Promotional Tips From Nikki Leigh

Years ago being an author meant you would write a book, get published (if you were lucky) and hope for the best when it came to selling and gaining visibility for you and your masterpiece. That is unless you had star status or were a professional speaker who could sell from the platform or to your existing client base.

Countless authors romanced the idea of going on a world tour with their book, being the star author in bookstore after bookstore with lines of eager fans clamoring to purchase an autographed copy of their book.

Like numerous other authors, with my first book I was convinced I would miraculously be discovered, appear on all the top television talk shows, be swept away by a major publisher and live happily ever after with my world famous book. The dream went as far as me living a solitary life in a rural community, on a nice piece of land, near a river or lake, a mystery to the residents of the local town.

Like most authors’ my dream quickly soured when I realized the truth of what it meant to be an author. There was little if any budget for book tours, publishers (if you could even get one) didn’t proactively promote our books above and beyond a short-lived attempt, and most authors would rather scale the side of mountain than speak in front an audience.

I had the good fortune of being a professional speaker, so scaling a mountainside was not something I could see myself doing at any point in my future. Yet, selling books was still a matter of schlepping boxes from location to location in hopes of selling out at each venue.

Fast forward to today. Having a world tour is now at close as any author’s computer keyboard and telephone. With the onslaught of teleseminars, social networks and social media marketing there are so many options for authors that certainly didn’t exist when I published my first book well over a decade ago.

Between social networks, blogging, guest blogging, joint venture book launches, web radio, teleseminars, and webinars to name but a few choices, an author can create their own very successful book tour. With a bit of ingenuity, focus and commitment, it is now feasible for an author to take a book from total obscurity to a global virtual book tour in what used to be an impossible timeframe and within a very low budget compared to what it would have cost for even one book tour in the past.

The best part of all is the playing field has been leveled due to the Internet. And even if the author doesn’t have the time, skill set or desire to host their own tour, there are experts who specialize in coordinating virtual book tours (hint - one leading expert is as close as the owner of this blog).

Myself, I do have the skill set, but I also know that at times it is actually more cost and time effective to contract an expert rather than coordinating it myself.

However, if you want to organize your own tour, here are a few considerations. One, who is your reader? Resist the temptation to say, “Everyone.” In the world of marketing, we say, “If everyone is your market, then no one is your market.”

Next, determine where your reader “hangs out”. What social networks do they belong to? What forums do they frequent? What web radio programs might they listen to? Who do you know (or could you know) who has a similar readership reach as those readers you are trying to reach who could do a feature blog posting on you or help to otherwise promote your book?
Begin now to formulate the answers to these important questions. Within the answers lie the opportunity to invest your time and efforts gaining targeted visibility and sales without having to schlep books in the trunk of your car to location after location.

Kathleen Gage is known as the Street Smarts Marketer. She is the author of four books, dozens of eBased information products and teleseminars. Kathleen works with speakers, authors, coaches and consultants teaching them how to gain visibility for their products and service.

She lives in a small rural community on what she calls her “little piece of heaven” across from a picturesque river where she is a mystery to the people in her town. She attributes her good fortune of being able to reside where she does to the power of the Internet to market her books and other products.

To learn how to effectively market yourself by way of the Internet, click here to join Kathleen’s Street Smarts Marketing VIP Club.

Tags: book promotion, kathleen gage, online book promotion, Virtual Blog Tour, virtual book tour

12 Benefits of Social Media Marketing
By Nikki Leigh

Customers in these tough economic times are looking for the best ways to spend their time and money. Business people who have a strong social media presence have the opportunity to communicate directly with their potential clients.

Which of these benefits appeal to you?
• Generating global sales
• Building relationships is an important part of the social media puzzle
• Generate a buzz about your business and products
• Reach your target audience
• Get information about you and your business to many people
• Create links back to your site, blog etc - we bookmark your website pages & articles
• Let customers & potential customers to learn more about you, your business & products
• Help online visitors get to know the person behind the business or other product
• Search engines love blogs & social sites. Your information gets to search engines quick
• Give people the opportunity to communicate with you through the various sites
• Comments can give you the chance to see what your social sites are thinking
• Build credibility and increase visibility

Many people have expressed the thought that social media marketing is a waste of time. However, when you know how to use the various social media options and tools, it can be a very powerful promotional tool. We’ll share many tips in the coming weeks to help you understand why social media marketing can be a great tool to propel your business to the next level, even in a down economy.

