Marketing Archives | Page 5 of 6

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.

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.

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.

FOCUS | How to Create Powerful Marketing Messages

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 19, 2011

When I consult with entrepreneurs, publishers or major corporations, I start by asking them to share their F.O.C.U.S with me. At first, most say “creating wealth,” “making money,” or “selling more products.”

Can you put your core offering into one compelling sentence?

I always ask them, for the purpose of achieving those goals, to shift their focus from the end result to the first challenge; clearly stating their unique value to a potential customer. This “why to buy” focus helps businesses center their marketing, branding and public relations messages around the most important point of all—their offering.

F.O.C.U.S stands for “Find Our Core Unique Service.” Figuring this out helps companies address one of the four key elements of branding; variation. Asking the tough questions, doing the research and creating clear, concise communications will save entrepreneurs and even bigger companies time, money and frustration.

Some questions to ask to help define the unique service or selling proposition are:

How is this service or product different from all others in the competitive set?

Less expensive, more detailed, easier to use, more conveniently located?

Does the personality of this business or service give it something special?

Is the business or service provider more highly qualified, more experienced, personally enriched by the product usage?

Why would someone choose this product or service from all other choices available?

Better customer service and support, first to market, more stylish packaging, more rave reviews, higher perceived value?

Try to put your core offering into one compelling sentence. This exercise will tell you if you’ve nailed your F.O.C.U.S. I invite you to post your F.O.C.U.S. statement here and I’ll give you my opinion on whether or not your statement conveys your F.O.C.U.S. to me. Go.

4 Rules Every Social Media Marketer Can Learn from Improv

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 11, 2011

Many of you know I began my career as an improvisational actress. I’ve shared the stage with or taught classes to Bruce Willis, Kathy Kinney, John Leguizamo, radio and voice over personality Buzz Brainard, directors Bob Koherr and Peggy Rajski and even casting legend, David Rubin. What most people don’t know is that improvisation looks like free form conversational style theater, but in fact, it’s a structured technique that employs just four clear, crisp rules. The rules of improvisation are surprisingly similar to those for using social media platforms as a marketing vehicle.

Everything I know about Social Media Marketing, I learned in improv.

The four rules of improv can be summarized as:

who and what
when and where
yes, and
don’t deny

Who and What

Who you are to one another and what you’re doing are essential elements to establishing an interesting improvisational scene. They’re also key to establishing trust and social proof when engaging with others online. Establishing who you are and what you offer helps you attract potential clients who may be interested in your products or services. Demonstrate your expertise and provide social proof through actively sharing advise or strategies in your field. An improv actor might start a scene by saying, “Hello Nanny, it’s been a long semester and I’m delighted to see you again. Let me help you with those toys.” The audience will instantly know the relationship, and what they are doing. An entrepreneur might say, “When Forbes called me a “must follow” on Twitter, I realized I needed to share my techniques with others. My new webinar starts on Friday.”

When and Where

The when and where of an improv scene helps give the players clues as to how to communicate during the scene. The object of establishing a strong when and where is to help the players and the audience envision a scene with no props. On social media platforms, we’re using very few props other that words and the occasional video, photo or audio file. We need to establish help the consumer visualize our brand, our offering, our service. The actor in our scene above might say, “My playroom looks the same as it did when I was five. Even though I’m almost grown, I still have trouble sharing these toys with my little sister, Nanny.” Now the audience has a strong sense of the scene, the players and way they’ll interact with one another. To establish a clear when and where, the entrepreneur in our scenario above might say, “I’m thrilled to be offering this webinar, free of charge, this week right on my Facebook page, using LiveStream. Join me!”

Yes, And

In improvisation, a sacred rule is to listen to your fellow actor speak, then silently say to yourself, “Yes, and…” then add information. If one actor says, “I love your beautiful dress,” and the next actor says “I think I’ll walk the dog,” the audience and the actors suddenly seem confused. But if the answer to the first statement is “Why thank you. I bought it with the money you generously sent me in my birthday card, ” now we have a scene and a deeper relationship between the two characters. So our entrepreneur above needs to listen to his or her fans and followers to see how they responds to the LiveStream news, silently say “yes, and” and add more information. Example: “Will the event be recorded so I can listen later if I miss it live?” (Yes, and) “It will be recorded, Joyce, and I’ll be answering questions all week on my Facebook fan page.”

Don’t Deny
Denying someone’s statement in improv is tricky and can bring a scene to a halt, causing. If the first actor says, “What a beautiful, sunny day,” and the second actor says “No it’s not, it’s raining,” the next several moments will be a battle of wills to see who defines the scene, creating chaos onstage. In our entrepreneurial world, think about keeping the flow of ideas and questions coming and encouraging conversation to build relationships. Our entrepreneur above would be struggling to keep clients if he kept denying their needs or the way they receive his products. How would their future relationship go if our entrepreneur said, “You didn’t do the things I recommended, so you can’t expect the results I promised.” While that might be true, a more productive way to move this relationship forward might be, “I understand that you’re not ready to move forward on my original list of suggestions. Let me come back to you with some new ideas to see if we can overcome your concerns and still produce the result you’re hoping for.”

