Are Social Media Strategies for Book Marketing Worth It?
Is it worth our time, money, and energy to market our books with social media strategies and why?
Before social media, it took a lot of effort, money, and time to reach our book’s best audience. We scheduled talks, press releases, and networked in person to get visibility and even credibility for the information our book shared. A lot of work, with a relatively low return on investment (ROI).
In exposure numbers alone, it’s so worth participating in twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For me, LinkedIn is my favorite social media marketing strategy. It serves my books and my book coaching business the best because, I am able to join groups who have my primary audience in them that wants engaging writing tips along with social media expertise to get books & business marketed.
That’s huge visibility and credibility as one “go to” person, because each time I comment or give good tips in the groups with my blog URL in the discussion box, my LinkedIn profile visits increase exponentially as well as my web traffic surges.
Trust and likeability follow after my audience tastes samples of my expertise. Outcomes include more book writing and social media marketing coaching clients, as well as a increased sales in my popular book, “LinkedIn Marketing.” It takes some time for these outcomes to manifest, so you need to participate in the game for the long term.
How do you find out what marketing works best, and where your “buyers” come from? Like me, you’ll want to test with Google Analytics to see where your best traffic comes from. Also, keep track of your Alexa.com score that shows your growth compared to other websites. Years ago, I my score was near 1 million. Over time and with solid, continuous marketing, my score came down. Since LinkedIn participation, my Alexa score has come down to 240,000. Lower is better. My goal this year is under 100,000.
How much time do I spend on LinkedIn? I divide my time on interacting in LinkedIn groups, especially my own book group and writing blog copy like this to share among my 50 groups I belong to. Both of these activities pay off handsomely.
I only participate, giving useful tips in active groups with around 1500+ members. This is exponential, viral visibility and the increase of payoffs is exponential also. Together, this engaging writing takes me about an hour a day total for the week.
When I post a blog article in the “discussion” box in each group, it’s almost instant with LinkedIn’s magic. That’s a possible 75,000 eyes seeing my expertise each week. With two how to blogs a week, that’s a possible 150,000 reading my posts each week. These business people visit my site to read the entire article, then comment and ask questions. It’s all interactive and powerful. Of course, you must write engaging blog titles too. These results can be yours with only 30 minutes-1hour a day time investment!
It’s really not time; it’s outcomes you want! What outcomes in $ do you want from your book or business? My end outcome: I want 10 or so clients per month and ongoing “LinkedIn Marketing” book sales. The in-between outcomes? Meeting with influential people who like what I offer. Meeting with my audience on a regular basis to establish trust, so that when they need my kind of services, they will connect back with me. This leads to profitable joint ventures of teleseminars, Twitter tweet exchanges and much more.
You get the picture. It’s worth your time and money investments and if you want to invest no money, a little money, a medium amount, or one on one social media coaching, see these opportunities at bookcoaching.com.
By Judy Cullins, 5th September 2011
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