Blog | Page 7 of 11 | Cindy Ratzlaff

Bill Gates Tops the Scrabble Leader Board | Facebook adds Subscribe Option to Profiles

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 15, 2011

I admit I have no idea if Bill Gates plays Scrabble on Facebook; yet. But I just might soon enough.

Among the new features being rolled out this week from Facebook are the enhanced friends lists options which many feel was a response to Google Plus Circles, and the introduction of a Subscribe button with multiple implications and applications.

The subscribe button is, by far, the most radical of the changes and for the first time, allows people who are not your friends to see your personal profile updates if you enable the subscribe button. So, Guy Kawasaki or Pete Cashmore haven’t accepted your friend request. Bill Gates is ignoring your pokes and messages. You can now subscribe to their personal profile posts if they decide to enable Facebook’s new Subscribe button. Why should you or your brand care? You should care because Facebook has just opened up an interesting option for celebrities, authors, entrepreneurs, speakers and other high profile public figures to create great reach for their posts, beyond their friendship circle. However, this comes with some challenges, privacy concerns and the need for those users to understand exactly how this works and what they’ll be sharing.

What does this mean for brands, small businesses and entrepreneurs?

For business people who use their Facebook profile as yet another entry point to their brand, albeit a more casual one, you can now place a subscribe button on your profile. This allows people who aren’t your friends access to those posts you mark as public. This will be useful to celebrities, speakers, authors or other very public Facebook users who have reached their 5,000 friend cut-off, but still want to allow new friends to see their posts. If you use your profile strictly for personal communications with family and friends, you’ll want to skip implementing the subscribe button and continue to decline or ignore requests for friend connections with business contacts.

What does this mean for you, the user?

As a user, you can subscribe to the posts of industry leaders, celebrities or political figures who set their personal profiles to allow subscriptions and you can decide what types of posts you want to see. For example, you can hide all posts related to games so that you’ll never know when Lady Gaga hits a new high score on Bejeweled, but you’ll always be notified when she posts a new photo.

Facebook provides more details and the link to add the Subscribe button to your Facebook profile here. The profile owner can choose to be notified when someone subscribes, too. This is one to watch as it evolves in use.

Will you enable the Subscribe button? Why or why not?

5 Cool Social Tools Worth Your Time | Twitter Tool Kit

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 8, 2011

Twitter is the amplifier of a social media marketing campaign—shouting out provocative sound bites and abbreviated teasers.

When used strategically and in synergy with a well-rounded marketing campaign, Twitter is the social whipped cream.

Here are five nifty Twitter tools to add to your entrepreneurial arsenal. Each one brings something special to the table and could add just the sparkle you need for your next campaign.

TWEETDOC

Create a document bringing together all the tweets from a particular event or search term. A tweetdoc allows you to keep a record of what happens on Twitter. You can set parameters such as date and time ranges, number of tweets to capture, hashtags and search terms and capture the Twitter conversation. Great for brand monitoring reports, competitor analysis, real time news stories such as the recent Hurricane Irene reports on Twitter, conference chatter to find and follow influencer’s and other attendees or simply to keep your finger on the pulse of an industry or technology.

TWYLAH

Twylah aggregates your tweets and highlights your brand areas of expertise, based on what you tweet about. It serves them back to you in a beautiful SEO optimized webpage that gives readers a clear visual impression of who you are and what you talk about. When you send a “power tweet” from your Twylah page, your Tweets are captured, organized visually and by keywords and your Twitter followers are directed back to you optimized landing page, which is populated with relevant tweets on the same topic. Twylah gives you yet another piece of high style social real estate to reinforce your brand identity. Seeing all your Tweets in one spot, visually and topically aggregated is an eye-opener too and can serve as a brand audit to help you quickly see if you’re hitting your target messaging or going off topic too often.