For more details of some social media options Promo 101 offers - http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/06/establish-and-automate-your-social.html

Here are some tips for bloggers.

• Keep your posts “on topic”. This will enable you to promote your product and website when you keep your posts and blog on topic.
• Make your posts informative and interesting. This isn’t just busy work to entertain your visitors. You can share information to help them make an educated decision to buy your product.
• Do not recycle old information. Your readers want you to share new information. The exception would be to relate a past event to a present situation.
• Have a realistic and consistent schedule. After you start your blog, post fresh content on a regular basis. Your potential customers will expect that and will lose interest if you lag behind with your posts.
• Make the important message easy to understand. The posts don’t need to be elaborate and technical. Be conversational and easy to understand tone.
• Maintain a certain level of quality. You need to use keywords in your posts but don’t lose the effective content because you tried to cram too many keywords into your post. Search engines love blogs and can increase references to you and your product. Maintain the quality and weave keywords into your posts.
• Proofread your work. The old adage is to: edit, edit, edit and edit again. If you want to look like a professional and your post is full of errors and typos, the visitor will not be motivated to buy from you. Or they won’t see you as a professional. This can hurt your credibility.
• Be passionate about your topic. If you are excited about your subject, that should be conveyed to your visitors. Pass that excitement to your potential customers and they should rush to buy your products.
• Determine your target market. It is critical that you know who needs your product. These are the people that you need to attract with all of your promotional efforts.
• Finally, link to other blogs. When you post comments on other blogs, include your blog URL under your name. Don’t post an elaborate message or blurb about your blog. All you need is to post a relevant comment that will attract attention and list your name and blog address. Subtle is much better than blatant and potentially rude promotions.

Nikki Leigh is an award winning and best selling fiction and non-fiction author. She has over sixfteen years of promotional experience. This background has been helpful with her book promotion and her new promotional venture, Promo 101 Promotional Services which offers many online promotional options. Her promotional books - Book Promo 101 and Book Promo 201 lets her share many of the things she’s learned. For details about Nikki Leigh, visit http://www.nikkileigh.com. For detailed promotional and virtual blog tour information, visit - http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/. She also has a blog where she posts a wide variety of promotional articles - http://promo101tips.wordpress.com/ - check the category list for any specific topics that are of interest to you. For full details about Book Promo 201 - www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm

Tags: community

Web 2.0 – What is It and Should You Care?

By Nikki Leigh

Web 2.0 – it isn’t as complicated as it sounds and it is very beneficial for you to learn more about it. Let me start by saying that you are probably already using Web 2.0, but you don’t know it. Web 2.0 is a term that is being heard more often each day. These are great new options that we have on the internet and they can be very beneficial to you and your promotion.

What is Web 2.0

The simplest definition of Web 2.0 is “any option that gives you the opportunity and ability to interact with others”. Interacting with potential customers is something that should be important to any author or business person that wants to get information out about their product or service.

In the past, we were limited by how much and how easily we could communicate on the internet. Think back a few years ago when only people who knew HTML code could post information online. However, with the arrival of Web 2.0, almost anyone can post content online to share with other people.

This is the biggest difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 -

• Web 1.0 – Webmasters could post content and basically had control of what was available
• Web 2.0 – The general public can post content and has control of what is available

Below are questions to give you examples of Web 2.0 options on the internet.

• Have you posted a video on YouTube?
• Have you watched a video on YouTube?
• Have you read or posted information on a blog?
• Have you listened to or recorded a podcast?
• Do you have a profile page on MySpace, Facebook, Linked or other social networking sites?
• Have you posted pictures on any picture sharing sites on the internet?

All of these are examples of Web 2.0 and many people are already using Web 2.0 technology without knowing it. But, why is this important to your promotion?

