Infographics are hot. They appeal to visual learners, they grab great Edgerank on Facebook, they rule Pinterest and they demand to be shared. Creating an infographic for your business or brand that provides top notch visual entertainment while driving home a point, teaching something or laying out a concept in an easy to understand way can give your business or brand that viral buzz you’re longing to create.

Here’s what I learned from infographics today. Over 80% of Americans use at least one social network. That’s 245 million people.

An infographic can:

• Tell a story
• Provide a road map
• Present statistics in a surprising or powerful way
• Make us laugh

WIX, is a free website builder offering entrepreneurs and small businesses a quick and free way to create a professional looking website. They put together a terrific example of a statistics graphic that’s really a subtle and clever promotion. Chock full of interesting, retweetable factoids about the reasons every business needs to “go social,” this infographic has all the right stuff to drive viewers to post, share, pin and tweet about it. Things like “Facebook users share over 4 billion items per day” is social sharing gold and is also good for presentations to potential clients who don’t yet believe in the power of social media in a marketing campaign.  By positioning themselves as a company who understands the social web, they’re providing value to their ideal customer, giving that customer something to share on his or her pages and attaching their brand to a visual that will be widely shared; basically putting their calling card out to a potentially massive audience who are willing to pass it along.

Do you have other examples of great infographics that cast their creators in a positive light and add to their brand credibility?  Please feel free to share them here.

If you don’t know your Klout score yet, you’d be wise to find out. As more agency heads, marketing VP’s, celebrity publicists and advertisers look for an edge in creating buzz about their clients and products, they’re increasingly seeking some metric to effectively measure an influencers, well, influence.

Your Klout Score is part of your personal brand.

For more than a year, the socially savvy have been aware of Klout-based invitations to special parties at big conferences such as BlogWorld, and advance previews for movies and new products.

This week both Will Ferrell’s FunnyOrDie video website and Mile 81 (Scribner, $2.99/eBook), Stephen King’s new eBook-only launch partnered with web influence researcher, Klout.com to identify and reach out to influential social media users as a key component in their marketing push.

Scribner, an imprint of the New York City based parent company Simon & Schuster, teamed up with Klout.com, a privately held San Francisco firm that measures social influence and assigns an index, to choose 1,000 highly influential users to preview New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s new original short story, which is being released in e-book form only. The lucky 1,000 are being offered free access to the book one week before it goes on sale to the general public.

As agency executives, marketing V.P.’s and celebrity publicists look for an edge in reaching the social influential, Klout.com provides an aggregated measurement score that includes, among other things, a person’s reach, influence, audience and areas of influence.

Klout declined to provide an actual minimum score for the 1,000 socially savvy influencers chosen to preview Mile 81, saying they target a combination of score and topics on which a person is considered influential. A representative from Scribner was unavailable for comment at press time.  Rob Goodman, Director of Online Marketing for Simon & Schuster, Inc., was responsible for putting together the deal with Klout.com.

Nearly every guru or expert mentions consistent engagement as a routine or habit that contributes to online success.

Ever since the publication of  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, people been fascinated with the notion that there are some common traits, habits, rituals or routines that all successful people embrace.  They extrapolate that by adopting these same routines or habits they, too, might be able to tap into their own path to personal and professional success.

In speaking with leaders in a wide variety of fields, I’ve come to realize that this is not entirely true.  The habits or routines followed by leaders are as diverse as are their talents.

Still, a recent Twitter conversation about daily habits and successful business leaders, prompted  me to ask 14 top performers in a wide variety of fields to share one thing they do, every day, they feel has contributed significantly to their success.

Here’s are the lessons I gleaned from what they shared.  The headlines are my interpretation of their routine or habit.

1.  Associate with interesting people

Robert Scoble, Robert Scoble, Blogger, Tech Evangelist and Rackspace Executive

“For years now my main habit is to have a different conversation, every day, with someone who is DOING something interesting!  I’ve kept doing that for years, and recording almost all of them, and that has enriched my life immeasurably (and my career, too). I make sure I always keep my calendar full with at least one conversation with someone different.”

2.   Pay yourself first

Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst, Altimeter Group

“Opening and responding to emails is often the act of paying someone else –instead I ‘pay myself first’ by researching, reading, and writing my thoughts on a blog each morning for about 2 hours before responding to email.”