TWEETGURU

A quirky series of Twitter tools, auto tweeting bots and services that allows you to, among other things, direct message multiple Twitter accounts at once. You might want to use this feature if you’re reaching out to your personal list of press people on Twitter about a launch party or a big brand announcement. The free version has a limit of 12 accounts at one time for your direct message but this can save you time and that’s the point.

HOOTSUITE

Hootsuite’s free tweet scheduling feature is easy to use and with a modestly priced pro account agencies can manage multiple accounts at once, assign individual tweet action items to team members and keep track of which team member answered the Twitter query and their new analytic tools generate custom reports for clients and play nicely with Google analytics. Hootsuite is a timesaving tool, a team tool, a monitoring tool and a scheduling tool all in one.

TWUBS.COM

Twubs are groups built around content aggregated from hashtags. Twubs gives you a live tweet feed of an event, conference or Twitter Chat based on a specific #hashtag and offers tools such as a Tweetup and Events scheduler. You can register your event hashtag at Twubs, embed a Twub widget on your website, and the Twub offers a complete Conference suite of tools like live moderation, conference displays, live event audio and presentation streaming, RSS feeds and more to engage participants who attend in person or those watching remotely. These features could be used by speakers and can even include photos and videos. A moderator can view the stream in a time delay mode and control which tweets are shown to the audience and which should not be.

What other Twitter tools would you add to the list? Let’s share our favorites here.

Will Ferrell, Stephen King and the New Influencer Class

By Cindy Ratzlaff August 25, 2011

Got Klout?

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.

How to Price Your Services | Entrepreneur Tips

By Cindy Ratzlaff August 11, 2011

The Entrepreneurial formula goes something like this. Identify a need in the market, conceptualize the product or service to fill that need, price it to move, test the market interest in your product and either go back to the drawing board or launch.

The successful entrepreneur will research, test, price and market according to the results of his or her testing or will go straight to market on a concept that has little or no developmental costs. For example, a business coach who already has a program that he or she does one on one with clients could easily take the program to webinars without much testing by recording it using any number of programs such as Keynote for Mac, Camtasia or ScreenFlow to name a few.

If the entrepreneur has a product or service that delivers value, has identified the likely end user or client and is ready to test the waters, pricing strategies now come into play.

The number one question I get from entrepreneurs is “what should I charge?”

I can’t tell you what to charge for your product or service. That depends on your niche market, the product or service itself, perceived value, quality of delivery, what your competitors charge and many other variables. What I can share with you is that most marketing professionals see a significant drop off in opt-ins or purchases when a consumer is given too many choices. In other words, make your offer simple and increase the chances of consumers taking immediate action and purchasing your product.

There’s a theory that offering more than three choices to people decreases the likelihood of purchase. They become overwhelmed, feel confused and in some cases, suspect that they’ll make the wrong choice and not get the best deal. Here’s the pricing formula I see most often in researching internet marketing guru sites. We’ll use consulting services for our example.

The A, B, and C Concept for Consultants

Package A: This package offers people the chance to consult with you for your highest hourly rate and for the lowest commitment. For example: Two sixty-minute calls per month for $500 with a one month commitment required. In the Package A scenario, people can commit to just one month and pay you $500 to “sample” your services and if your consulting proves valuable, you can convert them to a longer term package. In this scenario, it’s essential that the consultant bring their A game to Package A, and deliver such value and solution based advice that the client can’t image themselves without your assistance going forward. In our example, Package A works out to $250 per hour for a total client commitment of $500.

Package B: This package offers the best value and is the one you really want people to choose because you know that you can make a bigger difference in your client’s business or life if you have more time to do so. So you make it significantly more desirable financially to choose Package B, BUT you require the client to commit to a longer package and thus a larger financial investment. For example: Two sixty-minute calls each month for a three month period would be priced at a discounted $225 per call. Clients save $25 per hour by committing to a three-month package. Package B offers the client a total of 6 consultations at $225 each for contractual agreement of $1,350 and a savings of $150 over your standard hourly consulting fee.

