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

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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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How to Market with A Facebook Personal Profile

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While I think every author, brand or entrepreneur needs a Facebook business page, there is still a great deal you can do, right now, to optimize your personal profile to increase your personal brand visibility – and use Facebook more efficiently for your business.

Facebook builds in some terrific marketing features for business pages and every brand, business, entrepreneur and author needs a business page to fully take advantage of the rich ecosystem where more than one billion people log in every month. But did you know that your personal profile also has some great hot spots for promoting your business – without driving your friends and family crazy? Here are my four favorites and you can start using them to increase your brand visibility, today.

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10 Social Profiles Every Author Needs

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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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8 Tips to Get More Organic Reach on Facebook

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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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Five Secrets to Creating Brand: You

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You are a brand and everything you do is a brand extension. It’s never been more important for authors, speakers, small business owners and entrepreneurs to understand the basics of personal branding.

When I was a kid my folks told me that I could be anything I really wanted to be. Although not entirely true – I will never be 5’8″ – I have found that I have nearly unlimited possibilities. I’m a writer, a marketing consultant, a wife and mother, a business woman, a coach, a loyal friend, a passionate seeker of new challenges and also someone who loves the quiet solitude of reading on a beach. That abundance of choices and gifts can sometimes muddy the waters when I’m trying to define my “brand” to myself and to potential clients.

I’m working hard to be very clear about who I am and what I do. When I succeed in communicating this with clarity, I’m happier and more productive and so are my clients. I’ve looked to successful leaders to help me identify some “best in class” practices that are helping me define my brand. I hope you’ll find them useful and inspiring as well.

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Social Marketing for Authors

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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

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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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Add Quote Images to Instagram with InstaQuote

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Everyone using social media needs a content image strategy, a plan for creating the large number of branded images needed to feed the content monster that is social media marketing. If you’re a regular reader, you’re already experimenting with these four free image creation tools. My prerequisite for recommending a tool is that it has to be easy, intuitive and free. And I give bonus kudos when a tool saves time by allowing you to post directly to Facebook or Twitter right from the tool.

I’ve just tried a brand new free tool I think you’ll enjoy because it’s not only super easy to use, but it allows you to post directly to Instagram.

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3 Ways to Drive Social Sales

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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.

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4 Ways to Jack Up Your Customer Experience Marketing

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Social media has entered the grammar school years and is no longer an infant. Businesses who’ve been using social media well are learning that the journey from friend and follower to loyal customer must be a skillfully curated one. The customer experience must be crafted, nurtured and adjusted to fit the tastes of the fan base if a purchase action is to be solicited at trail’s end.

In the infant years, it was enough to make an offer on Facebook or Twitter and provide a link to purchase. That still works, sometimes, for brands who have already established trust and have a history of delivering on their brand promises. If, however, you’re new to social media marketing or are an emerging new brand without a long track record and hundreds of reviews to do the selling for you, paying attention to the environment you create will decrease the time between “hello” and “yes, please” in turn fans into customers.

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