Social Media – A Very Large Collection of People

When I say “social media," what is your first thought? When I say “social media marketing,” what is your first thought?

In my eyes, social media is a very large collection of people. And in my eyes social media marketing is the idea that these people can be analysed, grouped, marketed to, and even manipulated.

So why then, if you advertise your writings on a social network like Facebook, do you usually get such an abysmal response?

Let me tell you a little story about someone I know who attends one of the same networking events as I do. This individual owns a web development business and is very persistent in her advocacy of the services that the company offers. In fact, I have been approached every time at that event, multiple times – even having to cut off existing conversations to chat to her – about one of my businesses purchasing from that company. Here’s the issue: I own a web development business. She knows that. Yet she still persists. And no! I am not going to buy a website from her company!

The first major and vastly obvious point I am going to make is that when using social media to sell, do not, absolutely do not, think that your target is “a very large collection of people.” Many of these people may not care (in the least) what you’ve got to offer in terms of fiction or non-fiction writing. That web design lady at my networking event will never be able to sell me a website because I am just not interested. I am not her target market at all.

Target specific people and decide who these people are long before you even look at Facebook (or any other site). Your target market will define your marketing techniques and even which social network you choose to focus on. Here’s a bit of insight in to social media marketing…

Facebook is usually a great solution for just about any target market.

Bebo is primarily for younger people in their early teens.

MySpace is almost exclusively used for music – although has been used successfully for other services and products.

LinkedIn is a business network.

My second major point is quite large so I will only cover it briefly. The process of effective marketing requires a lot of time and a multi-pronged approach ranging from SEO, decent websites, to social media strategy. One thing to note is that the “hard sell” just doesn’t work at all. Once again, this is demonstrated by web design networking lady who gives me the “hard sell” every time I meet her. When utilising social media, we (myself included) simply want to have a relaxing time chatting to friends and generally socialising online.

On any social network, do not buy paid advertisements! You are very unlikely to see a decent return on them and unless you can afford to generally “raise awareness,” it is a fantastic way to quickly  burn cash!

Do, however, create a “group,” and if on Facebook, “fan page.”  Invite all your friends to join the group. In the invitation email you should make people aware that you don’t expect them to buy the book, but would simply appreciate their support. Guess what? You’ve just achieved brand exposure! Without… Burning Cash… Quickly! This type of marketing is also much better suited to social media.

A great way to encourage people to join the group is to offer some incentive. Could you give away a copy of your book to a randomly drawn group member every month? This way you will attract people to your group 1) like reading, 2) might actually potentially buy your book, and 3) will probably tell their like-minded friends about the group. Get the monthly winners of your book to write a short review and email it to you. Post the good ones online – it’s great marketing that will encourage more people to buy your writings.

Utilise your “what are you doing” / “status updates” to regularly let your network know about what you’ve been up to recently in terms of writing. If your friends and contacts don’t know that you’ve got a new book out, how can then possibly support you by spreading the word?

I could go on for hours writing about the possibilities. But the best advice that I can actually give you is basically to be imaginative. Look at ways of integrating social media in to your “core” web activities (websites, blogs, etc). A great little application is AddThis (www.addthis.com) which quickly builds a few bridges between your website and social media. Using this app has become a “personal branding policy” of mine to build a better overall web presence.

Finally, whenever you’re thinking of a new way of using social media, think about web development networking lady. Make sure you’re not committing her marketing crimes and you’re well on your way to having a really effective social media strategy. If you come up with things that you find to be really effective, do leave a comment below and share it with the rest of the community!