Package C: This package is your high-end offer and requires the longest commitment but gives the highest value. Here you are rewarding clients who are willing to invest in intensive committed work with you by giving them the steepest discount BUT making them commit to the highest out of pocket cost. If clients choose this package, they’ll be saving $3,000 over your regularly hourly consulting rate. This package would offer one 60-minute call per week for a total of three months or 12 calls at $200 for $2,400.

The thinking behind these package strategies is that the clients who choose Package A are exploring. The clients who choose Package B want to invest in their business but are cautious and careful and want experiential proof that you can deliver what they need. The clients who choose Package C are ready to move forward in their business, believe you are the one who can help them and want to take advantage of the maximum financial discount you’re offering.

Whatever package they choose, your job there is to over deliver to the point that they feel they truly desire to have more of your time and they’ll contract for more or if their needs have been met, they’ll give you a great reference you can use to attract other clients.

At the end of any Package contract, always ask the client if their needs were met. If not, work to rectify that. If so, ask if they will give you a testimonial quote that you can use on your website. Most people will say yes. Then you’ll be promoting your services with positive, real life case study quotes.

14 Success Secret of Powerhouse Leaders | Branding

By Cindy Ratzlaff July 15, 2011

Consistency is a commonly referred to metric for social media success. It’s also the secret ingredient behind the personal brands of leaders in industries as diverse as technology, television, journalism and publishing.

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.

Social Bookmarking and Blog Comment Strategy | Brand Marketing

By Cindy Ratzlaff June 22, 2011

Social media etiquette aside, there are benefits for all of us in social media bookmarking and blog commenting strategies.

First, when you share valuable information through social bookmarking, you position yourself as a resource to your online community. You train your potential customers to follow you to stay up to date and in the know on advances, news and strategies in their fields of interest.

Social sharing creates social influence for you and the original content creator.

When you comment on a blog post, and, this is important–add to the conversation by contributing additional resources, original thoughts or insights–you also position yourself as an individual or brand highly engaged in your field of expertise. The more interesting your comments are, the more likely people will follow your digital footprint back to your home base and subscribe, follow, friend or bookmark you.

Share to Position Yourself as a Leader

When you read a blog post you like from a writer whose work you value or respect, leave a comment. By doing so, you provide a service. Google and other search engines pay attention to the amount of interaction that takes place on a website and the more interaction, the higher the social authority of that particular blog.

Think about it in this way.

You’re at a business conference where you hear a presentation about a new technology coming out of a brand new start-up.
You go back to your company and tell your colleagues to check out this new start-up because they have some valuable marketing tools that might help you on an upcoming project.
Your firm hires these new innovators for a project which is hugely success because of their new technology.
They grow and continue to innovate and help your whole industry.
You are a hero at your company and you, in turn, consider that original business conference to be your new “must attend” event.
HOWEVER, if you attend the conference but tell no one about what you’ve learned, their start-up fails to thrive and grow for lack of customers and eventually they don’t produce any new ideas or products and perhaps even go under.
Everyone loses; the start-up, your company, and you.

The same thinking applies to blogs. If you find a blogger is consistently providing you with valuable tips and strategies, then commenting is your way of encouraging Google rank them well and ultimately to help others find this blogger. So being a conscientious blog content consumer by subscribing and leaving comments is a way for you to contribute to the ecosystems you inhabit. And, in return, you garner social equity for yourself as an aggregator of useful information, a leader in connecting your fans and followers needs to resources they can use and as an informed player in the marketplace.

Bookmarking Benefits

Social Bookmarking is another responsible way to help spread valuable or entertaining information. In addition to leaving a comment, go to one of the many social bookmarking sites and recommend the blog post to others. Social bookmarks are a way for you to save links to posts you’ve found helpful, and others can subscribe to your bookmarks. By bookmarking a blog, story or news article, you create a home for it where you can easily access it and refer to it again later.

This serves as a visibility strategy for you because you found the post or blog, and now, by bookmarking it, you’re telling other that it’s worth reading. You increase your own social currency as someone who passes on great information and ideas, and you increase the visibility of the original blogger.

