebook and Twitter, I wrote in December how authors can set up this function. 
• Twitter gets feeds from Google+ and Pinterest, among others
• Facebook for sample gets feeds from Pinterest and Goodreads and your blog
• Pinterest feeds Twitter and Facebook

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SUMMARY: To have maximum exposure for your book and you, as an author, and to save lots of time, join: 

• Google+
• Twitter
• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Write a blog.

How to get more followers on your social media sites is explained in one of last months’ blogs, and also at How to Get More Followers on Google+
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Be very selective when choosing followers:
You want READERS and REVIEWERS as followers. NOT your friends. Type into the search functions on top of these pages: readers, book lovers, book worms, reading, love to read etc. to find the right people as your following.
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One last tip: Set up a second page on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest – only for your book. Separate it from your existing private presence.
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Part of our Book Marketing package we offer, is dedicated to help you to create or improve your reader community platform, such as:

• create an attractive media presence
• increase the amount of followers
• learn how to connect all these sites 
• and how to save time on Social Media

Find out how else we can help you to have more success  for your books and more fun in marketing.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 700 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

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http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

Don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks

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Pingates

 

Acting Like a Professional Author on Social Media?

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Are you prepared to act like a serious business man / woman when hitting the Social Media arenas?
Or do you act like a teenager on Facebook?
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Do you agree that selling books online or in stores is a business? You are getting money for writing and delivering your work, no matter how many books you have written, and no matter if you go with one of the big publishers or if you self-publish.

And don’t forget:  Many publishers and literary agents have a Social Media presence too.  They are using Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads or LinkedIn and mingle on these sites with authors famous and unknown.  If you like to get a name in the world of books, get a favorable publishing contract or establish a successful career with your self-published work:  create a professional online presence.
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Your readers (and maybe future publishers) like to see the person behind the book.  Invest a couple of dollars or more for a brilliant studio photo which you can use for years on all of your Social Media sites, website, blog, Amazon author page or submit to your publisher to use in your books. Publishing businesses use their logo and stick with it everywhere, to have brand consistency.

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Avoid: Party images, pics taken with your phone or computer, landscapes, snapshots from your last vacation, images of your children, wedding photos, art work, dogs or cats, cartoon characters, half-nudes unless you write porno and any dark photos, that don’t reveal your face or photos taken from the side or from behind and show only your hair and no face.  Never have a second person on your social media photo. You might be in love with your partner, but it is less than professional to show this off on Twitter.
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Take the time to write a compelling bio (or an avatar, or “about me”) that you can use for all your presences, for your Amazon website, your blog etc. Same as with your photograph: once established you can use it everywhere, even if you have to shorten it on some places, such as Twitter. Use lots of keywords and add abbreviated links to your web site or Amazon page. And choose your username wisely!  Is it important for your readers which diseases you survived?  No! Unless you are posting on a health-related site or forum. So please, leave this out if you are talking about yourself as an author or your books.  Why would anyone tell that he / she is a single dad / mom? Are they looking for a new mate or are they talking about literature?  Always remember:  what’s on the internet, stays on the internet – forever!
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Avoid: Don’t leave the space empty. Imagine you visit someones place and it is empty – a reason to click away immediately. How should they know if it is worth following you?

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Visit and post on your Social Media sites at least several times a week – better several times a day.
Re-tweet, but not too much, add own content between your re-tweets.  If someone wants to re-tweet your content and they have to scroll down for minutes until they find anything YOU contributed, they will think twice in the future about wasting their time.
Post USEFUL content, something interesting, new and exciting, funny – a post that is worth to read and to share or re-tweet. Think sharing. What do people want to share? Entertain, inform and solve readers / followers problems with answers. Give information away for free.
At Twitter use not more than two hash tags (#) to avoid clutter.
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Avoid: Not posting for weeks and your visitors will assume you are in vacation, sick, dead, emigrated or not interested at all anymore. Don’t annoy your readers with posts how many un-followers you caught or the stats of last week with the precise amount of new followers. Good for you – but who cares? No one! Your automated tweet or messages clog only Twitter streams. Same with posts what you will have on your dinner plate on Sunday or that your dog dug up your garden bed. Not even your most loyal readers are interested in it. Think about every post: “What is in for my reader?” or “What will it give my readers?”
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Talk about your book – but not too much. Keep a fine balance between the amount of “advertising” your work and postings that are interesting for those who purchased your book already. Create at least a variety of 15 – 20 posts for your book, to keep the stream interesting. Sprinkle these sparingly over the day and share or re-tweet more content from followers / friends or talk about interesting subjects and news in publishing, marketing, writing, culture etc. Social marketing (your books for sample) is about informing and solving peoples problems with answers and information. What you are doing on social media sites is “content marketing” not selling.  See the difference?

