How Book Author, Jackie Huba, Uses Social Media
September
This is a continuing series of interviews on how various book authors use social media successfully. This week, I interview Jackie Huba. She is the author of the new book, “Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force and “Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message. The book is an indepth look into how word of mouth can be used as a powerful marketing and communications tool. Her blog, Church of The Customer, is one of the leading blogs on word of mouth marketing and has well over 200,000 subscribers. Along with her business partner, Ben McConnell, she speaks to major corporations and businesses on the applications of word of mouth.
The goal of this series is to share best practices in social media and help other aspiring book authors learn to use this medium to increase book sales and exposure of their work. Let’s begin. Continue reading: How Book Author, Jackie Huba, Uses Social Media »
How Book Author, Michelle Miller, Uses Social Media
July
This is a continuing series of interviews on how various book authors use social media successfully. This week, I interview Michelle Miller. She is the author of the new book, The Soccer Mom Myth. The book is an indepth look into who today’s female consumer really is, how she really thinks, and why she really buys - both online and offline.
Her blog on marketing to women, WonderBranding, has won awards from Marketing Sherpa and Forbes.com, and was featured in Seth Godin’s ebook, “Bull Marketing.” Michele is also the marketing columnist for Inc.com, the web companion to Inc. business magazine.
The goal of this series is to share best practices in social media and help other aspiring book authors learn to use this medium to increase book sales and exposure of their work. Let’s begin.
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1. What was or is the biggest challenge that you found when you started to use various form of social media such as blogging as a marketing tool?
When I started blogging nearly five years ago, I was lucky to get advice from other bloggers on the biggest challenge, which really was two-fold. One – be prepared to add fresh content on a regular basis. I’ve seen more blogs die on the vine because of initial enthusiasm followed by the reality of what kind of commitment it takes. Two – the time you need to take to read other people’s blogs, join in the conversation, and build relationships. The old adage “No man is an island” couldn’t be more true than with the blogosphere – it really does take a village, and the more you connect with others, the more success you have.
2. What was the most unexpected result or surprise that you got when you started using social media applications?
The biggest surprise for me was the openness of other bloggers and how they welcomed me into the fold. What an amazing community – I now consider many of marketing’s biggest and best minds to be personal friends, first thanks to the blogosphere and now to apps like Facebook and especially Twitter. For me, the day would be empty without some interaction with my Tweets.
3. With the launch of your new book, what social media tools do you intend to be using the most in order to get exposure for it?
The book has been out for a few weeks now, and Holly (my co-author) and I decided to be judicious with our time and energy. Since we both have long-standing blogs of our own, we decided to just keep writing on our existing blogs rather than create a whole new blog for the book. We do have a website for the book that’s gotten a lot of attention, and that directs visitors to our individual blogs. Plus, web visitors can sign up for a weekly newsletter tip that’s delivered by email.
I’m currently writing a new book for Bard Press which should be out in late 2009, and I am in the planning stages of how I’ll use social media apps like Facebook and blogging to really give the big push… this next book will be a biggie for me and I’m preparing myself to invest the time (and money!) it will take to go for a bestseller attempt.
4. Care to tell us how much time you put into social media on weekly basis? Where is the time divided?
Whoo-boy. I’d say between my blog, the Grokdotcom blog, the Inc.com blog and my time on Twitter and Facebook, I put in about 8-10 hours a week. A big chunk of that is offline, of course, doing the writing, because I want the content to be effective for the reader. And oh yes, there’s the time spent reading other blogs… guess you can add about four hours to that weekly total, at least!
5. What does your social media profile look like? Where can we find you online?
- My blog, WonderBranding, can be found at http://www.wonderbranding.com
- I write the marketing blog for Inc.com at http://www.inc.com
- I also write for the Grok blog (home of web wizards Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg) at
- You can find me on Facebook,
- And if you’d like to follow my dog, Penny the WonderDog, she Twitters as well.
6. What’s the best advice that you could give to other book authors who want to explore how social media can help them and the promotion of their books?