3.  Make technology serve your needs

Ben Parr, Editor-At Large at Mashable

“I have a private wiki that I use to organize my entire life. It has a list of what I want to accomplish, my personal philosophies, important links and even my bucket list.”

4.  Clear your head and keep your energy high

Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic.com and LeWeb.net Conference.

“I run nearly every day. That makes me relax and take some distance about daily projects. While many think it’s tiring, when you get into it you actually feel an incredible energy kick for the entire day if you run in the morning. It makes me feel happy and nice to my coworkers and makes me forget about annoying things I would otherwise have a tendency to focus on.  Otherwise, I could not understand technology the way I do if TechMeme wasn’t there.”

5.  Eat your own dog food.

Laura Fitton, CEO/Founder Oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for @Dummies

“I actually ‘eat my own dog food!’ Every day I use SocialBase (our social media productivity management software) to stay on top of my social media presence. It lets me easily track tasks and bookmark the tools and platforms that I need to keep updated every day. It reminds me of my daily, weekly & monthly recurring tasks, and gives me a jumping off point to execute them in one single spot.”

6.  Flex your spiritual muscle

Michael Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com and author of Launch

“I pray! I thank God for working through me, pray for inspiration and ask for encouragement during the difficult moments. The Lord has always taken care of me.  This is something I do in my car just before I walk on into the office.”

7.  Practice what you teach

Mari Smith, Facebook, Social Media & Relationship Marketing Specialist, Author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day

“Every day, I personally respond to as many messages as I can, whether by email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I do my best to make time to thank and acknowledge people. As Sir Richard Branson says, “lavish praise on people.” I agree wholeheartedly. People love to be heard and I pride myself on being inclusive and treating others as equals. At the end of each day, I can sleep peacefully knowing I’ve reached out and connected with as many people as possible and it ultimately all helps to build social equity.”

8.  Keep an inquisitive mind

Rieva Lesonsky, CEO GrowBiz Media

“One of the keys to my success, is I “explore” every day. I check Twitter, read the newsletters I subscribe to, go to my favorite websites. There’s so much information out there which can inspire or inform something I’m working on.  As busy as I may be, I make sure to do this every day.”

9. Replenish your resources

Gretchen Rubin, author of New York Times bestseller, The Happiness Project

“My habit: Getting enough sleep. Research makes it clear that sleep has an enormous influence on our mood, health, energy, athletic performance — lack of sleep may even contribute to weight gain! The top two reasons for people to be in bad moods at work? Tight work deadlines and lack of sleep. As a writer, my mental acuity and energy are critically important. I see a huge difference in my analytical capacity, my creativity, and my productivity based on how wide-awake I feel. It’s hard to turn out the light before I finish that chapter or answer one last email, but now I’m zealous about getting enough sleep.”

10.  Plan for success

David Zinczenko, Editor in Chief, Men’s Health

“I get in before the rest of my staff almost every day. It’s the only time that I can concentrate on writing, editing, and other close work. Once the team is here, it’s all about meeting and managing. I’m a nutrition guy, so I stock my office with healthy snacks and drinks like almonds, trail mix, dried fruit and coconut water. It keeps my energy up, and I don’t need to waste time running out to look for something to eat. And, I go to the gym almost every day at lunchtime, and read through emails on a stationary bike. It makes the second half of my day much more energetic, and I take less time—and get more done—during a workout than during most business lunches.”

11.  Trust your intuition

Maria Andros, The Video Marketing Queen, creator of The Social Media Traffic Blueprint and The Video Conversion Formula.

“I think that the biggest key to my success has always been strengthening my intuition on a daily basis. I download ideas and get inspiration for the content of all my programs much like an artist does. Often it’s very easy to let our analytical minds take over and keep us stuck. I feel that the more we are in tune with our inner guidance, the more we can make the right decisions to move our businesses forward. For example before I partner with anyone, or create a new product, I listen, for if it’s a hell YES or not. If not, I do not proceed, as that will only have a impact down the road. I have learned the hard way in the past.  I practice listening to my inner voice and my gut and it’s almost always accurate. I highly recommend building this muscle as it can make a great difference in your results.  I think that some of the most successful people in business are very in tune with their intuition and this helps them to stay on track and moving forward.”

