Book Marketing Maven

How to Make Your Tweets Appear on LinkedIn

Many people use a utility such as at the Twitter Facebook application to make their tweets automatically flow through to their status update on Facebook. Now there's an easy way to flow your tweets to LinkedIn.

Because LinkedIn is a professional network, it may not be appropriate for all of your tweets to appear there. The beauty of this system is that you can selectively decide which tweets go to LinkedIn. Even if you don't want your tweets to flow to LinkedIn, you can create a clickable link to your Twitter account from your LinkedIn profile.

It's easy and just takes a few moments to set up. First, you'll need to sync your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Just check the Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and then specify the Twitter account that you’d like to sync and/or display on your LinkedIn profile.

Use Social Follow to Attract Followers on Your Social Networks

These days, it’s vital to make it easy to for people to find you on social networks and to encourage them to connect with you there.

I’ve recently added a new button my website, using a service called Social Follow. In the upper right corner of this site, look for the button with the icons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and RSS feeds. I also repeated this button father down the right column, beneath my photo.

In addition to these major social networks, you can add icons for numerous other services including Blogger, WordPress, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Flickr, Squidoo, Hub Pages, MySpace, Ning, Shelfari, and more.

You can create multiple buttons for different sites within the same Social Follow account, and you can also set up a Profile on the Social Follow site.

To get started, register at Social Follow and follow the steps to create your button. For step-by-step instructions on how to create your Social Follow button and profile, see this free tutorial from Just the FAQs. If you're a TypePad user like me, you can copy the button code into a Notes TypeList and place it in your sidebar.

Before you begin, you will need to already have an account on the social services that you wish to include on your button, and you’ll also need to know your personal URL for each of your social sites. Usually, you can find the URL by looking at the URL in your browser when you are on your profile page for your favorite social sites. For example, my URL on Twitter is http://twitter.com/BookMarketer.

Give Social Follow a try and watch your followers and contacts increase!

Other Social Markteing Articles

The Golden Rules of Social Networking

Social networking is a terrific way to make contacts and develop relationships. Here are some tips for putting the social into social networking:

• Be selective about which networks you join and who you invite as a friend. Only invite people who appear to share common interests with you.

• Send a personalized friend request, introducing yourself and stating why you want to befriend the other person.

• Get involved in the community. Remember that you need to give more than you get. Offer helpful comments and links, compliment others, share a bit of personal information about yourself, and be a friend.

• Don't be overly promotional. It's okay to promote your products and services on occasion, but don't make that your main focus. Be careful of appearing too promotional. Sending out an announcement of your book launch is fine; sending frequent promotional messages about your book is not.

Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Other Social Marketing Articles

Turn Your Facebook Profile into a Friend Magnet in 7 Easy Steps

Recently author Janice Curran invited me to participate in a Featured Friend discussion on Facebook. For several hours I had a lively conversation on Janice's Facebook wall with a number of her friends, discussing the best ways to use Twitter for book promotion. In today's guest post, Janice offers tips on how you can create similar events on your own Facebook profile.

More and more writers—both the pros and the aspiring—are turning to social networking services such as Facebook to promote their brands. But if "everybody’s doing it," how do you stand out?

One way is to utilize the service in a manner that’s different from the norm. The manner I use is "Featured Friends."

When you look at your Facebook friend list, what do you see? A collection of names? Or do you see, as I do, a wide range of people with a wide range of expertise—people from whom others can learn?

I built my Facebook Featured Friends program around that concept. Once a month, I host what, in essence, is a live mini blog right on my Facebook wall. The Facebook friend featured posts a quick tip on a topic relevant to writing. Then, for a time-limited period following, my guest replies to comments posted by my Facebook friends.

Facebook Restricts the Use of Contests

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about using contests to attract fans to Facebook pages. On November 4, Facebook issued guidelines that impose strict restrictions on the use of contests, making them effectively impractical for individuals and small businesses. Mari Smith has written a good article explaining the guidelines.