Avoid: Don’t repeat constantly  Buy my book, buy my book, buy my book…too excessive self-promotion might annoy your readers so much, that in the future, they will just avoid your posts. Open your post to everyone. If you are talking only to one person, others will move somewhere else. And don’t post events, that are, long over, such as free days for your books.

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When you think of Social Media, think of a big party.
You are entering the room, you say hello to everyone, you small- talk a bit, you participate in a discussion, you listen what others say, you make some compliments or praise someone, you have fun and you show yourself from your best side – this is what your Social Media presence should be too. It is a kind of shop window for you and your books. Don’t automate your posts too often. Readers want to talk with you, not just consume your automated posts.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 600 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Follow on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks, Doris

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The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network

Katherine Losse, a former Facebook employee tells all, or at least a lot. 

The Atlantic Wire wrote:  From 2005 to 2010, Katherine Losse worked in customer service at the company; she also was a ghostwriter for Mark Zuckerberg. The books promises some juicy stuff, “from Facebook’s company obsessed culture to its rowdy company parties.”
From TheBoyKings.com:
Employees were incentivized to live within one mile of the office, summers were spent carousing at the company pool house, and female employees were told to wear T-shirts with founder Mark Zuckerberg’s profile picture on his birthday.

Employees were expected to dedicate themselves to “the cause,” (aka, living the Facebook way); employees with most-liked photos and posts on their profiles would win monetary rewards; and there was a secret Facebook app called Judgebook that allowed company employees to score images of Facebook users. Also, while at VIP parties in Las Vegas, “Facebook employees would have bouncers bring women to their table, then turn them away for not being attractive enough.”  However, there might come some ensuing change in the corporate culture with the hiring of Sheryl Sandberg – or Zuckerberg’s marriage?

Would we all just adapt our behavior to the habits and rules of these brilliant but socially awkward Internet savants who have become today’s youngest power players?  Increasingly skeptical, Losse graduated from customer service to the internationalization team – tasked with rolling out Facebook to the rest of the world -finally landing a seat right outside Zuckerberg’s office as his personal ghostwriter, the voice of the boy king.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out previous posts (there are almost 500 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “Like” next to it.

Follow us on Twitter: @111publishing

And don’t forget to spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr or StumbleUpon – or other social networking sites of your choice) – other writers might also enjoy this blog and find it useful.

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When is the Best Time to Twitter?

Tracking service and link shortening company Bit.ly found out when your link get’s the most traction on Twitter: Post it on a Monday between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET.
They released new data on the best and worst times to share links on popular social networks, from Facebook and Twitter to blogging site Tumblr.

The company revealed that posting links to Twitter between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time will give you the highest click rank, especially early in the week. Meanwhile, sending a tweet with a link after 8:00 p.m. should be avoided — as should posting links after 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

However, Facebook’s optimal posting times are slightly different than Twitter. Links sent between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. get the most traction, with Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. being the best time to post on Facebook all week. Bit.ly recommends not posting the links you want to go viral during the weekend or between 8 pm and before 8am.

On the other hand, Tumblr has a much different usage pattern than Facebook and Twitter:  wait until at least 4:00 p.m. ET. to post important content, and posts after 7:00 p.m.Eastern Time on Monday and Tuesday, as well as on Sundays, get the most clicks during a 24-hour period. Friday evening is the best time to post on Tumblr — a time bit.ly recommends to avoid on Facebook and Twitter!

Keep in mind, these times are for North American users only, the ones in Australia, Asia and Europe have completely different times. It all depends if you want to get hits only from the USA and Canada.  As an English speaking Writer you might be interested in an international audience…

Stats for this blog show that quite a few readers are from all parts of the world.  Hello to you and welcome!!!

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How to Create Excitement Regarding Your New Book:

Once your book is finished and is in your editors hands to be “fine-tuned” you can use the time to prepare for your book launch and to improve even more your marketing efforts:

• Transfer your book cover-photo to Pinterest.com and Flickr.com and other free-photo pages with a link to your website.
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• Create a short book trailer for YouTube, using images, words or even scenes from your book*
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• Write about your upcoming book launch and post small bits and pieces
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• Get Marketing help at Fiverr.com
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• Ask your friends to “Thumbs up” & “Listmania” your book on Amazon
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• Announce your new book to the Independent Authors Forum
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• Let your followers on Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media know about the books “birth”.
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• Create as many free Author Pages as possible, on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, Wattpad etc.
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• Join even more forums, such as Kindle Forum or the AbsoluteWrite Forum
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• Set up e-Book Launches:

An e-book launch is when you get several (at least 10 – 15) website owners together to promote YOUR e-book all on the same day to their lists by sending out an email or write an article on their blog. The idea of a book launch is to turn the publication of the book into an event.

