4 Social Media Marketing Tips To Being More Productive

By Karen Cioffi

There are certain strategies that social media marketers use to make their efforts effective. It’s not enough to simply publish your blog posts to the social channels. You need to have a plan. You need to work the system.

1. Number one is a give-in: you need to know your audience and cater to them.

This goes for any form of marketing – you need to know who your audience is and what they need or want.

It’s pointless to send messages to the technology industry when your platform is on health writing.

It’s pointless to send in-depth SEO marketing posts to an audience that’s just getting their feet wet in the marketing arena.

It’s pointless to send ‘how to find a mate’ posts to an audience who wants to learn marketing strategies.

You get the idea.

Your platform needs to be focused on what your target audience wants.

Along with this, the Social Media Examiner post points out that your audience’s needs may change. You need to keep current on all things pertaining to your industry / niche and with the changing needs of your audience. Keep ahead of the game and help your audience do the same.

Let your audience know you’re the ‘go to’ person in your niche.

I do lots of research to come up with helpful posts for my readers. I also share helpful posts I come across in that research. If you think an article you’re reading will benefit your audience, share it.

2. Build relationships.

Marketing on social networks isn’t just about ‘hit and runs.’ You shouldn’t just post your content and run. You need to build ‘meaningful’ relationships with customers, other businesses, and anyone else within your business realm.

To build these relationships, you’ll need to offer helpful information that is actually useable. You want to inform, teach, and help those in your network.

Along with this, you need to engage with other users. Share the posts of others. Help promote a product or service you know to be helpful. Take the initiative to help others in your networks.

I spend around 30 minutes each day to schedule my posts, share the posts of others, and to engage with others in my social network sphere.

Social Media Examiner says to, “be a giver as you interact” with your audience. “Offer your time, resources, knowledge, encouragement or support.”

This helps build relationships.

3. Making money also needs to be a factor.

While you should earnestly want to help those in your audience, it’s also important to spend your time fruitfully.

Not many can selflessly spend time helping others. Businesses need to make money to survive. 

To keep this in the forefront of your social media marketing strategy, promote what you’re selling. Whether it’s a product, a service, a workshop, a presentation, include it in your social media postings.

Now, to do this, you need to upload lots more helpful information compared to promotional content. A standard ratio is 85% useable content to 15% promotion. You might even lean more toward 90/10.

You don’t want your audience to feel you’re using them for your own gains. Give lots and lots of quality information. Be helpful.

At one point, I posted around 12  to 15 posts of my own posts to Twitter each day. I also share posts of others that I come across in research. In addition, I Retweet and Favorite other users’ Tweets.

I would share 10 to 15 posts of others each day in addition to my own. This is being active and engaging. My connections know I offer valuable information on a regular basis.

This allows me to promote what I’m offering without seeming overly promotional.

Due to a very heavy work load, I’ve had to reduce the number of posts per day, but I am still consistant.

4. Monitor your results.

This is a must for all your marketing strategies. If you don’t monitor what you’re doing, you’ll never know what’s working and what’s not.

Monitoring your results is time well spent. Don’t forego this step.

Even if you don’t want to spend hours on analytics, you can simple monitor your website traffic and its sources. And, you can easily see if you’re getting sales from your efforts.

If you’re not seeing the results you need, change course. Try another strategy.

To read the article at Social Media Examiner, click the link:
6 Habits of Social Media Marketers

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor. Get must-know writing and marketing tips at http://thewritingworld.com.

And, check out Karen’s e-classes through WOW! Women on Writing:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/ 

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5 Innovative and Proven Marketing Strategies

By Karen Cioffi

This is an exciting week at Writers on the Move and I get to kick it off. The whole week we’re focusing on marketing innovations and proven strategies to help you write publish, and market your book. We wanted to do something special to thank you for taking the time out of your busy days to read what we write.

Starting off the week, I wanted to give an overview of some 2013 marketing strategies. While researching the topic for my post, I came across some very interesting information. Here are some of the highlights:

5 Innovative and Proven Marketing Strategies

1. Marketing is ever-changing.

This is especially true of inbound marketing. The changes are so fast, that it’s tough to be the first or even get on the wagon of a new strategy before it’s old-hat.

Because of this, it’s wise to stick to the marketing strategies that are working for you. Stay true to what works.

This is not to say you can’t venture out and try new tools and strategies, just be aware that they may not be here tomorrow, or they may not be as effective as the ‘marketer’ is purporting them to be.

