Twitter for Authors: Book Marketing and Publicity with Social Media

Tweet

Why Twitter Is An Effective Marketing Tool

Many authors fail to see what the big deal is regarding Twitter. They read Tweets about what someone ate for breakfast or what color shirt they're wearing. They might sign up only to stare at a bare, lonely screen with zero followers.

Initially, it might be difficult to see the potential. But once you get started, Twitter has a tendency to “snowball” into a HUGE deal for authos – one that is absolutely essential for the growth of their platform and their exposure on the internet.

How Can You Use Twitter?

Here are just a few of the ways Twitter can help to benefit your global author platform:

Establishing rapport with your customers / readers.

Twitter allows for a bit more personal, less formal, more fun mode of communication. It allows them to catch a glimpse of you just as a regular person sending SMS texts from Wal-Mart, rather than as a serious, detached blogger or business owner.

Why is this useful? It allows people to connect and relate to you on a personal level – it makes you look just like a “regular Joe”, especially if you include random/fun tweets among the more serious, author-driven tweets.

Keeping your customers / readers updated.

With a blog, you might only update once or twice per week. With Twitter, you might send a handful of tweets per day, keeping your followers “in the loop” and reminding them of your existence.

Of course, it's not recommended to send a million tweets per day. This will only serve to annoy people and they will likely unfollow you.

Building a loyal, steady customer-base:

“BUILD A LIST!” As a author, I'm sure you've heard this refrain many times over. Building a list is one of the most vital steps you can take in the advancement of your online business. Twitter is pretty much the same as building a list – although it might be even more effective in the long run.

When it comes to an email list, a large portion of your subscribers won't even glance at the emails you send. Their eyes will glaze over and they may even send it to the trash. With Twitter, your followers will see all of your Tweets. They'll digest its information in about half a second and if you include a link, they probably won't get offended.

Chances are, if you included an eye-catching description, they'll probably click it! Additionally, it won't SEEM like you are marketing to them, because you're just another Twitter user tweeting about random stuff!

Building up excitement for a book launch:

Just like with an email list, Twitter can be used to build up excitement about an upcoming book launch. It can start with occasional Tweets about your “new project”, and by keeping your followers up to date and offering freebies and cool stuff that they'll appreciate, you'll build trust and anticipation. When your book launches, a well-timed Tweet may likely be just as effective as a blast to your email list.

Driving traffic to your website or blog:

Wouldn't it be great if you could instantly notify hundreds or thousands of people every time you update your blog? Twitter makes this possible. It essentially acts as an RSS feed. By building a sizable list of followers, you pretty much have access to an instant source of traffic to your website or blog.

People who would otherwise not be aware of updates and new content will be notified, giving them a chance to check it out. If your blog is high-quality, people will keep an eye out for more of your Tweets.

Building relationships with business contacts.

Twitter makes it easy to keep in touch with business partners and contacts. Traditional instant messaging is on its way out, and you'll find that most savvy internet marketers use Twitter as their primary social networking tool. So take advantage of this fact! Hook up with your contacts so you can work on building a closer relationship.

Crowd-sourcing:

Crowd-sourcing is a unique form of outsourcing. It works by calling on your friends, fans, followers, email subscribers, etc. to contribute ideas and solutions. Basically, it is a form of “group intelligence”.

By listening to the crowd, marketers and business owners can figure out the exact thoughts, needs, and wants of their customer base. In this way, innovative new ideas and strategies are born that are guaranteed to fall in line with the desires of the consumer.

By directly asking your followers what type of book cover they'd like to see developed, or what their biggest setbacks are, or what they liked/disliked most about your last book, you can gain an incredibly amount of insight!

Twitter provides a perfect platform for crowd-sourcing.

Going viral:

Social networking sites give us a great opportunity to 'go viral'. This means that you Tweet about something that really catches people's attention. Your followers are impressed, so they re-Tweet it.

In turn, each of their followers re-Tweet it, and so on and so on, and soon your little Tweet spreads like wildfire, snowballing into a huge storm of clicks and traffic.

Of course, TRYING to make something go viral probably won't work. It tends to just happen on its own. Tweeting “Hey guys buy my new book click here” will never go viral, obviously. But if you find something really interesting, little-known, valuable, funny, etc., you might have a chance.

Very often, Tweets go viral without anyone really expecting or planning on it. This is just one of the many amazing benefits of social networking.