virtualDavis

The greatest benefit of social media for indie authors is the chance to make and build connections with other authors, readers and publishing industry professionals. The quality of these connections (how consistent, how useful, how deep, how much trust. how good is your actual product/book/service?) will determine how many of your social media pals actually “convert” i.e. buy your book, interview you, review your book, give you a contract, share your posts etc.

This where your advantage lies because you, one man/woman writing publishing phenom that you are, can build deeper connections than the Stephen King’s and Susan Collins of this world.  Success and popularity can often decrease the depth of social media connections simply by dint of the numbers involved. Elite twitterati like Neil Gaiman and Paul Coehlo have mostly one way relationships with their followers because they can’t afford to read what all those followers have to say in turn.You don’t have that problem. (penswithcojones.com)

Virus envy? Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch) is spreading the good word of Jonah Peretti, CEO of Buzzfeed and legendary viralmeister behind the Nike sweatshop rebuff and The Rejection Line. A voice worth listening to, Peretti’s 5 Golden Rules of Viralizing simplify the formula, at least in concept. Delivering the goods? That’s still up to you! Or Buzzfeed…

The rules are:

1. Create media for the Bored At Work Network: There are hundreds of millions of people around the world bored at work sitting in front of their computers connected to high speed networks.  This network is bigger than any traditional media network like CNN or ABC. Create something they will want to pass around.
2. Practice The Mullet Strategy: Business up front, party on the back.  If you have a Website, keep the front page serious so as not to scare off the casuals.  Give all the crazy commenters and contributors space in the back, and only show them to the rest of the world when they create something that catches on.
3. Try Big Seed Marketing: If you are  brand trying to create  a viral campaign, it might be hard. True viral memes are hard to reproduce.  It is much easier to make something that still gets passed around, but you might have to spend some money to seed it around the Internet.  The more seed you spread, the more chance it will grow. “Buy the seed, get the viral for free,” he says (this is basically BuzzFeed’s business model).
4. Target The Maniacs: The Web is ruled by maniacs, people who get worked up about things and push their ideas out.  ”Content is more viral if it helps people express their personality disorders,” notes Peretti.
5. Be A Mormon, Not A Jew. This one is tongue in cheek.  But Mormonism is a growing religion, whereas Judaism is stagnating in terms of population.  Why?  Mormons are better evangelists.  ”The problem with Jews is that they suck at marketing,” says Peretti.  ”It’s almost like they don’t want anyone else to be a Jew.” His point is that it is not just the quality of an idea that counts, it is how much effort you put into spreading it.

So, that’s the formula, at least in concept. Delivering the goods? That’s still up to you! Or Buzzfeed…

I’ve discovered that the top thought leaders on the web will bend over backwards to help a true fan. Let’s talk about how to become one… (PushingSocial.com)

Despite the goofy Michael Jackson admission/reflection, Stanford’s three tips for how to get your blog noticed and promoted by super influencers is on target:

1. Help influencers create, curate and promote their content
2. Become a “true fan” by learning, following and recruiting
3. Act now; don’t get derailed asking, begging and waiting

As Seth Godin explains: “Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness later.” Seems germane here, no? You’re hoping to change an influencer’s opinion of you (notice you, respect you, refer you, etc.) and there’s no better way to do this than to contribute your own influence. So long as it’s authentic endorsement. Keep it real! Life’s too short to pose or pander, and your integrity’s all that you’ve got!

Users Focus on Faces:

People instinctively notice other people right away when they come into view. On Web pages, we tend to focus on people’s faces and eyes, which gives marketers a good technique for attracting attention. But our attraction to people’s faces and eyes is only the beginning; it turns out we actually glance in the direction the person in the image is looking in.

via smashingmagazine.com

This post over at Smashing Magazine shares insightful website usability guidelines for designers and developers.

Where to Look for Opportunities

When we start with the premise that consumers haven’t paid for content in the past, we gain visibility into new ideas that make sense for the digital era.

It’s not micro-payments alone that will save the future for professional quality media content. On the other hand, the idea that the consumer will always pay for distribution that massively over-serves their needs is not a foregone conclusion either. Paying $2500+ per year for cable/broadband/telephony/mobile in order to gain access to a million times more content than you could ever possibly need is not going to work out so well for the media industry either.

We need solutions that improve the relevance of content for individual consumers without expecting individual consumers to be able to predict exactly what they want. The Internet has exploded the supply of content but digital technologies have only just begun to filter and sample that content for the consumer in an effective manner.

Content providers who used to enjoy control over the method of distribution are feeling a lot of pain but their content remains vital and appealing to consumers. Rather than stomping our foot like Mr. Isaacson, it is better to focus on new solutions that tie content and distribution together in ways that create great consumer experiences.