The key is to find the right joint-venture partners who can get your ebook in front of a lot of targeted traffic, readers who are interested in the kind of book you are selling. Each of your partners gives a bonus that buyers can get when they purchase, which allows your partners to collect names and emails and build their lists with buyers who are more valuable to them than prospects.

*Find more ideas in the brand new e-book: ***** 111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer ***** featuring valuable tips and links to video tutorials, free music downloads and free images, available on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y15YYO

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The Benefit of Creating a Contest

Title  Photo Contest:  Years ago when I published a magazine in Europe, I launched a photo contest to find the best image for a magazine cover.

I was overwhelmed with contributions and the happy winner of the first prize received a round-trip transatlantic flight ticket.

At Pinterest.com you can post photos that showcase places you write about, events your book has covered, or people you describe in your book.

Each Pin allows for a description and a link to the original story. Therefore, you can quickly connect an audience with your book’s story and future plans for other books, all via photo Pin.

And certainly a publisher, self-publisher or author could post book covers, images from inside the book(s) and create a contest around it. If the book is not yet published and you even don’t have a cover decided – why not post several cover versions and let the visitors at Pinterest.com choose the most liked? Or a video contest, inviting users to create a new trailer for your book?  To give them an idea about your book, make a link to your blog or website for more information, so they get an idea about the content and at the same time get interested in your work.

Beside Pinterest, you should also post your contest on Google+, Chime.in, Tumblr or on Facebook, have a link on Twitter, and post it on every social media site, you are involved with. If you have friends who are on other sites, they can post it for you there too.  Facebook’s encourages it even on their website: “Contests for Fan Pages enables companies & agencies to easily create & launch branded contests within minutes on Facebook Fan Pages. The following contest formats are available: photo contests, video contests, design contests, logo contests, essay-based contests.”

Make sure you don’t let your contest drag on too long, maximum 4 weeks. Offer a real great first prize and some for the 2nd and 3rd winner.  Allow the contest participants to vote to choose the winner, which keeps the audience interacting with one another and engaged long after each person has submitted their entry.  Use Google+, Facebook, Chime.in, Pinterest, Tumblr and Twitter to promote the winner.

 

How an Unfinished Books Hits # 1

Do authors have to be social?  No, but it helps tremendously!
“I have never had a single ad for any of my novels, had a movie made or been given a big budget push by a publisher. Usually, they just throw my book out to reviewers and hope it floats.

Some authors are realizing that the social aspect of their work can be a powerful engine:  Earlier this year, author John Green — who writes fiction for young adults — showed that it is possible to hit number one on the bestseller list with a book that hasn’t even been published yet.

He was able to do this in part because he had already spent the past couple of years building up a following on Twitter (where he has over 1,000,000 followers) and on YouTube, where he posts clips of himself reading from his books. The simple mention of a sequel to a book was enough to push it to the top of the bestseller list.”

Read the whole article:  Do authors have to be social?  No, but it helps tremendously!
on a post from January 6 at http://gigaom.com

Read also this amazing story of a bestseller author:
Tweeting from a La-Z-Boy, An Unfinished Book Hits No. 1 .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304450604576418161912396814.html

 

 

Social Media – Which One Do You Like Best?

Jeff Bullas wrote in the foreword for his brilliant infographic:
“Social media is spreading knowledge globally at the speed of a “Tweet” and provides us all with tools that can enable us to follow our dreams, if only we can capture and heighten that curiosity for knowledge that drives humans to succeed.”

From Jeff’s post on social media networks:

Google+
Google+ now both a personal and business social network after launching Google+ brand “pages” on November 7, 2011. Google plus enhanced the visual aspect of social networks by making its images significantly larger (think book titles!) than the photos on Facebook.

Pinterest
This social network is a place to organise and share online images that you find interesting or inspiring and continues to reinforce the trending growth of an increasingly visual social web. Pinterest has grown 4,000% in the last 6 months, with more than 4 million unique users.