It’s Called “Social” Media for a Reason

Social Media is, at it’s heart, people engaging and sharing ideas with one another. So remember to consume information and pass on the tips and strategies that you find most useful. In this way you become a valuable resource to your followers, you become more visible to those you follow and you foster a sharing mentality throughout your network.

Some social bookmarking site you might consider using include:

* Digg
* Delicious
* StumbleUpon
* Reddit

Please let me know if you have a bookmark list so I can consider subscribing. It’s time to create conversations about YOU by creating conversations about others.

8 Free or Low-Cost Twitter Timesaving Tools | Twitter Toolkit

By Cindy Ratzlaff June 7, 2011

UPDATE: Since the writing of this blog, Twitter has changed it’s policy on third party auto-follow apps. So Tool #3 below is no longer recommended for auto-following.

Twitter continues to help entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies alike increase their brand awareness, exponentially expand their marketing message reach and create more a sense of relationship between customer or client and brand or product.

Many still fear that Twitter is a time rabbit hole and that building a large following on Twitter will unleash a time commitment they can’t accommodate.

Here are eight timesaving tools to help any sized business or individual entrepreneur find, follow, engage or manage their time on Twitter for productive results.

Twellow: This site is the Yellow Pages of Twitter. This free site allows you to register your Twitter account under three different keywords such as marketing, branding, social media or whatever keywords a potential client might enter to find your business. Listing your Twitter account here will help others to find you when searching for the service or product you provide. Therefore, leads or followers coming from Twellow are more likely than average to be seeking what you have to offer. It’s fast and easy to register and worth your time. Additionally, if you use Twellow while logged into your Twitter account and Twellow, you can search, find and follow others directly from the platform.
Twitter App for Facebook: The Twitter stream is a fast moving conversation and therefore, your tweets once out of sight are out of mind. Making any content you create do double duty is a good timesaving strategy. Using this app to cause Facebook to auto-post from Facebook to your Twitter account makes your daily Facebook post work harder by also speaking to your Twitter followers. And, the added benefit is the way this app creates a truncated link to bring people back to your Facebook page to read a post that is longer. This is a subtle invitation for Twitter followers interested enough to click the link to continue reading to “like” your Facebook page. Again, always ask your content to work in multiple ways.
SocialToo: Auto follow everyone who follows you. I’m a believer in auto following everyone who follows me on Twitter. It’s an easy way to build your following and allows people who find you to DM or Direct Message you on Twitter. I’ve been interviewed by national newspapers and contacted by future clients this way and had I not employed a policy of auto following, they would not have been able to reach me as easily and quickly. I upgraded from a free account at SocialToo to a one-time $10 fee to use their set it and forget it auto follow tool. I love this feature and cannot recommend it enough.
Hootsuite: In my opinion, Hootsuite is one of the best social media dashboards for managing Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin accounts at a glance and pre-scheduling tweets. I use it regularly manage 10 or more Twitter accounts alone, using Hootsuite and their newly enhanced metrics are terrific for creating client reports and for insight into which marketing messages are working and which are falling on deaf ears and may need tweaking.
Tweetbeep: Google for Twitter. Set alerts for your keywords, your business name and your competitors to keep yourself in the loop and to find good information to tweet to your followers.
Tweepi: This handy site allows you to weed out the accounts that don’t follow you back, to reciprocate those that follow you first and to clean out inactive accounts from your Twitter tribe. A free version is suitable for smaller accounts and a paid version adds significantly more functionality for larger accounts or agencies.
Tweetchat: Follow hashtag conversations in real time without distractions. By doing so, you can quickly and easily find people talking about keywords and topics that interest you or your potential customer. Use hashtag conversations to bring yourself and your brand to the attention of others by participating in interesting, on-point twitter conversations.
Timely: Analyze your Twitter patterns and get recommendations on times of day when your followers are most likely see, read and respond to your posts.

