Can you really do this; use social marketing to sell your creative writing output?
I don’t know for sure yet but I will have an answer in the coming months.
You see, I am about to embark on an exercise using social networking exclusively to supplement the publisher’s launch of the 5th edition of my first bestselling book.
“Starting Your Own Business” (ISBN 9781845283124) first hit the bookshelves way back in 1994. It has had four editions to date and countless reprints. On the age-old concept of, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, the content has remained unchanged over the intervening years save for updating in the shape of additional topical inclusions.
Here is the gist of my plan of implementation to boost sales through social networking:
SOCIAL MARKETING
I will use these core channels deploying events and promotions by way of articles and videos where appropriate.
Facebook
MySpace
Squidoo
Hub Pages
YouTube
Bebo
Daily Motion
Hi5
Gather
Yahoo 360
SOCIAL BOOKMARKING
My social marketing activity will be bounced onto these equally core bookmarking channels.
Propeller
Slashdot
Digg
Technorati
Delicious
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Reddit
Fark
Newsvine
Furl
Swik
Connotea
Sphinn
Blinklist
Faves
Mister-Wong
Spurl
Diigo
This engagement with social networking might be paralleled to acquiring permission to advertise on the BBC - but here’s a better analogy; a strategic social networking campaign in full throttle resembles a motorised fountain whose powerful engine emits jets of cascading water spiralling in every direction.
The comparison ends there though.
The effect of the physical fountain is imprecise and scattergun in delivery; the effect of virtual social networking is precise and objective as its outpouring streams hit multiple pre-determined targets plumb centre; targets from which it enthusiastically bounces onto associated website(s).
How will I know if my engagement with social networking bears fruit?
Here’s how. Because the book has already been through four editions I know what to expect by way of initial uptake from the publisher’s own launch promotion. Anything extra on this occasion will be down to social networking.
I’ll let you know how I go in a subsequent post…
JIM GREEN is a bestselling author in the realms of fiction and non-fiction.