Tumblr
Tumblr is a multimedia rich microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their short form blog. It is about ease of use.
•900% growth in the last 12 months
•90 million users compared to only 10 million a year ago

Slideshare
Slideshare is the “YouTube of  Presentations” and allows you to upload PowerPoint into globally accessed slideshow and again is a highly visual social  media platform.
•It is one of the top 150 websites in the world
•60 million visitors a month
•Has 500% more traffic from business owners than any other professional website
•3 billion slide views per month

Facebook
Facebook is a “must have” to keep tabs on, as its 800 million plus users means it is the defacto social network platform of choice for nearly one in two of the world’s web users.  Its ecosystem with easy to install “apps” and burgeoning commerce and marketing power continue to attract business and marketers. Essentially you market on facebook first and then consider other platforms.

Twitter
Its simplicity and immediacy as an open texting service on steroids continue to keep it  top of mind in popular digital culture. Its embedding in the new Apple iOS5 mobile operating system  has stimulated growth and increased sign-ups by 300%.

See his superb post here:
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/01/03/6-social-media-networks-to-watch-in-2012-plus-infographics/

 

 

 

Working for Glory – or the Digital Feudalism

Do you remember a recent Google image?  Tom Sawyers friends painting the picket fence?  It reminded me to look for an article I read a while ago: “Facebook is now valued at $50 billion, Twitter at $10 billion and The Huffington Post has been sold for $315 million to AOL.

Most of the value was created by people working free for Facebook, Twitter and Huffington Post. We are being played to feed the beast, to create content that ends up creating value for others.

The Huffington Post, most social networks and traditional media have all one thing in common: low-cost and no-cost content is becoming the norm. But writing for an upstart blog is a little different from cranking copy for AOL, a large American media company with a market value  of $2.2 billion.

For anyone who is making a living by writing, it’s becoming somewhat scary. The growing perception is that content is a commodity, and the companies can have it for the price of zero. Content websites, such as Demand Media, paying up to $15 per article raised the price only slightly.

It reminds me a bit of Tom Sawyer: “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” he asks his friends, and soon they are lined up for the privilege of doing his chores. That’s a bit like how social networks get built.

Nowadays Sawyer would say “You’re building an audience around your personal brand.” Audiences became publishers, essentially painting the fence for the people who own the various platforms.

 

 

What is Social Commerce?

 

Selling your books – additionally – on Facebook and Google? Social Commerce presents another opportunity for authors to do away with traditional publishing. 

Facebook is becoming a new kind of online shopping centre with many retailers setting up Facebook shops and taking sales through Facebook. An initial goal is to allow users to build personalised shops based on their Facebook profile. This will present them with products that are specifically targeted to them. This personal shop will consist of multiple retailers, brands and individuals all selling directly via Facebook but appearing in one place. The next-generation social shopping experiences will get more personal, allowing consumers to share more.  While e-commerce sites are still able to attract visitors to their sites, reports suggest that it’s only a matter of time until both Facebook and the mobile web catch up.

 

Google+ is likely to follow with a ready-made payment system in GoogleCheckout – a bit similarely to PayPal, but offers a complete, instant store system that you can use with Blogger, Google Sites, and your website.

The Google Checkout store gadget   https://storegadgetwizard.appspot.com/storegadgetwizard/   
allows you to quickly and easily create an online store using a GoogleDocs spreadsheet. No complicated coding or technical tasks are required. You can get your first online store up-and-running in under five minutes.

Currently Google checkout is available to US residents and in the UK. Many big merchants so far added GoogleCheckout to the company’s site, seeing tremendous potential for increased traffic and lower processing costs, especially in reducing the cost of fraud.

They are just the beginning…

The opportunity Social Commerce presents to publishers and authors is significant. The ability to sell direct to readers effectively has lots of benefits. This is a channel that is made even more effective with the growth of eBooks, offering instant, direct sales with no warehousing.

It presents an opportunity to publishers to engage more directly with their readers and monetise this relationship. The benefits will be significant, not just through an increased knowledge of reader’s interests but also from increased margins in a channel where retailers are not necessary.

Top 50 Facebook Stores
Want to know who’s doing what, and with which technology partner in the fabulous world of f-commerce?  Here are the top (most liked) 50 e-commerce enabled Facebook pages, such as Starbucks,  Old Navy, Lady Gaga or JCPenney and the store solutions they are using, compiled by http://socialcommercetoday.com

Some of these facebook stores are basically no more than glorified banner ads linking to product pages on external websites – whilst others are fully fledged stores that handle transactions within the Facebook environment. Check out their immensly important post “The Psychology of Facebook: Implications for Social Commerce” here.

Social Commerce, like e-Commerce, will be relatively easy to move into. The experience of retailers over the last ten years is a good source of learning for publishers and authors starting down the “multi-channel” path.