The best thing authors can do is spend some quality time (I’m talking HOURS) reading other blogs and see what it takes to build great content and strong readership. No matter if authors have published a book, are writing a book or are just thinking about writing a book, a blog is the best first step. It builds your writing chops as well as the confidence you need to write with conviction. Authors should also consider Twitter, which is not only fun, it connects you with more people that you dreamed possible.
7. Before the new book, The Soccer Mom Myth, was ever released; you already had a blog at Wonder Branding. How much did that blog help you in the creation and promotion of the book itself?
I’ve been blogging at WonderBranding for nearly five years. I followed the same advice I give authors above, and it really helped build my confidence. Because of the blog, I got the writing gig with Inc.com.
My posts for WonderBranding helped developed my ideas for The Soccer Mom Myth; often, when I was stymied over an idea, blogging about it helped clear my neural pathways and opened me to new angles of approach. Finally, it got the attention of Ray Bard from Bard Press, who also saw me give a day-long seminar last fall and then approached me about writing the book I’m currently working on. And if you know about Bard Press (they only publish a couple of titles a year at the most, and market the hell out of them – most of their titles become bestsellers), that’s quite an honor.
In the end, write good content and you won’t have to do a lot of marketing. If you’ve built a strong readership, been honest and authentic in your writing, and you’ve developed a community of other bloggers, promotion takes on a life of its own. It’s a world I love!
LinkedIn Resources
July
It seems like everytime that I show up at a business networking event, I am inevitably asked the question, “How does one use LinkedIn” or something to that effect.
I’ve read enough on the site as well as other social networking sites and know enough people who are the experts on it, that I wanted to create a lists of resources to help further and accelerate your networking on it.
I hope you find these resources to be helpful;
Blogs and Forums On LinkedIN
- Scott Allen has a blog called LinkedINtelligence. It covers all things LinkedIN. You definitely want to read the category that talks about how to use LinkedIN effectively.
- Vincent Wright runs a Yahoo Group that covers all things LinkedIN. He also has a Ning platform called My LinkedIN Power Forum that is a bit more interactive as well. As an aside: I knew of Vincent virtually for a few years and finally had a chance to catch up with him over phone a few months ago. He is one of the most cerebral and intelligent business people that I know. I actually knew that before talking to him because of the way he articulates himself online. I could probably talk to him and pick his brain for hours on end. I usually don’t say that of most people.
- LinkedIN Learning Center, which was just announced on the LinkedIn Blog, is a resource center to learn more about using every aspect of LinkedIn. I especially like how they created relevant user guides for certain types of professionals such as entrepreneurs, consultans, and VCs.
Articles On LinkedIN
- Anita Campbell wrote a blog entry that covers why Entrepreneurs should use both LinkedIn and Facebook. It’s a great read because there is this endless debate as to which platform is more business productive.
- Guy Kawasaki got a free LinkedIN Profile Makeover from the folks at LinkedIn. If you ever want to know how to increase the effectiveness of your LinkedIN profile, then this is a good visual read for you.
- Kawasaki also blogs about 10 ways that you can use LinkedIn.
Books On LinkedIN
- I’m On LinkedIn. Now What? Jason Alba writes a great book that answers the question the everyone inevitably asks themselves. It’s also available in ebook format.
- LinkedIn For Recruiting. If you are a recruiter then I would highly recommend this book. I’ve known the authors, Bill and Des, for awhile and both are highly competent professionals when it comes to this topic.
How Book Author Rohit Bhargava Uses Social Media
June
Continuing my series of how book authors use social media successfully, this week, I interview how Rohit Bhargava. Rohit is the author of the book, Personality Not Included. As the tagline suggest, the book is about “Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back.”
The goal of this series is to share best practices in social media and help other aspiring book authors learn to use this medium to increase book sales and exposure of their work. Let’s begin.
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1. What was or is the biggest challenge that you found when you started to use various form of social media as a marketing tool?
I think the biggest challenge is that to use social media well, you really need to invest the time to participate and share your real voice. For example, when I first launched the book – I asked bloggers to send me 5 questions as a virtual interview that they could run on their blogs. I got 55 responses, which meant I had to respond individually to more than 250 questions. The buzz resulting from that one activity was extremely high, but I had to spend quite a bit of time initially to do it well, and additional time to follow up and try to comment on those posts and continue the conversations. When you use social media as a marketing tool, you are making a commitment to start AND CONTINUE a conversation, and that can be challenging.