What other tools are in your Twitter toolkit? If you have tools and strategies for maximizing your time on Twitter, I’d love to hear about them. Let’s share with one another.

Low-Cost Digital Marketing Tools for Authors and Publishers

By Cindy Ratzlaff May 25, 2011

Traditional marketing and publicity opportunities for books are rapidly becoming scarce as Oprah exits network television and national morning shows more regularly use in-house correspondents instead of author experts. This means authors and publishers need to restock their marketing tool box.

Using digital marketing tools can help authors and publishers by-pass the network television gatekeeper and take book messages directly to the reader. Digital tools help authors connect with potential readers wherever they spend time online, be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs or search engines. And, it is essential to remember that nearly half of all web users are accessing the web throughout the day via their mobile devices so creating digital content that plays nicely in mobile formats is key.

I recently spoke on the topic of digital tool kits at BookExpo America 2011 on the Digital Marketing Panel with Sally Dedecker, Fauzia Burke and Kathleen Schmidt. The panel consensus was that authors and publishers need to consider utilizing a wide variety of digital strategies to reach new readers. You can view my powerpoint presentation here. But many digital tools are expensive to create and not every author or publisher has the budget to develop and implement the more complicated and costly digital strategies used by major brands.

Here’s a list of my favorite low-cost digital tools authors and publishers can their book campaigns.

Blogsite or Website with a blog

This is the author’s home base. Readers should be able to read more about the author, find links to the current and previous works of the author, view a personal appearance schedule and read the author’s blog. Readers should also be able to sign up for a continued relationship with the author, perhaps through a newsletter or to receive a sample chapter of a new book. Whatever the offer, the author needs to capture the e-mail addresses of people who express an interest in hearing from them. Authors can create a free blog using WordPress or Blogger and an e-mail management system like MailChimp is free until the author has attracted 2,000 fans. MailChimp automatically generates the HTML code needed for an Opt-in box, which the author can place on his or her blog. By working with the publisher to offer a sample chapter as a digital download, authors can offer a sneak peek for new books for fans who sign up for the mailing list.

Social Media

Social media amplifies the authors website and blog messages and creates a connection to help readers feel as though they’re involved in the author’s world. Authors can share tour information, preview books, give fans special content such as original stories on their website or blog and spread the word via social media. It’s easier and faster to amass a large following on Twitter and Facebook than to acquire a large subscription base on a website because millions of people are already gathered on social media sites. Go to where the readers are already gathered. Bring the author’s message to those readers instead of waiting for them to stumble upon that message on a website. It’s free to sign up for accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. There is no cost to use them. However, investing a few hundred dollars in design and custom tabs will allow authors to sell books directly from their Facebook Fan page, offer that sneak peek free chapter through an opt in box right from Facebook, create the look and feel of their own television channel on YouTube and give readers a sense of their personality on Twitter. For under $500, each of the author’s social media sites can be design to promote the others and ultimately to drive fans back to the author’s blog or home base.

Opt in

The theme for an author’s digital tool kit is “make it easy for the reader to find, follow, friend and like you.” By developing an e-mail database of readers who have expressed an interest in what an author writes, authors and publishers will be able to easily and efficiently push updates and marketing messages to potential book buyers who have already identified themselves as being interested. This permission based digital marketing is cost effective and can have a higher ROI than nearly any other book marketing. Adding an Opt in box and an enticing sign up offer on both the author website and their Facebook Fan page is an easy, inexpensive digital marketing strategy.

Video

We’re living in a social world where Facebook is the Wal-Mart of digital platforms. With nearly 700 million users now conditioned to expect to see a face attached to every brand, authors who use video effectively will have a competitive advantage in reaching readers. Readers like seeing and hearing from the artists they admire. In the past, meeting a favorite author or even a new author, was relegated to book signings and perhaps major events. Now authors can create short home videos and talk directly to their potential readers, sharing their tour experiences, their creative process and even concepts from their books. Readers enjoy authors who share a bit of their personality and their time by creating short video messages. This, too, is an easy and inexpensive digital marketing concept.