2. Innovation doesn’t always mean ‘new.’

In an article at Marketing and Innovation, Yann Gourvennec noted that, “innovation isn’t always about disruption, it is often about making things better.”(1) In other words, it’s not always about creating something new. A revised or renewed product or service can be innovative. It might be in making a product or service better, or adding something to it.

3. Inbound marketing is still one of the top strategies.

In a recent survey conducted by HubSpot and MIT, the results showed that “92 percent of HubSpot’s customers increased traffic.” Seventy-five percent of those customers saw a 75 percent and more traffic increase. (2)

This proves that inbound marketing works effectively.

4. Co-branding can be a profitable marketing strategy.

The source article of this topic dealt with offline business. It gave the example of a local restaurant teaming up with a local movie theater to offer discounted tickets if the customer spent a certain amount on dinner. (3) But, this strategy can be translated into book marketing.

As an example I’ll use my children’s bedtime picture book, Day’s End Lullaby. I could research infant and baby bedroom and bedding stores to see if there is any interest in co-branding. Buy a bed set and get a bedtime story free or for a minimal fee.

The perk to the store is offering something more to its customers, helping to make that personal connection. The benefit to the author (me) would be the store buying the book at a discounted rate.

5. Gaining discoverability through Freebies.

The source article for this topic discussed the innovative marketing strategy that NAL/Penquin used for “You Knew Me When” by Emily Liebert. The publishing house sent “advance galleys with a three-bottle set of nail polish.” The book is about a successful cosmetics executive. This particular author and publisher took it to a new level – the source article is worth the read, see reference #4 below.

Stayed tuned tomorrow for a post by Annie Duguid.

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References:

(1) http://visionarymarketing.fr/en/blog/2013/05/innovation-what-new-really-means-the-data-center-robotics-example/
(2) http://www.shebangdesign.com/7-innovative-marketing-ideas-to-get-the-roi-rolling/#.UnVvKBAljW4
(3) http://www.shebangdesign.com/8-great-marketing-ideas/#.UnVtfhAljW4
(4) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/08/09/a-polished-book-marketing-plan-nails-it/

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Oh, I did have Part 3 of the three-part series on Small Business Marketing scheduled for today, but because of our special marketing week, I'm moving that post to December 30th.

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P.S. To keep up with writing and marketing information, along with Free webinars, join us in The Writing World (top right top sidebar).

Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelancer/Ghostwriter, Author/Writer Online Platform Instructor
http://karencioffi.com

Small Business Marketing - Know What Consumers Buy

By Karen Cioffi

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series.

Key Marketing Principle One – Know Your Prospect’s Motives

You’ve finally done it. You created a great product to sell. But, could it be that the product you think is ‘great’ is not something many others are interested in?

For small business marketing to be effective, you need to know if there is a customer base for your product or service. This is why it’s important to determine what people are buying. And, it’s important to know this prior to creating your product, if possible. If you already have a product or service available, this information will help you tweak it to be more relevant and attractive to potential customers.

How to Find out What Consumers Buy

You might be wondering how you learn about your prospect and his buying habits. Fortunately, the Web has made this easy to do. One way to find this information is to do keyword searches. Knowing what people are searching for gives insight into what they want and what they’re buying.

As an example of small business marketing and keywords, let’s use ‘alternative health options’ as a search word.

If you do a search for that particular keyword through Yahoo, you’ll realize the target market is broad. In fact, there are over 50,000 in the search results.

You can also do a Google Adwords search. Using ‘alternative health options,’ Google will provide you with an assortment of keywords related to your query and let you know their weight – meaning how many searches there are for each. For the keyword ‘natural health,’ there are 246,000 global searches.

The purpose of these keyword search tools is to provide you with information, such as:

•    What consumers buy - the types of products and/or services people are searching for, which shows what they want
•    The specific keyword or phrases people are searching under
•    Less competitive long-tail keywords that will narrow your target market
•    Product and name ideas

But, to see which keywords are actually relating to your sales, you should use Amazon, which by the way is an excellent keyword search tool. Simply type in the beginning of your query. We’ll stick with ‘alternative health options’ from above. So, type “alternati,” in the query box and Amazon will automatically list its most popular keywords for that beginning query.

This is valuable information for the marketer. These are the keywords that people are using to buy books and other products. And, since Amazon makes money when products are sold, they provide the most effective keywords.

After doing the research, the effective keyword you come up with will be the foundation of your product’s name and/or your website’s name. This is what the people you’re targeting are looking for, this is what they want. And, this is what you’ll provide.

