Social Media Engagment Webinar

As you may already have heard, social media is certainly one of the gold standards for book promotion. The problem, however, is that people these days are experienced with online marketing messages, and many in your target demographic may respond cynically to your marketing message, if a sense of trust has not been first established.

In that regard, here's an excellent 3rd party slide presentation by Grant Young, that does a great job of breaking down the fundamentals of an engagement strategy for social media marketing efforts. It is from 2008, and I share it with you now because the message is still very relevant today.

WDS08 - Engagement Strategies for Social Media

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Tags: Engagement, Media, Networks, Opportunities, Social, factors, online, trust, webinar

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Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on March 9, 2011 at 2:23am

Also,

I would like to specifically recommend you take a look at slide #6, which shows how presentation of your message is much more likely to carry influence when it is presented as a relevant part of a real conversation. These types of conversation carry further weight when the one who delivers the message is overtly trusted by the ones who receives the message.

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on March 11, 2011 at 1:38am

"It is about a global conversation, people communicating with one another. If you are looking to engage in these areas..as a marketer. The first thing that you need to understand is that You're are engaging with people when they are talking. If you can imagine them talking in the pub and they are getting battered with advertising, you are kind of in a similar sort of space with social networks. So, you don't want to be battering them with stuff that isn't contextual, that doesn't fit into the conversation that they are currently in."

This is quote from the audio of slide #3, in which Grant Young speaking very profoundly and succinctly, does a great job illustrating the world of social networks as a metaphor. The whole idea of your online presence taking place in a crowded room (it doesn't have to be a pub), is very relevant for us. If you are at a big dinner party and stand up and start shouting, "look at me look what I DO!" You will be much less likely to impress anyone then if you focus on staying contextually respectful and biding your time for a networking opportunity.

This same logic works online, and the phenomenon that I suggest you avoid could be referred to as "spewing self promo glitter all over the internet", as coined by Kerry Allen.

I don't have the penultimate solution to promoting on the internet but I do know that if you are having trouble selling books through social media channels it is probably because you keep pushing you audience into a one way conversation, in which they just give up and quit listening.

Nobody needs more self-promo glitter, the television advertising gives us given up plenty of that. When they are confronted with it, the individual reaction is typically to tune out the marketing message. The goal instead is to engage your target demographic through real conversation, among other things, which just happens to be the topic of the rest of this webinar...

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on March 11, 2011 at 1:46am

As mentioned in Slide #5, you can find the 2011 trust barometer, here:

http://www.edelman.com/trust/2011/

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on March 11, 2011 at 1:48am

If you would like to read Seth Godin's ebook Flipping the Funnel, referenced in slide #7, you can find it here:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/01/flipping_the_fu.html

Permalink Reply by Brad Poulson on March 16, 2011 at 7:48am

Our goal this month in over viewing Social Media Marketing is to provide information that can help you develop and evaluate your Internet based book promotion. Regardless of the specific tools (Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, etc.) you use, our content aims at helping you demonstrate with integrity how you can provide benefit to your target market by engaging them with credible conversations and profiles.

The various webinar, interview and article resources you have found in this post by Bradley Flora offer an excellent starting place. In addition, here are some great examples of how SPAN members are using SPANnet in their social media marketing plans:

To highlight social media that establishes credibility and integrity, check out this SPANnet discussion started by Michele DeFilippo of 1...

And for a look at a unique, and effective profile page, visit SPAN member JD Holiday.

Sherry Ellis demonstrates credibility by sharing her on-going experience with a social media marketing blog tour - World of Ink Tour. Note her focus on evaluating this investment.

In Blog Posts, these SPAN Sponsors are talking about the benefits of their service and building credibility by inviting you into a discussion: About Books, Inc., ForeWord Reviews, and the BookMasters Group.

As we move forward, I’ll work to direct you to other social media marketing resources and as always: we build credibility by being open to your ideas; so, feel free to post comments, suggestions, questions, or critique!

Brad Poulson
SPAN Director
bradpoulson@spannet.org