12.  Banish the naysayers

Kathy Kinney, Actress and Author and literacy advocate

“I get out of my own way. ”

13.  Find your creative zone

Wally Lamb, #1 New York Times bestselling author of She’s Come Undone, and I know this Much is True

“Since I began writing fiction 30 years ago, I have always found the shower to be a place where my creativity is unleashed. I hit the ‘rain room’ each morning before I hit the button on the computer. The earlier the better–5:00 a.m., if possible.”

14.  Create space to think

Peggy Rajski, Academy Award Winning Director Of Trevor and co-founder of The Trevor Project

The daily habit that contributes to my success is morning meditation.  I’ve done it for over 20 years.  I usually sit for 20 minutes or more, but honestly, even 5 minutes does the trick.  I feel more resilient, ready to take on the challenges of the day, and less likely to experience ‘I think I’m going to kill you if you don’t do what I want’ versus ‘I think this is kind of funny that I can’t get what I want.’ But more often than not, I do get what I want–or understand that what I’m getting is what I need regardless of what I think I want.

15.  Cindy Ratzlaff, Author, Speaker, Consultant

It’s only fair that I share mine as well.  I set a success goal every morning, for that day.  I write it on a white board in my office and when I find myself being pulled off track, I ask myself “will this action serve today’s goal?”  If not, I set it aside until I’ve accomplished the daily goal.

Are there habits or routines you can incorporate in your own life to achieve a higher level of business success?  Please share and let’s see if we can enrich one another’s daily practices toward higher levels of achievement.

Guest Blogger, Bob Martin

A few weeks ago, the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal published an article from an experienced marketing and communications professional, offering a contrarian view of the rush to incorporate social media into business communications. The gist of the argument seemed to be that incorporating these new techniques and channels into your business’s marketing efforts offers no obvious, tangible benefits over those delivered by a traditional mix of marketing communications activities and media.

I respectfully disagree – and not just because of the increasing power of younger, more social media-oriented individuals in the customer and consumer pools. As someone who’s worked in media and business communications for more than two decades, I see a compelling philosophical reason for embracing the new social media in our efforts to reach and serve our customers.

Since the beginning of mass media, business communicators have struggled to overcome the technical limitations of traditional communication channels, as we work to make our message connect more effectively with target audiences. Today’s new social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs and the like – are game-changing advancements precisely because they’re breaking through those limitations, and creating a new, more effective business communications paradigm in the process.

Encouraging give and take during discussion, alternating the roles of messenger and receiver within the communication, adjusting your message on the fly based on the other party’s reactions – by enabling these actions, social media presents smart business communicators with something we’ve always wanted: a way to have an honest-to-goodness conversation with our audience.

Admittedly, this new conversation paradigm can be disorienting to traditional business communicators, because it adds a third dimension to our messaging – not brand to customer or customer to brand, but customer to customer ABOUT the brand, in which the communicator has to relinquish some measure of control over the message. For example, consumer products companies are realizing that relationships with influential bloggers can be excellent avenues to introduce new products, or emphasize features of existing ones, or just communicate their brand promise. But it comes at a cost: the power of the blogger can be directly related to their perceived independence from your influence, and you need that perception of independence to maximize the potential benefit of your relationship, so you accept the possibility of loss of some control over the message to the blogger and their audience.

Forward-thinking companies who can accept the social media conversation paradigm can use it to constantly adjust and update marketing strategies as they are executed. A social media audience is different than the total target audience, of course – but they’re different in ways that add to their value as “thought leaders”: they enter the conversation as generally knowledgeable about your company and its products, they are comfortable with the new conversation paradigm, and they relish the feeling that their opinion matters to what happens to “their brand” and so take that perceived responsibility very seriously.

To that point, a current ad campaign supporting the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating systems centers on PC users who offered feedback to Microsoft that ended up reflected in the new product – prompting each to claim that “Windows 7 was my idea.” The theme carries over to the product’s Facebook presence, which encourages groups of users to suggest, complain about or tout features of the product that others may find useful. It’s easy to see how these discussions could lead to adjustments in marketing strategy emphasis on particular features – which would in turn reinforce the umbrella theme of “Windows 7 is my idea.”