2. What is your preferred social media-marketing tool?
I am a big believer in not letting the tools define what you do, but rather getting smarter about your strategy for what you want the tools to do. I am alternately using blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Dopplr, and del.icio.us to promote my book. They each have a role and I find them useful for different things. I can’t really choose one favourite.
3. What was the most unexpected result or surprise that you got when you started using social media applications?
I think the biggest surprise that anyone who starts actively using social media tools will find (and what I found when I first started) is just how accessible people are. I left a comment on John Mackey’s blog (CEO of Whole Foods) and he responded. I was able to get interviews with unreachable people to profile in my book. When Mark Cuban was competing on Dancing with the Stars, I could see his updates about how he was feeling five minutes before air time. That’s a pretty powerful idea. In part, that was why I felt my book was so necessary … because as social media offers more direct access to the individuals in your company (at any level), your personality becomes even more important.
4. What types of SM tools are you currently using? Please list the urls of your profiles for these sites.
www.personalitynotincluded.com – the official site for the book
www.thepersonalityproject.com - The Personality Project (a group blog companion to the book site)
http://www.twitter.com/rohit - my Twitter ID
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7995589118&ref=ts - the official readers group on Facebook
http://del.icio.us/pnibook - my delicious account where I am tagging all the reviews and buzz about the book
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com – my marketing blog
5. What’s the best advice that you could give to other book authors who want to explore how social media can help them and the promotion of their books?
The best thing social media can offer any author is a way to connect with influential voices who are currently talking about your subject, and letting people share your content and ideas with one another. The first point is about connecting your book with the people that can spread the word to all the right audiences. The second is about letting your readers and people who like the book spread the word about it. I would say that for any author, the trick is to try and focus on both of these pieces.
6. Can you quantify the results from using SM?
For me, the biggest benefit was obviously landing a six figure book deal … but more than that has been the ability to connect with more people and share the authentic story behind my book. I have never accepted advertising on my personal blog, so the results are more about reputation, speaking invitations and big things like the book deal. Putting all of those things together, I would say that starting my blog over three years ago was a best decision of my career.
7. What’s the problem with most blogs by book authors today? Do you think many of them lack a personality?
I wouldn’t say they lack a personality, but I think the temptation for many authors is to think about a book website and blog a bit more logically than they probably need to. My book site, for example, does have a blog and the general book information, but I also have a “Making of PNI” section where I share rejected cover designs, my original book proposal that I used to sell the deal, sketches of drawings that made it into the book and even a photo of me holding my week old baby in one hand while he was sleeping and making final edits on my book on the laptop with the other. All of it is meant to give people an inside look at the book and let them know that it is not faceless (and neither am I). I’m a real person that spent time writing the book and I’m approachable. Ideally, a blog should do that, and combine it with more current commentary that can help to keep your book fresh.
8. Before the PNI Book was ever released, you had a personal blog. How much did that blog help you in the creation of the book itself?
The blog was of great benefit in getting the book deal, as I shared above … but when it came to writing the book, I used surprisingly little of my blog content. Readers of my blog will find that there is only one thing repeated from my blog in the book, and that’s the well trafficked Social Media Optimization post. When it came to writing the book and the flow of it, I found that my blog content didn’t naturally fit and wrote most of the book from scratch.
9. I see you are using Wordpress for the PNI website as opposed to Typepad for your personal blog? I recently wrote a primer on why I believe authors should use WP as their web publishing platform of choice so I’m glad to see that you are using it.
I am a fan of both, actually … and I use Typepad for my personal blog. To be honest, the main reason for choosing Wordpress was that with the customization I wanted, the designer I was working with was going to have an easier time getting Wordpress to work. I think that’s the main advantage that most developers and creators of sites and blogs are finding with Wordpress – its flexibility.
How Daniel Pink Uses Social Media
JuneIn an effort to learn how book authors use social media successfully, I developed an ongoing series of interviews with some of today’s best selling authors.
The goal is to share best practices in social media and help other aspiring book authors learn to use this medium to increase book sales and exposure of their work.