Think about other ways to offer value to people who visit your Facebook fan page or group, while still adhering to the Facebook guidelines. For example, you can set these pages up as information portals, offering valuable tips and links. Also, consider offering downloads of a free ebook or a sample chapter from your book.

Twitter contests are still a good promotional tool for authors and publishers. So far, it appears that Twitter has placed no restrictions on contest promotions, so long as their anti-spam rules are not violated. See the Twitter rules for more details.

Other Social Marketing Articles

How Often Should You Tweet?

Twitter can be a terrific networking tool, but many users wonder how often they should tweet. It's best to post several tweets a day, but it is hard to say what is the optimum frequency. I generally make five to seven posts a day. Some people post several times an hour, but that takes a lot of time and it may annoy your followers. And it's not a good idea to post unless you have something interesting to say.

Think about how the posts appear to your followers. As each new tweet appears on their home page, it pushes the earlier ones down a notch. Most people probably don't read beyond the first page when they log onto Twitter. If you make several posts at once, they will all be bunched together on your follower's screen. But if that person doesn't happen to be on Twitter at that time, they might not see any of your tweets if they have already been pushed beyond the first page. If you make several posts spaced out during the day, it's more likely that one or more of them will be seen.

If it's not practical for you to post several times during the day, you can use a scheduling service such as SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) or FutureTweets to pre-schedule your tweets.

For more tips on using Twitter effectively, see Twitter Guide for Authors.

Promote Your Book and Yourself With Facebook

Social networking sites like Facebook are a great place to connect with others and subtly promote your book and yourself.

In addition to meeting potential customers, you will make lots of other valuable contacts, such as other authors in your field or genre, publishing and marketing folks, bloggers and editors.
There are several ways to network and gain visibility on Facebook: through your profile, fan page, groups, events and pay-per-click advertising.

For tips on how to use Facebook (as well as Twitter) to promote your book and build your author platform, listen to my new podcast, hosted by MaAnna Stephenson. See the articles below for more ideas on how to promote your book though Facebook:

Six Ways Authors Can Promote on Facebook

Promote Your Book with a Facebook Group

For detailed instructions on harnessing the full power of Facebook, check out my new ebook, Facebook Guide for Authors. I'm Dana Lynn Smith on Facebook, and I invite you to befriend me there.

Promoting Your Book on LinkedIn: Do's and Don'ts

In today's guest post, I am delighted to have online book marketing expert Patrice-Anne Rutledge share her tips on how to promote a book through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is one of the world's most popular professional networking sites, with more than 47 million members around the world. It's also a great place to promote books. Here are five ways to promote your book on LinkedIn, plus two ideas to avoid.

1. Feature your book prominently on your LinkedIn profile. You can draw attention to your book on your profile headline and summary.  Another idea is to create a separate position as an author, which gives more emphasis to your book. Be careful not to overdo this promotion, however. You don't want your profile to read like an advertisement for your book.

2. Update your status regularly. Your LinkedIn status is one of the best ways to communicate news about your book to your LinkedIn connections. You can start when you first land your book deal (or begin the writing process on a self-published book). Then update your status as your book progresses. Don't stop when your book is released, however. You can also update your status when you receive any media mentions or post something interesting on your blog that relates to your book.

Promote Your Book and Yourself With Twitter

Twitter is a terrific tool for building your network and subtly promoting your book and yourself.  

In addition to meeting potential customers, you will make lots of other valuable contacts, such as other authors in your field or genre, other people in the publishing business, marketing experts, editors, and bloggers. The best part is that everyone you meet on Twitter has the potential to share your message and recommend you to others, so you can expand your reach tremendously.

For tips on using Twitter, as well as Facebook, for book promotion, listen to my new podcast, hosted by MaAnna Stephenson. Here are some articles with tips on using Twitter to promote your book:

Top Ten Ways Authors Can Use Twitter

What Authors Can Tweet About on Twitter

How to Use Replies and Mentions on Twitter

And check out my new ebook, Twitter Guide for Authors, for detailed instructions on harnessing the networking power of Twitter. 