A final word of caution: by facilitating the continuation of a conversation, feedback through social media fundamentally changes the nature of any business communication effort. Establishing a presence in social media amounts to a commitment to your audience to continue that conversation. Fulfilling that commitment will cost time and money, but failing to live up to it will cost precious standing with key audiences that you won’t easily regain. Before embarking on a strategy that includes these new communications capabilities, make sure you’re prepared with the right resources and mindset to commit to a real conversation.

In terms of monetizing, one way to think of social media is as publicity for your product or service. Traditionally publicity is used to create awareness and then demonstrate to new listeners the specific, compelling reasons to purchase that product or service. Publicity is judged on media impressions delivered and publicists keep track of the viewer and reader numbers to conclude the number of media impressions. The impressions delivered in social media can be astronomical. But the time it takes to effectively spread a brand message on social media can also consume a disproportionate amount of your time and keep you from creating and delivering additional products and services—which is how you actually make money.

As a single employee company and an early adopter of Twitter and an avid Facebook fan page user and blogger, I have fallen into that time trap, too. But I’ve learned some nifty time saving strategies over the years that are helping me get back to creating income and spend fewer hours spreading the message.

Here are a few of my favorite time saving strategies in hopes that they can help you, too, get back to the business of your business.

1. Hootsuite is a great way to organizer for all of my Twitter accounts and my Facebook accounts. I can schedule tweets and posts there during a short morning session.
2. Friendfeed automatically sends my posts to a wide variety of social sites every time I post to my blog.
3. I love the Networked Blogs app on Facebook and use it to automatically pull my blog posts into my Fan page.
4. I use the Selective Tweets application on my Facebook Fan page to feed out my Facebook page posts to Twitter with a link back to my page.
5. On LinkedIn my blog posts are pulled in and posted to my profile automatically using the Bloglink application.
6. I use the Power Twitter application from Mozilla which works with my Firefox browser and puts a link shortener right above the posting space on my Twitter profile. This allows me to shorten links without having to go to another site to find a shortener.

There are many more and I’ll share those in the coming weeks. As you can see, my time saving strategies help me maximize the use of any content I create by helping me share everything I write with the widest possible audience. This helps me put that saved time back to work that actually creates income.

What are your favorite time saving strategies for using social media to create conversations about you or your brand? Let’s share them here. I’d love to compile a list of everyone’s best practices all in one place so we can all benefit from each other’s experience.

1. MEDIA: Traditional media, radio and television, features, op-eds, reviews, mentions, third party endorsements
2. ONLINE: Virtual and social media: video, audio, blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Slideshare, guest posts, internet radio, internet tv
3. LIVE EVENTS: appearances, workshops, keynotes
4. ADVERTISING: Targeted use of Adsense words, Facebook ads, paid press release placement, and other modestly priced visibility opportunities
5. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS: product or business partners that imply endorsement and provide real or in kind value to campaigns
6. SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the glue the brings all of your brand outreach and marketing programs together to give you search engine ranking that helps people find you and buy your product. Without SEO, all of your various activities exists only by themselves and do not take advantage of their combined power to create massive brand awareness. SEO is the missing ingredient in many campaigns.

By identifying a succinct set of key message points and exploiting them over all of the platforms outlined in the MVP program, your brand will reach the consciousness of your intended end user, client or consumer faster, less expensively and in a more targeted fashion than if you were to employ any combination of these outreach strategies alone. I look forward to helping you create powerful brand awareness for your business, book or ideas this year.

In most houses that publicity machine has been downsized while the number of books needing publicity and promotion has stayed the same. What’s left is a hard-working group of thoughtful people who truly love books; who would spend all the time in the world to get the word out if it was humanly possible; and who need an author’s cooperation, participation and good-cheer now more than ever before. Remember that these overworked people want your book to succeed.

How does one get to be the author whose publicist tells others: “this author was great to work with,” “the author knew the right people and really helped me get the book into important hands” and I would walk through hot coals for my author?”

It’s essential that authors view themselves as a partner in the publishing process and that includes the marketing and publicity portions of the book publishing cycle. To that end, I’ve enlisted veteran book publicist John G. Ekizian to join me in creating this list of The Top Ten Things Book Publicists Want Authors to Know.

Before you turn over the responsibility for communicating your book’s message to the world, remember.