My first interview is with Daniel Pink. He is the best selling author of the books, Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind. His newest book is The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide That You’ll Ever Need. While there are tons of career guides written, this one is unique because it’s the first business book to be done in the Japanese Comic book form known as manga.
I’m hosting an evening with Dan and his new book on Wednesday July 9th in McLean. You can register and RSVP here. We’re giving away a copy of the book for every registration! Check out the cool embedded video trailer that he is using for the new book below. I can’t recall the last time that a book author decided to use a video trailer for a book.
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What was or is the biggest challenge that you found when you started to use blogging as a viable social media marketing tool?
There were a few challenges. One was the pressure to post as often as you must on a blog. I’m a book writer and some time feature magazine writer. I’m used to spending lots of time on my writing. Blogging has a very different metabolism. Another was the realization that there wasn’t perfect overlap between what I wanted to write and what readers want to read. Looking at which posts are popular and which aren’t is very revealing. But you can’t let that be your master. In other words, the Factoids of the Day on danpink.com are staying, damnit!
I see that you are just getting started with using Facebook and Twitter in addition to blogging as social media marketing tools. What prompted you to explore these? Aren’t you busy as it is? :)
The primary impetus with Facebook and Twitter was that I didn’t quite grok exactly how they worked and why they were important. Once I began playing around, I began to understand both their peculiar rules and potential impact. I’m not a rabid user, by any means, but I’m convinced they’re important.
What’s the best advice that you could give to other book authors who want to explore how blogging can help them and the promotion of their books?
Marketing is not a monologue. It’s a conversation Also, I’m sold on Seth Godin’s two-part formulation for any offering in today’s marketplace:
- Make something worth talking about.
- Make it easy for others to talk about it.
What’s the problem with most blogs by book authors today? Why do they fail to meet their goal of selling more books through their blog?
I’ll offer three reasons.
- They still think marketing is a monologue.
- They’re not fully committed to the medium (which is fine — but if that’s the case, one probably shouldn’t bother).
- Their books might fail part one of the Godin test. (See above.)
I noticed on your Johnny Bunko website that you had a section called Contests. One of the basic principles that I encourage book authors to use when using social media is to incentivize the process in order to help them increase sales and exposure of their work. As of this writing, you haven’t given much away as to what or how your contests will look like. Are you thinking along similar lines whereby you want to increase word of mouth by incentivizing the process? Care to let us in on any plans that you have in store?
We haven’t quite settled on precisely what we’re doing. I think contests are just plain fun — and that people who participate tend to talk about the experience. But I don’t want to do a contest simply for the sake of doing a contest. I want the contests to be connected to the ideas in the book. And since the book is still in its early days, I want to give those ideas a little more time to seep out.
I notice that you insert a new page from the book for people to read as a new blog entry every few days. What is the logic to this? I’m assuming you’re using it as a teaser to get more people to buy? If so, is it working?
The goal is simply to provide more value and entertainment to people who visit the site. And remember: latecomers can read all the pages we’ve released on one fell swoop on the “Read the Book” page. If people who read these pages are entertained enough to plop down 10 bucks for the book, that’s great. But if they’re just seeking to be entertained for free, that’s cool by me. At least they’re reading my stuff.
Why Do Book Authors Love Wordpress?
AprilI am collecting endorsements, success stories, and words of praise as to book authors who love using Wordpress.
Comments and feedback is encouraged.
How Book Authors Can Use Facebook As Part of Their Social Media Strategy
April
This is the next in a series of guides on how book authors can achieve social media success. The first was a 5-page article on why book authors should use Wordpress as part of their web presence.
The following is a 4 page primer on how book authors can use Facebook as a viable social media tool to give more exposure to their book and work. If you wish to read a print version of this, you can download the 4 page pdf guide here. Otherwise, you can read the entire guide in its entirety below.
Sachi Studio is available for Facebook social media consulting for selected book authors as well.
Otherwise, read on. Continue reading: How Book Authors Can Use Facebook As Part of Their Social Media Strategy »
Your following to followers ratio on Twitters
April
This is more out of sheer curiousity than it is anything else at the moment. But since I’m starting to use Twitter, I was calculated the number of people who follow me versus the number of people that I’m following on my Twitter. I’m currently following 48 people versus 57 people who are following me. This comes out to a ratio of 0.85.