Other Marketing Strategies to Determine What Consumers Buy

Join groups that deal with the subject matter you are thinking of creating a product around. Follow relevant keywords on Twitter and take note of what’s going on in the tweets. And, follow through on links provided in the tweets. The same goes for Facebook, Linkedin, GooglePlus, active blogs and newsletters. Read, read, read.

The information garnered through these strategies will help you create an effective name for your product, or if you already have an existing product, as mentioned above, it can help you tweak your marketing strategies in regard to its name, its appearance, and its promotional content. The same goes for your website.

The information you learn will also help you craft articles and content to establish yourself as an authority on the subject matter and draw traffic to your site.

Knowing what consumers buy is an important element in your small business marketing strategy.

If you missed Part 1, please visit: 
http://www.writersonthemove.com/2013/10/small-business-marketing-meet-your.html

Stay tuned for Part 3, scheduled for December 1st.

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MORE ON MARKETING

10 Useful and Free Writing and Online Marketing Tools
Authors Need Discoverability More Than Findability
6 Book Marketing Tips that are Sure to Increase Your Visibility

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P.S. To keep up with writing and marketing information, along with Free webinars, join us in The Writing World (top right top sidebar).

Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelancer/Ghostwriter, Author/Writer Online Platform Instructor
Build an Online Platform That Works

Karen Cioffi Professional Writing Services

Email List - 10 Giveaway Freebies to Get Readers to Opt-in

As an author and/or freelance writer, you probably already know that one of the most important tools you can have for selling your books or building your writing business is a list of the email addresses of current and prospective readers and clients. This is your mailing list.

Your mailing list gives you a way to keep in regular contact with your readers and clients to let them know of your latest books, products, or services. The emails and regular newsletters you send to those on your mailing list will help these people get to know, like, and trust you a little more, and when they do that they will be more likely to buy from you on a regular basis. Everyone receives so much email these days, though, that many people are hesitant to join one more mailing list. That means you need to offer them a nice incentive just for joining (called "opting in" to) your list.

Here are some suggested give-away freebies that can help you grow your list and, in turn, sell more books or build your freelance writing business:

A Free Report or Guide
Put together a short report or guide to something that appeals to your target market, and then turn this report into a PDF file people can easily and quickly download.

A Coupon or Discount Code
People will love this if they intend to purchase from you, and it will actually give them an extra incentive for doing so right away.

A Checklist
People love checklists and it should be fairly easy to create a quick checklist that your readers will value.

 A Free Course
If you write mysteries, for example, offer your readers a free course teaching how to write a mystery. Deliver the course via a series of emails delivered once a week for several weeks. Not only will a free course help build your mailing list, it will also help build your credibility as an expert in your field or genre.

A Recorded Interview
Interview someone in your industry and record it (get their permission, of course). If you choose someone who is widely known, this freebie should get you many, many opt-ins.

A Free Consultation
This is perfect if you also coach or teach. It will give people a taste of what it's like to work with or learn from you.

A Free Video
If you're an author, you might create a video showing where and how you work, with tips for other writers.

A Free Audio
A short (15 minutes or less) audio that offers tips or advice on a topic that appeals to your target market can be a great incentive for them to opt-in to your list.

A Tips Sheet
People love tips sheets as much as they do checklists. "Ten Tips for Reading to Your Child" would make the perfect tips sheet to
offer your readers if you write children's books.

A Free E-Book
You don't have to write the e-book either. Simply find one that is in the public domain. Just make sure it is on a topic or genre that will appeal to your target market.

There are dozens of other types of freebies you can offer people in return for joining your list. Just remember, though, that once you get people toopt-in, you need to continue sending them something – a newsletter or short email of some sort – on a regular basis.

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Suzanne Lieurance is an author, freelance writer, writing coach, speaker and workshop presenter. She is a former classroom teacher and was an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature for over 8 years.

Lieurance has written over two dozen published books and her articles and stories have appeared in various magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, such as Family Fun, Instructor, New Moon for Girls, KC Weddings, The Journal of Reading, and Children's Writer to name a few. She offers a variety of coaching programs via private phone calls, teleclasses, listserv, and private email for writers who want to turn their love of writing (for children and/or adults) into a part-time or full-time career.

To learn more about Lieurance, visit her website at www.suzannelieurance.com (http://www.suzannelieurance.com) or The Working Writer’s Club (http://www.workingwritersclub.com).