Book Marketing Through Social Media

If you want to know how you can make use of Social Media to sell more books, get book publicity and drive traffic to your site I have published a free eBook “65 Ways To Use Social Media To Sell Your Book.” Just sign up to the right on this page 

7 Best Twitter Blogs and Apps: How To Use Them to Boost Your Online Branding

Twitter is an important web tool for online brand management, where reputation is everything. The short term and long  term benefits should not be over looked, especially in a tough economy. There are many useful twitter blogs and twitter apps that help you use Twitter to streamline your online brand management. Here are a list of Twitter blogs and Twitter apps that you can effectively use to boost the brand of your online business during this recession:

FAVRD – Who’s Your Twitter Favorite?

What’s That? FAVRD is a website (read twitter blog) that aggregates Twitter posts based on the number of times they have been marked as favorites by Twitterers. Usually, the Twitter posts that find a place on FAVRD are funny, insightful or entertaining. Being one of the most popular twitter blogs on the Internet, FAVRD lays down a set of rules regarding what it considers filtered posts on Twitter.

How Does That Help Me? This massively popular Twitter tool helps you find the most filtered and favorite posts people tweet about. Hence, you can use this Twitter app as a platform for social media networking by writing interesting, insightful and thought-provoking tweets about your business activities. But, make sure your overall approach towards FAVRD should be interactive rather than promotional. FAVRD is no place for “web-strategy, social-media, and online-marketing webcocks” as mentioned in its guidelines.

TwiTip – Make Your Tweets Count

What’s That? TwiTip is a popular Twitter blog owned by Darren Rowse, the guy behind the famous blog – ProBlogger. With short, crisp and highly informative posts, Darren shares his thoughts and ideas on how to use Twitter efficiently and productively. The best part of TwiTip is that it allows you to contribute your innovative thoughts and ideas you have on how to better use and improve the experience on using Twitter.

How Does That Help Me? If Tweeting helps you manage your online brand image, TwiTip tells how you can do it the best way. While everybody is leveraging Twitter to nurture their online brand identity, few know how to make the right move. With many useful Twitter tips, you can surely find out ways to optimize your social media campaigns.

Tweetstats – Follow Your Own Tweets

What’s That? If you wish if there was anything like Google Analytics to help you keep tabs on your tweet counts, Tweetstats is the answer to your prayer. To say Tweetstats is a Twitter application is an understatement – it is a supercool twitter tool that graphs your tweeting habits blow by blow. With Tweetstats, you can figure out the number of Tweets per hour or month, Tweet timeline and even your reply statistics.

How Does That Help Me? Since Tweeting is one of the most effective ways of social networking and brand building online, it pays to know how your fellow Twitterers are using Twitter. With feature like Twitter Trending Stats which shows the Top 100 Trends  that are currently on Twitter, Tweetstats can be an effective tool for niche marketing.

TwitterSweet – What’s Up On Twitter?

What’s That? TwitterSweet is unofficial and independent tweeter blog that offers wealth of information including news, features, tips and highlights that can be very helpful for regular Twitterers. Created by Joe Grossberg, the founder of Joegrossberg.com, TwitterSweet aims at offering interesting news, features and tips on Twitter that can help you enhance your tweeting experience.

How Does That Help Me: What is the easiest and most private way to send direct message to someone on Twitter? Answers to questions like this can be found on TwitterSweet, which means you can stay updated on all the latest APIs and other similar news about Twitter.

Twittown – Join Hands with the Twitter Community

What’s That? If you have been looking for a Twitter community where you can talk about, share your ideas and meet like-minded people sharing similar hobbies and interests, Twittown is your ultimate destination. This is Twitter blog brings together all the Twitter fans who may be in different professions, but share a common passion, i.e tweeting. Twittown allows its community members to read news on the blogs, chat in the forums, apart from offering many useful Twitter tools and applications which are relevant to the Twitter communities.

How Does That Help Me? Twittown covers a wide range of social networks and their applications, widget platforms and mobile platforms such as iphone, blackberry and android. If you are a frequent traveler who tweets extensively and is tuned in to Twitter updates, Twittown can help you remain updated. Besides, there is no better way to foster your online network than using this wonderful twitter blog.

Twitter Blog – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

What’s That? This is the official Twitter blog. It should be the first place you visit when you want to learn how to use Twitter effectively. It brings you a lot of news, stats and apps that are vital for a great experience on Twitter. Besides, this is the best place to get familiar with the Twitter lingo. Being the official Twitter blog, you need to visit this blog to update your TQ (Twitter Quotient).

How Does That Help Me? As the official Twitter blog, Twitter offers the most authentic and latest updates that are necessary for its users. Whether you’re new to Twitter or not, Twitter blog always offers you something new that helps you monetize Twitter.

Twitterholic – When Madness Counts

What’s That? Twitterholic offers ranking of the top twitterers in a list, which is updated quite frequently. Hence, you can find the most popular twitter users. It shows all the vital statistics of top twitterholics such as the location, number of followers, friends, updates, the date of joining and even the URL of twitterers.

How Does That Help Me? When you show up in the top 100 Twitterholics list, you increase your opportunity of being found easily. Although, it takes a ton of tweets and followers on Twitter everyday to access the “top one hundred”, you should make your tweets interesting, relevant and readable.