Every entrepreneur is really an improvisational artist. He or she works with new clients or customers and new situations all the time. Entrepreneurs need to be quick on their feet, flexible in their ideas and creative in their leadership. Everything I know about social media marketing, I learned from improv. All the web is a social stage, and remembering the four rules of improv can improve our social interactions.

How are you employing the rules of improv in your business? I’d love to hear ways in which you’ve set the scene, communicated clearly, turned a negative into a positive and added information. If you enjoyed this post, I’d very much appreciate it if you’d leave a comment.

6 Entrepreneurial Lessons from Secret Millionaires | Brand Marketing Tips

By Cindy Ratzlaff March 29, 2011

A new ABC television production hit airwaves nationwide this month and is creating more than high ratings. Secret Millionaire features a number of high profile people whose business model is helping others create financial stability, and even wealth, both online and off. What lessons might entrepreneurs emulate to create their own secret, or not so secret,millionaire success story? Let’s look at four of the secret millionaires to identify replicable patterns.

Secret Millionaire stars share some common practices entrepreneurs can adopt to create their own success.

Dani Johnson was homeless at 21 and a millionaire at 23. She now speaks, writes and conducts virtual home study courses and live events designed to help people get out of debt. Her story is compelling and inspirational. The tone of her communications is all about having experienced the fear and frustration of financial debt herself. By sharing her personal story, helping people identify with her, then modeling a success route, Dani acts as a mentor, cheerleader and coach to those who follow her program.

James Malinchak is a speaker, consultant and internet marketer who models hard work and reward. He is everywhere, all the time, with boundless energy and a message that you can create the life you want if you just have the will. He’s a mindset coach and people aspire to the life he has created for himself through relentless hard work and strategically brilliant marketing. Among other things, he coaches people on becoming paid speakers, something he is very good at doing himself. He understands creating ambient awareness and brand connections. His newest offering is called the Millionaire Apprentice Program, which piggy backs his programs SEO nicely with the buzz Secret Millionaire is garnering, and authentically ties in by teaching the techniques that helped him become a millionaire.

Gary and Diane Heavin are the founders of Curves, the fitness franchise for women. They have a different model. They’re not internet marketers. The majority of their work is hands on, with people who buy a Curves franchise. They model the in the trenches, “do it with you,” style of business. Even though they’ve created the largest women’s fitness franchise in history and have become very wealthy in the processes, they still operate like entrepreneurs. Gary’s philosophy is “Entrepreneurs don’t get paid on effort. They get paid on results.” He and Diane believe “success is not about who runs the fastest but rather who gets up the fastest after they fall.” This year they’ve teamed up with Zumba to create a new Curves Circuit with Zumba Fitness class to add to club offerings and are in the process of adding a diet counselor certification program through the Cleveland Clinic so clubs can provide better diet counseling to their members.

Ali Brown is a high profile coach for women entrepreneurs. She’s offers a tiered system of coaching programs that go from free webinars all the way through a very elite high priced personal coaching program and she has clients lined up to work with her. Her personal story of leaving corporate America and struggling as she launched her own business helps entrepreneurs identify with her and her “my gamble paid off and yours can too” mantra is appealing. She models success, glamour and adventure. And, she works hard. From that first business in her living room, Ali has expanded her brand into a magazine, an online style boutique, women’s retreats, info-products and more.

So what lessons can other entrepreneurs learn from these successful self-made millionaires?

Poverty is a strong motivator in each of their success stories. A driving passion to improve your life can be a powerful influencer.
Creating a business from the ground up takes more hard work than anything you’ve ever done before. Persistence is the key.
Continued success lies in continued reinvention. Successful people never stop innovating.
Financial freedom is a strong motivator and there are millions of people who want and need the information you may have on how to create financial security. A down economic climate may be the ideal time to launch a business that solves a problem.
Sharing your personal journey helps others envision themselves as potentially successful. People want to do business with successful people and modeling success can produce powerful results.
A great career or business is less about making the next sale and more about building lasting relationships.

If you enjoyed this article, I’d appreciate hearing from you. Please leave a comment below or on my Facebook page and share your thoughts.

Affiliate Programs | Income Stream for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 28, 2010

Most authors do not want to become affiliate marketers, spending time promoting other people’s products for a percentage of any sales generated. It seems time consuming and slightly unseemly. But those same authors, writers, speakers and entrepreneurs wouldn’t hesitate to recommend books they love to their friends and followers.

Recommending books to your fans and followers is a good marketing strategy.