Digital Assets

Authors can now create digital badges, original digital content like blogs or articles, downloadable author photos and bios, digital press releases, quizzes, games and contests. All of these digital assets can be used to create visibility for the author and his or her books online. The more interesting and compelling the digital assets are, the more likely they will be referenced, shared and valued by potential readers. Creating 5-10 original essays or blog posts that can be used as guest blogs on sites visited by an author’s ideal reader is a free way to use these digital assets to promote an author’s books. The topic of the posts could be related to the topic of the new book and the author by-line can reference his or her latest work. By providing desirable content to other websites, the author extends his or her own visibility and attracts new readers. Sharing charts, graphs, photos, videos, quizzes or other interesting and relevant content on these high traffic websites is another strategic use of an author’s digital assets. Think about what digital assets you can create to support the launch of your books and prepare those assets so they’re ready and available at launch time.

Online Advertising

Facebook advertising campaigns can fit any budget. Authors and publishers can set a daily or a lifetime cap to the dollar amount of the campaign. If an author already has several thousand fans, Facebook’s sponsored stories ads display an image of the author’s fan page to friends of that author’s fans with a subtle visual that implies “Your friends like this page. You should too.” Authors and publishers can try different types of ads, different images and different creative messages until they find one that drives new fans to press “like.” Facebook ads can also be created to redirect Facebook users to the author’s blog or website. Again, even a budget of $100 to $200 can have an impact, not just in new fans or readers, but in author and book visibility. Hundreds of thousands of impressions can be achieved for a very modest budget. This is a digital marketing strategy that is often overlooked because publishers and authors think advertising is expensive or that it’s difficult to measure the ROI. With Facebook advertising, daily metrics will tell the tale of these ad campaign affects.

These are just a few of the digital marketing strategies authors and publishers can implement for little or no monetary outlay. Are you using digital marketing strategies effectively? We’d love to hear your ideas and success stories.

Author Platform Building Checklist

By Cindy Ratzlaff May 2, 2011

Building a loyal, engaged fan base takes time and commitment. Ideally authors would begin building that fan base during the writing process so they could share their journey with the growing fan base.

Besides writing the book, building a fan base is the author’s second most important job.

Fans who know and like the author would watch and take part in the creative process as the author posts about writing, finishing chapters, editing, creating a book proposal, finding an agent, and the exciting ups and downs of submitting the proposal to publishers. Fans would celebrate with the author as the book is sold and continue their behind the scenes journey through editorial suggestions, jacket design, marketing and promotion plans and ultimately reward the author by purchasing the book at publication time.

I’d like to see publishers give every author a base building checklist with their contract and strongly encourage the author to begin or continue building a strong social presence during the time between contract and publication.

The elements of a good platform building checklist could include:

1. A Facebook profile in the author’s name. Building a following on Facebook starts with your inner circle and grows. Inviting those closest to you, the author, is the ideal place to start spreading the word about your book.

2. A Facebook fan page for the book. There are many applications and bells and whistles that can only be used on a Fan Page. Additionally, a Facebook fan page is indexed by Google and is, therefore, a powerful opportunity to increase the author’s ability to be found in a search–both for his or her name and for the topic and keywords that best describe the book. Live links to the author’s website, on the information page, help keep moving fans toward the home base. iFrames custom designed tabs can be used to create a rich experience, including selling the book directly from Facebook, offering live author chats, a look at rave reviews, and regular updates on the author’s tour or live events.

3. A Twitter account in the author’s name. Twitter is a broadcasting and engagement platform that helps introduce an author to a large audience and invite them back to the author’s homebase for a deeper conversation and relationship.

4. A YouTube Channel in the author’s name. Almost every author can benefit by creating a home for their videos. What videos some authors might be asking? The ones you need to create. Interviews, messages to fans, reports from the book tour, other short videos that help the fan or reader feel as though they have a relationship with the author. Authors can even make their still photos into short, professional videos using a free and easy to use service called Animoto.