1. You are a brand.

2. Your book is your first product.

3. Your reputation is on the line and if your first product doesn’t succeed, launching new products or books will be much harder.

4. Therefore, you must be a full partner in promoting your book, finding and alerting potential readers and in general, creating conversations about YOU.

Here’s what can you do?

1. Mobilize your friends, family and fans. They really do want to help—but you have to tell them how they can be most helpful. Start with your immediate fan base, however small. Give them early copies of your book or galleys—or even a PDF of your manuscript. Ask them to read it and give you their feedback. Ask them to write a short review and to post it on Amazon.com, BN.com and Borders.com. Tell them not to gush, but to relate why the book moved or informed them. Ask them if you can post their review to your website. Ask them to give their opinion on your Facebook Fan Page, on Twitter and on LinkedIn. Start close to home and create buzz that can build.

2. Influence the influencers: Create a list of the top 25 people in your area of expertise or who write in the same field or genre as you do. Find, read and subscribe to their blogs. Comment whenever they write something that interests you. Become visible, let them know you’re a fan, offer them new content from you whenever appropriate, such as being a guest blogger. You should also consider finding and following them on Twitter and Facebook. Again, interact with them. Pass their blogs, tweets and posts on to others. In other words, hang out on line with people you admire and who you would love to have read your work. After establishing an online relationship, you may have an opportunity to offer them an early galley or ask them to give you a quote. But first you need to be a part of their community and genuinely engaged with them.

3. Find your natural audience: The biggest marketing mistake most people make in book promotion is to assume that everyone will be interested in their book. Books that sell usually begin selling to people who are really interested in the topic. Want to sell a cookbook? Go after the person who has a shelf full of them. Who really cares about your topic? Think about it this way. You were attracted enough to this topic to write a book. Where would you go to learn about you? Would you find the kind of information in your book on CNN? Then that’s your natural audience and you and your publicist should target CNN. Are you writing about romance and mystery? Then maybe CNN may not for you. Every author we’ve ever worked with believes their book is right for Oprah. Not all books are right for Oprah. Watch the shows, see what kinds of guests they book and then make sure your publicist knows which shows most often present the subject matter most similar to your book.

4. Facebook Fan Page: Please create a Facebook Fan Page for yourself. Every author needs one. Name it for yourself, the author. You might call it John G. Ekizian | Author, Speaker. Use your name, then the upward slash and a two to three word qualifier. Those keywords will be useful in identifying you to potential friends and fans and will be Google searchable. Then create a tab with the name of your book. You can add video interviews or author chats that you create yourself. You can use the Events application to invite fans to your personal appearances. You can post news and information about reviews as they come in. This is a wonderfully rich and free tool. Please don’t overlook it.

5. Advertising versus publicizing: Every author wishes that their publisher would place full page ads in the New York Times Book Review for their book. Realistically the more that $75,000 (conservatively) that these types of ads cost isn’t a good investment for your publisher in terms of return on investment. In other words, they’re not recoup $75,000 in books sales from that ad. Publicity is a better investment of marketing dollars because a television appearance, a national publication, a radio tour or other major media can reach far more people than a one-time advertisement in one publication.

6. Webinars and teleseminars: These are the new virtual author tour and can help you reach hundreds and perhaps thousands of potential readers without ever leaving home. A webinar allows participants to view your computer screen and hear you talk as you show either a slide presentation or demonstrate something online. Many webinar hosts also allow for the audience to see you at times during the presentation. Teleseminars are via phone and are audio only but listeners can ask questions via a type-in pod. Both can be very interactive and allow people who might otherwise have not been able to “meet” you, come and hear you talk about your book.

7. Your 30 second pitch: When your publicist meets with national television producers and editors at major publications, he or she has 30 seconds to sell you and your book as a potential story or segment. Help your publicist hone your message down to a short, potent sound byte. Does your book “save lives through new research that proves sound waves are harming children,” or does your book show us “a brand new way to lose weight while you sleep.” These are silly but you get the idea. Think in headlines.