If you don't yet have a Twitter account, sign up today and follow @BookMarketer for book promotion tips. Go forth and tweet! 

Using Replies and Mentions on Twitter

If you're not already using Twitter, you probably will be soon. It's a terrific way to meet and develop relationships with potential customers as well as other authors, experts, and key influencers in your field or genre.

Earlier this year, Twitter made some changes to the Reply function that many users are not aware of. In the August issue of The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter, learn about the difference between a Reply and a Mention on Twitter, and how to use each of them.

Other articles this issue include:

• Upcoming book award contests
• Promoting yourself and your book through Facebook
• Learn how to profit from information products
• Last chance for discount on Texas Book Marketing Handbook
• Sources for photos and illustrations

To get each monthly issue of The Savvy Book Marketer delivered to your inbox, use the sign up form on the upper left side of this page.

For more information about using Twitter, check out my new ebook, Twitter Guide for Authors.

Build Buzz With a Twitter Contest

Twitter contests and giveaways are a fun way to build buzz, increase your followers, and promote your book at the same time. 

With a prize drawing, a winner is drawn from the contest entrants. You can give away a free copy of your book or put together a prize package that includes several related books or products. One advantage to inviting others to contribute to the prize package is that they can help promote the contest. You may want to create a web page or blog post that describes the contest, so you can link to it.

Typically, people enter a Twitter contest by following you and then re-tweeting a specific message such as this: "Just entered to win an autographed book: The Garden of the Soul. Just follow @LynnSerafinn & Retweet. See http://bit.ly/beq28 #GOTS"

You get the promotional ball rolling by tweeting about your contest, then others pass the message on for you by re-tweeting.

Secrets to Networking Success

The recorded version of my June 18 Secrets to Networking Success webinar with Brian Jud is now available. You'll learn how to build your book sales through networking, both online and in person. I reveal the secrets to developing profitable relationships online and show you how to get the most benefit from networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Brian will offer tips for building and nurturing relationships through more personal means. This free webinar is part of a series of educational programs sponsored by BookSurge.

Attract More Followers With Your Tweets

There are some people who will follow anyone on Twitter. Hey, the governor of California follows me, along with 42,000 of his other closest friends.

But most of the people who follow you probably do so because they find your tweets of interest. So, be interesting! Share useful tips and links, recommend resources, introduce your colleagues, and comment on current events related to your topic or genre. Make some personal and humorous tweets too—just don't tweet about what you had for lunch!

One of the most important things you can do is try to write tweets that other people will love to re-tweet. Every time someone re-tweets your message, you are visible to their followers. You even get exposure when someone re-tweets a message that you had re-tweeted from someone else. So re-tweet interesting tweets that you think your followers would enjoy.

For more ideas on what to tweet about, see my article 21 Things to Tweet About on Twitter, excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Build Your Author Platform With Online Forums

Forums are online communities where people who are interested in a particular subject can ask questions, offer solutions, and share experiences. They are also called discussion groups, list serves, bulletin boards, and newsgroups. Some are web based and others function as email lists.
 
Typically, members post questions and others offer answers. Some posts are informational, passing along a resource that would be of interest to the group. Many forums are moderated, which means that each message must be approved before it is posted to the group.

Forums are free and they are a great way to network with people who share your interests, build your reputation as an expert, learn from others, and subtly promote your book.

Promote Your Book Through Virtual Reader Communities

Virtual reader communities are a specialized type of social networking site where readers and authors network, and readers recommend books to others. In the May issue of The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter, you'll learn about some of the most important reader communities. Other articles in this issue include:

• How to Find a Publicist
• Blogger LinkUp Matches Bloggers With Content
• Learn to Promote Through Social Media
• Writer's Resources: Grammar Girl and Grammar Done Right
• Dresser After Dark Radio Show Features Nonfiction Authors

For more book marketing tips, see the previous issues of The Savvy Book Marketer