We don’t know what the other side of this transformation will look like but we have guidance;

• Look at what the iPod did for music. Think about the critical role of sampling in the success of the micropayment model for songs.
• Look at the potential of what Kindle can do for print publications.
• Study the legacy of syndication that makes business partners of the content distributor and the content provider.
• Look at the popularity of expensive sets of DVDs for old TV episodes.
• Anticipate what the near-future DVR will be capable of doing.
• Think of what GPS will mean for the distribution of local and timely content.
• Think about what Twitter and search are doing to reveal the consumer’s need for specific content at precise moments in time.

It is time to think about distribution and content holistically. Digital technologies are not the enemy, they are an enormous opportunity to improve the relevance of content to the individual consumer. Don’t think so small as micropayments for one article at a time and don’t take for granted the current ability to charge a big fee for massively over-delivering irrelevant content. Look in the middle.

Somewhere in between asking the consumer to buy content “al a carte” and asking the consumer to pay for the whole menu, new “prix fixe” solutions are going to mature.

A Final Word from Our Sponsor

While we are at it, let’s not lose sight of the value of the advertising supported model. We are in the middle of a complex media transformation and a brutal recession. At times like this, pundits like Bob Garfield want to convince us that advertising is dead.

Advertising works. In the digital era, the consumer finds it very easy to ignore irrelevant advertising but they are quicker to engage with relevant advertising than ever before because the Internet makes engagement easy.

Be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water in pursuit of the goal of getting the consumer to pay for the content. The advertiser remains happy to assume that role so long as we can offer a reasonably scaled and engaged audience. We just need to apply our new resources to help the advertiser better align their message with the right consumer at the right time.

Media companies can create new and better advertising values and it will still command a premium relative to the costs of distribution. Now that digital efficiencies have greatly reduced the cost of distribution, media companies need to look hard at the overhead that is a hangover from the analog era.

Some legacy media executives complain that they are trading analog dollars for digital pennies as advertising moves online. That is a valid concern so we can’t drag our feet when it comes to rethinking overhead costs from analog dollars to digital pennies as well.

We can reduce overhead, improve advertising value and find new consumer revenue models built on interesting combinations of content and distribution all at the same time. We need to be more disciplined about who the consumer is and what they really want as we build our new solutions, but the solutions are just waiting for the imaginations of new media moguls to find them.

via huffingtonpost.com

I excerpted this from an informative piece with sound thinking that I’d recommend to anyone creating content (word, video, music, etc.) for an audience. A few highlights:

#1. “We need solutions that improve the relevance of content for individual consumers without expecting individual consumers to be able to predict exactly what they want.”

#2. “Study the legacy of syndication that makes business partners of the content distributor and the content provider.”

#3. “Think about what Twitter and search are doing to reveal the consumer’s need for specific content at precise moments in time.”

4. “We need to be more disciplined about who the consumer is and what they really want as we build our new solutions, but the solutions are just waiting for the imaginations of new media moguls to find them.”

1. Complete Your Profile
2. Increase Your Connections
3. Customize Your Website Links
4. Answer Questions
5. Update Status
6. Join Niche Groups
7. Post Comments In Groups
8. Add RSS Feed to Groups
9. Create a Group
10. Add the Blog Application to Your Profile

(Graphic and list via problogger.net)

via drewsmarketingminute.com

Need to explain social media to your grandmother? Tip: print out this PDF first.

Poor Kelly Corrigan, first-time author, didn’t get invited to this weekend’s National Book Festival on the Mall to plug her 2008 memoir, “The Middle Place.” She won’t be rubbing shoulders with heavyweight authors such as Sue Monk Kidd, John Grisham or Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz. No major newspaper bothered to review the California mom’s tale about cancer and family and recovery when it was released. Her publisher didn’t send her on tour. All the old-school staples of book promotion — the book festival, the tour, the glowing newspaper review — Corrigan got none of them.

What was a newbie author to do?

She cobbled together a trailer for her book on her home computer, using iMovie software, downloading a free tune off the Web for background music, and stuck it on her Web site. Her agent helped get her on one network television morning show. About 20 friends hosted book parties, which she hit on a self-funded three-week blitz, selling books out of the trunk of her car. A guy shot video of her reading an essay at one of these parties, and she posted it on YouTube when the paperback came out.

A year later, the book has sold about 80,000 copies in hardcover and another 260,000 in paperback, according to Nielsen BookScan data. It sat on the New York Times bestseller list for 20 weeks, peaking at No. 2. That homemade trailer has been viewed more than 100,000 times. The video of her reading has drawn 4.5 million hits. She’s in Washington on Thursday, speaking at the Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Award luncheon. Then she will plow into more than a dozen paid speaking gigs across the country in the next six weeks.