Influencer Marketing: where the chain of influence breaks

Word of mouth marketing works because the recommendation of a product or service comes from someone you trust or whose advice you have sought out. These people are your sphere of influence. However, a new study has shown some surprising results.

Nicholas Christakis of Harvard and James Fowler of UC San Diego have found that the ability of a person to influence another lessens greatly as degrees of separation mount; this probably doesn’t shock you. What is surprising, however, is that after the third degree of separation, there is no longer any evidence of influence.

Take this passage, as quoted from the Harvard Business Review:

A break in the chain of influence can ruin the viral campaign

“For example, the risk for smoking in a person connected to a smoker (that is, at one degree of separation) is 61% higher, on average, than would be expected as a result of chance. It is 29% higher if the friends of that person’s friends smoke, and 11% higher if the friends of the person’s friends’ friends smoke. By the fourth degree of separation there is no longer an increase in risk. To take another example, we have found that a person is 15% likelier to be happy if his or her friends are happy, 10% likelier if the friends’ friends are happy, and 6% likelier if the friends of those friends’ friends are happy.”

Its clear that WOM can only convert customers when that sphere is as close as 1 or 2 steps away. Successful viral marketing campaigns may have to be retooled to move beyond the break in the chain of influence. After a few degrees of separation, viral WOM waters down and may diminish in influence. Marketers will have to get creative to move beyond the inner circle.

The critical component will come in the finite tuning of position. A extremely targeted campaign that pushes cause related buttons will probably be the most effective.

Twitter location: Google’s Latitude can stay put.

What are you doing?

Many are wondering if Twitter will begin to integrate geo-location like Google’s Latitude.

If they are, then they have missed the point of Twitter.

I don’t care where you are, I care what you are thinking.

The relevancy of Twitter comes directly from it’s ability to facilitate conversation. Smart business people use Twitter to network. They tweet strategically. They know they must present value to be “followed”.

Tweets telling me that you are on the George Washington Bridge are irrelevant unless you are late to meet up with me. It’s the equivalent of people who tweet what they had for breakfast. I don’t care. “Spam, spam and eggs, spam, spam, spam, hash and eggs” – Some people’s Twitter streams are like a Monty Python skit. The problem is unless you know these people intimately; their life’s details are, frankly, boring.

Their mistake starts with the assumption that the minutia will somehow foster closer relationships. Connecting over daily drudgery does not create long lasting bonds. Otherwise, you would be best friends with the cashier you see every time you go to the grocery. You might develop a polite banter, but you will hardly be best friends unless you go out of your way to do so.

Effort is required. Real relationships demand that, at times, you “go out of your way.” That’s what builds the value. So, if you want to develop a strong network via Twitter, tweet strategically. Here are a few guidelines for a solid Twitter Strategy:

1.      Focus on a subject area. Tweet about your industry. Tweet about your company.

2.      Show thought leadership. Pick topics that are controversial, informative, or relational.

3.      Tie related subjects together and create some interest. Tell people why they need to know about them. Why are they important?

4.      Retweet significant posts to your audience.

5.      Have a voice that shows your style. Are you funny, cynical, friendly, outlandish?

If you begin to lose “followers” ask yourself what value you present, then focus your tweets around it. Your Twitter strategy should save time, keeping miscellaneous tweets to a minimum. A last word of advice: before you press send, ask yourself if it’s RELEVANT to your audience.

After all, if you really need people to know where you are all the time, perhaps you should just invest in an ankle bracelet. Then local law enforcement can “follow” you.

Obama and social media: an integrated approach

President Obama understands what needs to happen after the sale. He’s already elected. Yet he is using social media in order to continue the brand experience.

Look at two recent emails that his transition team used to generate conversation and commitment on the part of his “customers” – We The People. The approach of the first email is to ask the receiver to Take A Look. The language is specific and pushes the known hot buttons important to maintaining his brand.

Take a look…

“to execute the most efficient, organized, and transparent transfer of power in American history. As a co-Chair for the Transition, I want to tell you about a few steps we’ve already taken to achieve this goal.”

Transparency…

Transparency is crucial to his success. Americans are starving for a credible leader to trust and transparency is the key element. You can make mistakes, but you can’t cover them up. If you want to continue to strengthen the relationship, your customer must believe that you know who they are, what they want and that you won’t pull any punches.

“that begins with shifting influence away from special interests and restoring it to the everyday Americans who are passionate about fixing the problems facing our country.”

Aren’t we all passionate about fixing the problems facing our country? Even if we aren’t, don’t we want to be? We want to belong. We want to be part of the tribe on the inside. Nobody wants to be outside with their nose pressed against the window. So, of course you are going to want to identify yourself as a passionate American.

“Opening up the Transition means listening to your ideas and stories and providing a window into how the process works.”

Change…

Taking control of the process lets the user participate in an empowered way. It allows the Warrior in us all to champion the cause. We can take action on our own behalf with the blessing of Obama the Ruler. The Warrior and the Ruler are classic archetypes that hold a heartfelt place in our psyche. We can identify with them, act on our role immediately and thus carry forth the brand that we voted for: change.

That change is facilitated by his use of social interaction on the web in his website http://change.gov. Obama knows that social media alone won’t build his brand. But, so far, as he takes his first steps since being elected – he shows us that he knows the value of social media marketing to dominate Internet Branding. Copyright 2008 Leili McKinley