Personal Branding Archives

Platforms and Personal Branding for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff August 18, 2015

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:

What are your goals in publishing this book?
What is your platform for helping your ideal reader find your book?
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.

How to Create Your Digital Footprint

By Cindy Ratzlaff June 17, 2015

When someone Google’s your name, whether during a job search or when considering working with you in any capacity, you want to feel confident that what they find will represent you in the most positive way. For most businesses, brands or products, this isn’t an issue. You’ll have a website, social networks and a host of digital platforms placing positive digital breadcrumbs all over the internet for clients and employers to find and follow.

But for the new graduate or someone just starting out in a new field, additional steps may be required:

8 Tips to Get More Organic Reach on Facebook

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 2, 2015

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.

Social Marketing for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff July 25, 2014

Romance books 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.

Write Non-Fiction Books as a Marketing Tool

By Cindy Ratzlaff January 21, 2014

Write a book. I’m begging you. I’m not going to mince words here. People are search, right now, for exactly what you offer. But they can’t find you. So they hire someone else. Want to be the one they find and hire? Then write a book.

If you know how to do something, write a book.

If the service you provide can be taught, write a book. If the concepts you impart during the consulting you do are replicable, write a book. Writing a book will stake your claim to leadership in your business and set you apart from the pack as a unique brand voice. But one cautionary word here. Make sure that if you are going to write a book, you pack that book with the kind of information and value you’d give to your clients in person.

A book is a more permanent reminder to potential customers of what you stand for. So if you write a book that does not deliver on the promise, you’ve created a negative digital connection to your brand or business. But if you write a book that surprises, inspires, solves a problem or teaches a new solution to your ideal client base, you’ll have a credible resource to point to in every business situation.

3 Ways to Drive Social Sales

By Cindy Ratzlaff October 9, 2013

Turning fans and followers into clients and customers is the next step in building a Maximum Visibility Platform that connects customers to your products. These three steps are easy to implement and often overlooked but can have an immediate impact on visibility, growth, sharing and conversion.

If you want fans and followers to becomes customers and clients, make sure they know exactly what you’re selling and how to purchase it.

How to Drive Social Sales

Design an environment that smoothly, comfortably and easily guides the fan or follower to your offering and makes a compelling case for making immediate purchase decision, and reward followers and fans with a special discount or added value. Then invite them to share their purchase and share that special offer with their friends thereby helping your biggest fans gain status in their friend’s eyes because they’ve discovered and shared something before everyone else. Here are three ways to increase social sales by creating a social media customer-centric experience.

Speaking as a Marketing Strategy – Brand You

By Cindy Ratzlaff August 22, 2013

Public speaking is a cost effective marketing strategy and an excellent way to build your personal brand.

Speaking is like grocery store sampling – you reach your ideal audience at exactly the time and place when they are most interested in the services or products you offer. When you speak at an event, someone else does the work of gathering a crowd most likely to be interested in what you have to say. You glean “authority” from the event host as they present you to their attendees as an expert in your field with valuable information to share. And, then you give them a powerful, delicious sample of what you’re all about.

The key is to make sure that the sample you give out is valuable, memorable, and information rich. You repay the event host for their confidence in you by over delivering to their attendees. You honor the time of the attendees by giving them exactly what they hoped to receive when they chose to give you their time and attention. When you deliver the goods, your exact perfect target market client knows that what they just received was only a sample and if they want more, you are the answer to their problems.

4 Free Tools To Turn Quotes into Content for Social Media

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 8, 2013

Garnering a Share from fans, friends, subscribers and followers is the new top goal in social media. Like takes a back seat; you still want likes but your brand needs shares in order to create the kind of viral visibility that was once known as word of mouth promotion. Facebook values shares as a more reliable indicator of a deeper relationship with your followers than just a like.

Facebook rewards brands for posting pictures by giving those posts higher EdgeRank.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that social media users love inspirational or educational quotes. Your brand can benefit from the quote craze, garnering exponentially more likes and shares than the tip or quote alone simply by creating an attractive poster for the quote. By poster, I simply mean placing the quote on a nice background or block of color to create a pleasing that others will find desirable to share.