8. Op-Eds: Writing original opinion page articles can be a very effective way to increase an author’s visibility and by association help promote your book. The piece cannot be about your book but must be an opinion about some current affairs topic in which you might be considered a thought leader. For example, if you’ve written a book on World War II, you might write an opinion page article on the lessons learned or overlooked from World War II as we escalate troops in Afghanistan. You’re by-line would include Author of, the title your book. You may not mention your book in the article but positioning yourself as an expert will help you publicist book more media for you. You are sharing your ideas and information because you’re an expert. This part of a visibility strategy.

9. Create Your A List: Pick 10 media targets that you feel are right for your book and learn everything you can about them. Watch the shows, read the magazines and newspapers. Write down the name of the reporter or host who most often seems to be reporting on topics that are similar to your book topic. Share this list with your publicist who rarely has time to watch this much TV. He or she can really use your research skills. This is an excellent way for you to partner with your publicist.

10. Radio: Please don’t forget radio. Both broadcast and internet radio are great ways to reach people who might like your book. Blog Talk Radio and other internet radio platforms are reaching large numbers of people, are archived and accessible on demand and live forever on the internet. Please do not turn down internet radio interview opportunities because you don’t think they are worthy of your time. In fact, while your publicist is working hard on connecting with traditional media, why not reach out via Twitter and Facebook and put together your own Blog Talk Radio tour. Just start talking about your book, offering yourself for interviews, searching and following anyone with a Blog Talk Radio show and engaging with them on your topic.

BONUS TIP: All placements are not equal. You need to get your idea across or the placement is pointless. Working with a talented publicist can help you hone your marketing message into several succinct sound bytes that will be picked up and repeated both online and off to increase your outreach and brand visibility.

Publicity creates conversations about YOU. Be a full partner in making that happen to give your book the best possible opportunity to reach an enthusiastic reading audience.

Teleseminars are live phone conferences where anywhere from a few to hundreds of readers can simultaneously dial into a number and hear an author speak, live, about his or her book. You might recall Oprah doing this with her on-air book club this year and she was able to bring the author to literally hundreds of thousands of people not only on her television show, but in a more in-depth and intimate way, via teleseminar.

You don’t need to be Oprah to accomplish something similar albeit on a smaller scale. Yet what publisher or author would be unhappy about sharing their book with 100-500 people at one time? Most would consider that a valuable use of the author’s time and energy.

During teleseminars, authors can give a talk about their book, a short reading or even discuss something relating to the topic of their book. Depending on the teleseminar platform you use, listeners can type questions into a chat box, real time, or submit questions ahead of time for the author to address. This could be ideal for book groups who might want to read an author’s work and then chat with that author at one of their gatherings.

There are many teleseminar platforms. One of my favorites is Instant Teleseminar. This platform, and many others offer the ability to record and archive your call. The recording can then be available on the author’s website for fans and readers who were unable to attend the call live. Authors and publishers might even consider offering access to the recording as an incentive to sign up for an author’s mailing list. That mailing list can be used to update fans about upcoming national media, local in-person appearances or new books.

Teleseminars accomplish several brand building goals at once. First, authors connect with readers and potential readers in person and establish an emotional connection with the highly motivated people who took the time to come and hear what you had to say. That means you are connecting with people who are already invested in you and your writing. Second, you’ve given those brand evangelizers or fans additional information; information not available in your book but only directly from you because they’ve had a virtual conversation with you via the teleseminar where you shared your passion for writing and for the topic of your book. Third, you’ve created a permanent link where new readers can come to hear what you said via the teleseminar recording and you now have something unique to offer as an incentive to sign up for an author newsletter or e-mail list.

Here are a couple of classic teleseminar styles that can be used effectively to promote books.

1. The Interview: Find someone with a large online following on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail lists and blogs to host you. In other words, they promote the interview with you, send out the invitations to their fans and followers and you provide the content in the way of being the expert or author. The host interviews you and you agree to share the recording link so you both are able to use it on your own websites after the event.
2. The solo: If the author or publisher already has a large list or way to reach a large potential audience, you can give a lecture style talk without a host and again, make sure you record the event for future use.
3. The Panel discussion: Gather 3 or more authors or experts and promote the talk to each authors friends and followers giving you a much wider base of potential attendees. Agree in advance on the order of presentations to avoid overlap and leave time at the end for questions and have the moderator address questions to specific authors for response.