If you love to read. have ever recommended a good book to a friend or reviewed a book online, then setting up an affiliate relationship with Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com can help pay your web hosting bills, increase your position as a trusted source of information and support authors and writers through recommending their work. You simply sign up for an account and when you find something you’d like to recommend, you grab the link and share it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog or even through your e-newsletter. You can build a “recommended reading” widget through these affiliate programs and add new books easily. These sites pay you a small commission on each sale resulting from your recommendation. You will not get rich with this strategy, but you can bring in enough to pay for a book or two per month that you’d probably buy anyway.

It’s not the money that makes this worthwhile. It’s a win-win marketing strategy that helps your visibility, increases your social currency and frankly, gives you something to blog about now and then when you’re stumped.

I only recommend books I love and in the case of Amazon.com, I occasionally recommend other products that I personally use like Samsung HMX-F90 camcorder as well as the really inexpensive but awesome tripod I use which costs less than $15.00 and that has a travel case!

I know that I enjoy reading lists from trusted sources. Trust is the key issue here with dabbling in affiliate marketing. If you recommend things you don’t like, people will come to view your lists as a waste of time. So don’t squander your social currency. Recommend the best and earn a little change in the process.

I’d love to see your recommended reading lists. I’ve been so busy reading non-fiction books by clients so I can help them with their promotional plans that I could use a good novel to sweep me away.

Social media and the enduring challenges of business communications

By Cindy Ratzlaff February 2, 2010

From time to time, I’ll be bringing you blog posts or opinion pieces by guest experts in various fields who can offer a unique point of view on either social media, public relations, marketing, entreprneurship or publishing. Today I’m honored to introduce you to guest blogger, Bob Martin an Allentown-based corporate communications professional who is experienced in both corporate communications for worldwide and local organizations. Contact him at bobjmartin@verizon.net.

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.

Social Media Marketing and Brand Goals

By Cindy Ratzlaff January 20, 2010

Social media marketing is the new shiny toy. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a really useful shiny new toy. It’s a rapidly evolving, fun newcomer that is grabbing all the headlines, adding bells and whistles every week…sometimes every day. So while every author, company, brand or entrepreneur needs to have a social media marketing strategy and be able to innovate and implement great new campaigns, it can’t pull focus from your primary goals. It’s a method to help you reach your goals, not the end goal itself.

Make sure that your social media marketing efforts serve your overall brand goals. As you set or review your brand goals, ask yourself:

What unique product or service do I offer?
What “need” does my service or product fulfill?
Where would potential customers seek solutions for fulfilling that “need?”
What 5-7 words describe the “why to buy” for my product or service?
What is my complete marketing strategy for announcing and promoting this product?
What are my expectations for income from this product?
Does this product reflect all of my brand messages and core values?

After you’ve identified your unique offer and created your targeted, keyword rich messages, make social media outreach via your business Facebook page and Twiter account a regular but measured part of your everyday business tasks. Just 10-15 minutes in the morning and perhaps another 10-15 minutes at the end of the day or at midday can help you keep your brand message in front of potential customers.

Here are five things I do every morning:

Facebook Profile: Check in-box and respond as need, accept or decline invitations to events and pages, check my “key contacts” stream briefly for any interesting updates, news, innovations I want to share with my friends.
Facebook Fan Page: Briefly check to see if any comments or questions need clarifying and post either a link to a news article or blog post that I want to share with my fans or post a tip, strategy or idea. That post goes out automatically to my Twitter as well.
Twitter: Check @replies to see if anyone has questions. Thank folks who retweet or #FF me. Check DM’s and respond as necessary. Check one of my key lists and peruse the stream to see if any of these industry movers and shakers has something I’d like to retweet or read or share with my followers.
Blog: Post to my blog, which will then auto post to my Facebook Fan Page and my Twitter account.

Periodically throughout the day, if I find something worth sharing I pop over to Hootsuite, which I keep open on a tab on my browser. I post the link, write a quick post and pre-schedule it to go to one or more accounts later that afternoon.

I spend no more than 10-15 minutes each day glancing through my Google reader which aggregates about 20 blogs I find most relevant to my business and I grab a link and schedule a post from one or more of those on Hootsuite.

Once a week, I spend a full day writing blog posts, making videos and planning additional marketing strategies for my business.

The rest of my time I spend on clients, writing, and creating new opportunities and outlets for my work. For every product, my social media marketing strategy is just one portion of my overall marketing plan. My marketing strategies including speaking engagements, webinars and teleseminars, e-newsletters, targeted advertising, guest blogging, in-person networking and media interviews.

What are your non-social media marketing plans? How will you create conversations about YOU this year?

Book Publicity | The Top Ten Things Book Publicists Want Authors to Know

By Cindy Ratzlaff January 6, 2010

You’ve handed in your manuscript, completed all the edits and now your job is done. You’re thinking that now it’s up to your publisher’s publicity machine to make your book a success. Wrong.

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.