Cindy Ratzlaff

Bestselling author, award winning brand marketing and social media pro, Cindy Ratzlaff, creates sales driving campaigns for authors, books and publishers.

To Boost or Not to Boost a Facebook Post

By Cindy Ratzlaff

To boost or not to boost? That is the question Facebook page owners ask me when they’re struggling with decreased reach and no engagement. Is it better to boost a particular post, or to promote the Page for Likes? The answer, as in every marketing question, depends on your goals.

If your goal is to bring more visibility to a particular offer, sale or promotion, you might benefit from boosting an individual post that includes a call to action or leads people back to a sales page. Or, if your Facebook business page fans have not been engaging with your page and your reach has dropped significantly, you might consider boosting a post you know will have a high perceived value for the majority of your fans.

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Platforms and Personal Branding for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Congratulations. You’ve written a book. Now you’re about to take on a new job; Chief Marketing Officer of the Brand of You.

“I just self-published my first book and I need help marketing the book.”

Every week I received at least one email from an author that starts like this, “I just self-published my first book and I need help marketing the book.”  I always respond to the author with the following questions:

  1. What are your goals in publishing this book?
  2. What is your platform for helping your ideal reader find your book?
  3. What is your current plan for letting your ideal reader know your book exists?

The first question informs the entire approach to book marketing and promotion. The second question lets me know if the author has any way to let readers know the book exists. The second question lets me know if the author understands the concept of “discoverability.” The third question helps me guide the author to focus on the actions that they will most likely be able to take to help them achieve their goals.

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5 Promotional Hot Spots Every Facebook Business Page Can Use

By Cindy Ratzlaff

With more than one billion people logging onto Facebook every month, entrepreneurs cannot afford to ignore the marketing implications.  Custom designed apps serve as mini web pages on a site with more traffic than most websites will ever hope to have. The large cover photo at the top of every business page is a digital marketing billboard and key promotional hot spots can help convert fans on Facebook into visitors to brand websites.

Every entrepreneur, author, speaker or small business with a business page has several key  consumer facing hot spots to share sales, specials, invite opt ins and even promote events.

Is your business page using these five promotional hot spots? Take this checklist and compare it to your page to make sure you’re using every available promotional opportunity built into the Facebook business page model.

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10 Social Profiles Every Author Needs

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Every author needs a platform, a way to connect with readers and let them know when their next book is ready to be purchase. So what is a platform? A platform is simply the reliable ways in which an author can connect with fans and encourage them to buy books.

Bestselling authors have a history of bestsellers, creating a kind of literary celebrity. That’s a platform. Some authors have national television shows, magazine columns or are regulars on nationally syndicated radio. These are platforms too. An author might have a commitment from Staples or IBM to buy books and give them to employees. That’s a kind of platform, too.

Until recently, the average author was out of luck if they didn’t have a platform. That was before social media and the power it has to excite, engage, build community and create media for authors.

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The New Rules of Facebook Marketing

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Facebook moved your cheese. When Facebook began rolling out the new news feed algorithm, downgrading reach for business pages and making it necessary for brands, businesses, entrepreneurs and solo-preneurs to “pay-to-play” to reach more of their fan base, there was gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands and groaning heard throughout the publishing industry and beyond. People threw up their hands and declared they were leaving Facebook.

But is that really the answer for authors, publishers and booksellers who want to help readers find their next book?

Facebook visibility, in my opinion, is a math problem first and a content marketing strategy problem second.

Facebook Visibility is a Math Problem

More than one billion users log into Facebook every month. That’s an enormous ecosystem for authors. The average Facebook user sees updates from only a fraction of their friends or the pages they’ve liked.

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8 Tips to Get More Organic Reach on Facebook

By Cindy Ratzlaff

You’re not imagining things. Facebook reach for business pages has decreased dramatically and Facebook isn’t denying it at all. In fact, they’ve been transparent about the need to deliver a profit for their shareholders and the new reality that business pages will have to bring some marketing dollars to the table to increase their post reach. Authors, small businesses and entrepreneurs do have to add some advertising dollars to their monthly budget but there are still ways to increase reach organically to supplement an ad budget.

So instead of watching your Facebook reach plummet, try these 8 strategies from my Maximum Visibility Playbook. These are just a few easy to implement ideas that you can use to help the very people who want and need what you create, find you.

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Increase Brand Visibility with Slideshare

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Update: Slideshare is now owned by LinkedIn and is fully integrated into LinkedIn profiles. You can still use Slideshare as a separate platform and link it to your LinkedIn profile. By uploading your presentations to Slideshare, you can reach more people with content you’ve already created, saving you time, positioning you as a thought-leader, and garnering visibility on multiple platforms.

One of my favorite marketing visibility tools is Slideshare.net, a powerful platform for increasing brand awareness, demonstrating authority on a topic, making your stellar content work harder for you across multiple platforms and creating those all-powerful digital breadcrumbs leading back to the brand of you.

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Social Marketing for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Romance bookResources for authors to help them reach more readers by Cindy Ratzlaff.s are consistently one, if not the, bestselling genres in publishing. Why? Perhaps it’s because romance writers understand the importance of networking. They create writing groups, attend writing conferences, read each others books and share their love of reading at the drop of a hat. I had the honor of addressing this year’s Romance Writers of America Conference in San Antonio, Texas this week to speaking about social marketing strategy for authors and the complete slide deck of presentation is online and available to view or download on my SlideShare Account here.

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8 Simple Ideas for Free or Low-Cost Publicity

By Cindy Ratzlaff

Every business owner knows the value of PR. It helps your ideal customer understand what you do and find you when they want your service or product. But most business owners don’t have a background in public relations nor do they have the budget for a professional PR agency.

The good news is you don’t need to break the bank to garner good publicity for your business.  If you’re willing to commit a little time and ingenuity, you can promote your company effectively and build your reputation as a business leader.

Here are eight simple steps you can take, on your own, to promote your business, book or service.

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15 Simple Mostly Free Facebook Marketing Tips to Try Today

By Cindy Ratzlaff

With more than 1 billion people on Facebook, the sheer volume of potential clients and customers makes this platform worth your marketing efforts. But building a following and making sure they see what you post has become a bigger challenge as Facebook continues to tweak the algorithm in favor of advertising and big brands. But do not abandon the platform just yet.

Here are a few nifty, mostly free, tips and tricks to help your content attract, engage and retain a fan base so that when you have something to sell them, they’re still listening. For more ideas on the specific how-to aspects of content marketing on Facebook, you can employ most of the ideas in 8 Ways to Get Your Posts Seen in the News Stream easily.

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