Why You Should Care

Authors, artists, and other business people benefit when they get their message in front of their target audience and when they can interact with potential customers. Web 2.0 gives you many ways to do that. One advantage is that you can reach a worldwide audience if you want. A second advantage is that you can do targeted marketing to reach only the people you choose. This targeted marketing gives you the best chance of making a sale because it gets your message in front of the people who want or need the product or service you want to sell.

Below  are some social media and Web 2.0 examples and the benefits from each. The ideas I share here are just some of the ways to use these websites to promote your work. The options are only limited by your creativity. One of the things I love about my work is customizing a promotional campaign for business people and their products or services. There are unlimited ways to do this with Web 2.0.

Facebook – Facebook gives you the opportunity to network with new people. You can search to locate your target audience and then present your product or service through your profile page, various applications, groups and fan pages you can easily create to promote your work. Facebook also offers targeted advertising on their site.

My Space – This site offers the chance to meet new people and network with them. Searches for your target audience are possible on MySpace. Your profile page, bulletins, blog posts, comments, videos, pictures and discussion groups provide opportunities to present your information and to communicate with other people.

YouTube – YouTube is a great place to post videos or promotional trailers about you and the products or services you offer. This is a great opportunity to literally speak to your target audience. There are also tools to get your videos in front of more people. You can comment on videos that attract your target audience to get your name in front of them.

Amazon – People with items on Amazon have many ways to build up a presence on the Amazon website, their sales pages, through a blog on Amazon, submitting ratings and comments – to name a few. I’m working on an e-book to help people increase the effectiveness of their Amazon presence.

Linked In – This website is a great place for business people to network. It is different from MySpace and Facebook, but it provides extensive business information and background for members. You can connect with others, write testimonials, share details about your professional background and much more. An interesting area of Linked In is the “answers” section. It’s a great way to boost your online credibility.

Online Credibility

We’ve all seen and heard about scams on the internet. It’s a great place for people to establish and promote a business, but that also attracts people who want to make a fast buck and who cheat people. That is one reason why it is important to build online credibility. Through the internet, you can network and do business with people around the world, if you want. That distance makes it important to prove your expertise and help potential clients see you have something of value to offer. You can do this through the information you share, answers and comments you post, examples of your work, testimonials and references from past clients and much more.

Use Blogs to Promote

Anyone who wants to promote on the internet needs to have a blog. Having an effective and active blog is no longer an option. A blog gives you the chance to get yourself in front of people who need your product or service, share useful information, stay in touch with potential clients, and more. However, once you start a blog, it is critical to keep it active. Search engines love blogs. This means that you and your information will be in search engines almost overnight. When people are searching for something – the vast majority start with a search engine. They need to be able to find you there.

Virtual blog tours are a great way to utilize Web 2.0 options. In the tours I coordinate, I use blogs, podcasts, radio shows, and any other avenues that I can find to get the word out about a client’s product or service. Your information gets into the search engines right away and is archived so people can find your details long after they are posted.

The internet is a gift for people who want to promote their business, products or services to a small or large audience. There are many free promotional options on the internet that we can utilize. Who you target is up to you, but either way, the internet is a gift that you need to unwrap and dig deeper into the opportunities that it offers.

Nikki Leigh is an award winning fiction and non fiction author. She has over fifteen years of promotional experience. This background has been helpful with her book promotion and her new promotional venture, Promo 101 Virtual Blog Tours which offers many online promotional options. Her book -Book Promo 101 lets her share many of the things she’s learned. Her latest book (coming soon) – Book Promo 201: Learn to Promote on the Internet With Web 2.0 delves into much more detail about these topics. For details about the Book Promo 101 series and your other promotional options, visit www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm. For detailed promotional and virtual blog tour information, visit - http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/. The most up to date information is posted at www.twitter.com/litekepr

Take a Peek Inside - Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

For more information about Book Promo 201 - visit www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm

Tags: author promotion, blogs, book marketing, book promotion, internet marketing, internet promotion, online marketing, online promotion, social media marketing, social networking, social profile, web 2.0