Consider creating something special that you offer only to people who attend these virtual book club talks. This could be an original essay, a short story, or a discount on your book but it should be something that your potential readers would really want from you. Make that available on your website and if the special offer is instantly downloadable once the reader has signed in, all the better.

The goal here is to expose both author and book to a new, wider audience, excite them about the work, motivate them to want to stay in touch with the author and ultimately encourage them to purchase the book.

In future posts, we’ll discuss using the Events application in Facebook and LinkedIn to promote the teleseminar and adding Twitter as an additional broadcasting tool to get the word out. If you have any questions about virtual book tours, post them here and I’ll respond. Let’s create conversations about YOU and your book in 2010.

1. Watch the show, many times. What types of guests do you see on Oprah’s show? What topics are those guests discussing? Does your book fit into the wide range of interests you’ve seen discussed on the show? For many, many authors this is the hardest point to digest. Not every book is right for Ms. Winfrey’s show. You may have written a fantastic book and still not be right for her show.
2. Think like a producer. If you were in charge of booking guests for Oprah, would you be absolutely positive that the subject matter of your book is a perfect fit for Oprah’s audience? Would you stake your job on recommending your book to Oprah for a segment? Do you know the demographics of Oprah’s audience? They are women. Will your book appeal to women?
3. Are you an experienced television guest? Television is a big business and the cost of an hour-long show is enormous. Would you and the topic of your book be a good investment for Oprah and her team? Would you and your book be so interesting that ratings might increase because people truly desire the information you have to offer? Can you, personally, deliver that information in a telegenic way and by that I mean can you speak passionately, animatedly and engagingly on your area of expertise? Can you make the viewers “see” your topic?
4. Television is a visual medium. Standard talking head interviews are alright if you’re a celebrity. If you’re not, Oprah or any television show would be more interested if you had ideas for visually presenting your material. During one appearance on Oprah, Dr. Oz brought a human heart so that Oprah could see and feel what a damaged artery feels like. She was able to touch it and describe to the audience how stiff it felt. It was riveting TV. Do you have something amazing to show your ideas to her television audience?
5. Can you surprise and inspire a television audience with your information? Do you have something so interesting to say that Oprah will feel compelled to share it with the women who watch her show? Now every author thinks they have compelling material or they wouldn’t have written a book. But to make your book a candidate for Oprah’s show, it needs to appeal to Oprah first and then to her audience. A book about a World War II battle, however important, might not be the best fit for her audience unless, perhaps, it’s about the Navy nurses who are still today, visiting veterans and have banned together to raise money to send deserving young women to nursing school to help fill the nursing shortage. That’s inspiring, motivating and engaging for Oprah’s audience.

Here’s the last observation I’d like to share. No one can guarantee you and your book a spot on Oprah. I mean no one. Oprah and her producers receive hundreds of books and book pitches every week. Her producers comb through the pitches and bring forward those that promise to be the most compelling to Oprah’s audience. Even then, a book may not be slated for a show because books are not the only basis for Oprah’s shows. The team will create a schedule of shows and mix in authors, artists, celebrities and experts throughout any given season. Oprah could, in fact, love your book and still not invite you to be her guest. She is responsible for putting together a season of shows that appeals to her audience across a wide range of subjects. You and your book may or may not fit the needs of her show during a given season. That doesn’t reflect on you as a writer or your book.

So what can you do? Go through the questions above and ask yourself honestly “Is my book right for Oprah?” If you believe it is, submit your pitch. But if after honest reflection you see that it’s not, your time might be better spent connecting with your natural readership where they live.

Make a list of media you watch and listen to ~ after all, the topic of your book was interesting to you. Where would you find YOU in the media? That’s your sweet spot, the place where you’ll find readers who will be as passionate about your book’s subject as you are. Go there and speak to your audience.

As someone who is currently engaged in training with Mari Smith, http://www.marismith.com (someone who also cares deeply about ethical behavior online) and who will be part of the first class of certified social media professionals, I’m very interested in hearing about your concerns, issues and ideas for perhaps a “Golden Rules” of using social media for publicity and marketing. Let’s post our ideas here and start the conversation. If you post, please include your full Facebook, Twitter or Website URL including the http:// so that others can friend, follow and connect with you in just one click. You’re welcome to list all of your preferred connection options in that way. Let’s start a movement.