5. A blogsite or website. The blog or website is the home base and all of an author’s interactions on other social sites should eventually invite the author back to that home base to take an action. That action can be purchase the book, sign up for the newsletter, check out the live events calendar or leave a comment with a question. Here authors can run contests, giveaways, and increase interactions with fans to build a strong subscriber base. Using multimedia such as video or audio messages combined with photography will increase fan engagement and help create a desire to revisit the site often.

The key to platform building is consistency, authenticity, value and creativity. Post daily. Share your personality. Give readers something they can’t get elsewhere–your work. Make your fans and followers feel as though they’re in a special club. Call them by name when you respond to their comments. Thank them for taking the time to comment. Let them know you’ve seen and heard them. In other words, building a social platform is similar to building a friendship circle

Authors, keep writing, and add some social writing to your daily activities to create a vibrant fan base of readers eagerly waiting for your book.

What fan building activities do you regularly engage in? Do you have ideas you’d like to share with this community? Please let us know. We’d very much appreciate the time it takes to leave your comments and will respond to every one. Thank you.

Social Media Marketing Tools and Tactics | The Virtuous Circle

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 29, 2011

Using a variety of social media marketing tools and tactics strategically, even businesses on a budget can dramatically increase online visibility and search engine ranking.
Small businesses and entrepreneurs have heard the drums, heeded the call and jumped on the Facebook bandwagon, setting up a fan page for their businesses and even dipping their toes into the Twitter pool. But many are struggling to build a following and beginning to wonder about the R.O.I. of their time in using this social media platform.

The virtuous marketing circle engages multiple learning styles to reach more potential clients and customers.

Although Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are free, the valuable resource of one’s time is required to actively engage, update and promote a brand message. And, time is expensive. Making the content business create work harder and across multiple platforms is a good way to produce a virtuous marketing circle and increase the ROI of content creation. This tactic can help users create a wider circle of influence by spreading their brand message to an exponentially larger audience; reaching consumers wherever they spend the majority of their time online.

Below is an example of a virtuous marketing circle. The small business owner creates the circle in the follow way.

1. A blog post on his or her blogsite or website.

2. Using a Facebook application such as Notes or Networked Blogs, our business owner automatically pulls that blog post onto his Facebook Fan page, which represents his business. Having set his application controls once, he never thinks about this again. His page is automatically updated with his new blog post each and every time he posts.

3. The title and a link back to our business owner’s Facebook Page is automatically posted to her Twitter account, moments after it hits her Facebook page because she has set up an application called the Facebook Twitter App. So now that single blog post has now been seen on three different platforms and potentially by three different audiences with some minor overlap.

4. Once or twice a month, our business owner chooses a particularly informative blog post and posts it to an e-zine articles site that accepts and syndicates articles with valuable information. Articles on e-zine sites can be picked up by other publications or blogs and helps our business owner reach a new audience with content he or she has already created. Additionally, Google and other search engines will index the articles which helps bring our business owner and brand higher up the search engine rankings.

5. Occasionally our business owner chooses one of his or her blog posts and records it as a podcast, saves it as an MP3, posts it to a Podcast site, itunes and perhaps to a special Podcast tab on the original website. Producing the same messages in multiple formats helps engage different learning styles in potential customers.

6. Just as our business owner was able to rework the original blog into a podcast, so she does so again, in a short how-to video about a particularly post. This video is posted to YouTube, then brought into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and again, back to the original blog.

With the virtuous marketing circle, one blog post reaches six or seven unique readerships and our business owner has created mutiple touchpoints from which to engage with clients, exponentially increasing the chances of being seen and heard. The original content he or she created has now been broadcast throughout the virtuous marketing circle.

How do you reuse, rework, re-introduce your ideas and messages to reach a wider crowd. Let’s share ideas.