There are number of assumptions and conclusions that we can come up with based on the ratio. I suppose if you have a large number of followers but a low number of following, say 150 to 50 (ratio of 3), then you are pretty selective in who you want to be in touch with.
Conversely, if you follow a higher number of people rather than being followed, then you may not be as important relative to those you follow as well. You could have 50 followers but you could be following 150 people which results in a ratio 0.33.
I suppose equilibrium is reached at or near 1.0
I knew those college math classes would help one day :)
What is your Followers to Following ratio? I welcome comments and further suppositions.
Book Authors Need Wordpress As Their Web Presence
March
After some research and observation of where the web is going, I see a huge untapped market for book authors and the next generation of the web. A good designer can help them develop their web presence specifically in the areas of designing websites and blogs for them. Why?
There has been some success stories of how book authors are using the next generation of the internet, specifically web blogs and Content Management Systems, to help them;
- get the word out about their book,
- land more speaking gigs,
- and ultimately sell more books.
There is a huge untapped market for book authors who need not only the typical website presence but want to use blogs as part of an overall marketing strategy to achieve the above stated goals.
I’ve written the first of more articles for this niche market. You can download my first pdf article, “Why Book Authors Should Consider Wordpress For Their Web Presence” as a sneak peak into what the future holds for book authors who are looking for to standout from the crowd. In this 5 page article, I talk about how the Wordpress platform is flexible enough to meet the needs of most book authors. I explore various angles of Wordpress such as it’s ability to serve as a lightweight robust CMS, a powerful blogging platform, and a user friendly design interface that will get any newbie book blogger stoked!
Why The Book Authors Market?
- There is not enough shelf space at the local book store for all the new books being published. Shelf space is precious real estate. You need to find new forms of “land” to stake a claim. The new real estate is online. The internet is untapped real estate.
- People are looking for expert information. They still go to the book store to find books that offer information on the how tos of dating, lose weight, market your business, or become a more confident person. But the new and growing source of expert information is found online. Ever. Heard. Of Google?
- Book tours are no longer as effective.
- Their current websites are horrible. Or they don’t even have one.
- Paper may soon fall to the waste side.
- Online and social media strategies are becoming more common and dynamic among the book authors market. You can’t have a successful online marketing strategy without a robust and dynamic web presence. CMSs and blog platforms are part of that solution.
- Authors don’t know anything about marketing. Someone may as well help them. May as well be me.
- Because if someone can land a $300,000 book deal by blogging about Stuff White People Like, then the skys the limit.
What Is The Dean’s List?
MarchI’m about to publish the 2nd Annual Dean’s List. Some people ask what exactly is it and what’s the importance. I guess I never really did fully explain the full meaning behind it. Here is my attempt;
Back in college, if you made The Dean’s List, then it means you achieved a certain level of academic excellence.
As defined in the Wikipedia, Excellence is the state or quality of excelling. It is superiority, or the state of being good to a high degree. I realized that every year, there will be people who will have excelled in adding value to my life. So in 2007, I developed the first list of people who I thought had added tremendous value for the year of 2006.
I believe in having the attitude of gratitude. With so many things that often go wrong in our lives, it helps to be thankful of the good things in our lives. By developing a focus on the positive aspects of our life, we develop an anchor of sorts that allows us to continue to make positive strides and attract what we truly want. Nothing was ever accomplished with a state of negativity.
It turns out that the good things that came into my life was always because of people. So the most important things in our lives aren’t things at all. They are people.
The year 2007 has just passed and I find that I’ve developed relationships with various people who have added value to my life for this year. Without them, I could not have achieved or moved along in my life’s journey. Some of them are repeats of 2007’s list. And some of them are new to the list.
Somehow and someway, they managed to excel and enhance the quality of my own life. Some people do the holiday card thing. Others send cookies. As for me? I publish an annual list of people who added beauty to the life that I try to live.
And for these people, I thank them with my heart and my soul.
If you ever truly want to know the impact that such a list has had on me since I’ve been doing it, I would highly advice trying something similar. You will be pleasantly surprised.
