Social Media for Beginners: 15 Tips to Consider

Before the words “social media” became a buzzword, many writers like myself were engaging in adding content via places like message boards, forums and LiveJournal. Often, the phrase has become synonymous with the major social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and GoodReads, where users generate their own content to interact with one another.

When marketers talk about social media promotion, they are addressing ways to leverage the free tools that are out there to build a trendy “buzz” to get people talking about you, your business or your product to help you achieve a definable goal. There are quite a few marketers out there recommending that you jump into the social media fray, but before you do I highly recommend you keep these things in mind:

    1. You’ll Need to Budget for Time — If you’re thinking about jumping in with both feet, keep in mind that building a social media presence is a very time-consuming activity. Not only will you need to add content and review followers, but you’ll have to design a “look” that fits your brand as well. The more websites that you add to your “social media channel,” the more maintenance they may require. On top of it all, the tools are not static and often receive enhancements as well. If you don’t stay on top of what new changes occur, you might find that your presence is no longer functioning, appears outdated or is not taking advantage of an aspect that could increase sales or traffic for you.

    To sum up, engaging in social media has four components that can eat up a lot of your time: the content you provide, interaction with others, the tools you use and overall maintenance.

    2. Be Prepared to Get Personal. — I talked a little bit about this in my post that describes how social media is about being social. Basically, if you do not have a well-known brand or celebrity name, the way that you engage in social media should help people get to know you in the way that you’re comfortable with. (Remember, a social media strategy for McDonald’s will be night-and-day different from a local hamburger store that no one is familiar with.) Many people who follow me online have met me in person at different events, so keep that in mind when you’re jumping in. You don’t want to be “that guy” who has an online persona that is wholly different from what you’re like in real life. When the two worlds collide, it will reflect very badly on you to the point where you may find your online persona ruined as a result. I joked about that a little bit when I wrote how to ruin your online reputation in 10 easy steps.

    3. Remember that Social Media is often about Trends. — If you’ve been part of a social media trend, you understand that in many ways it’s “here today, gone tomorrow.” I’ve experienced this first-hand professionally and personally, and I have to say that since topics are constantly shifting in social media (in part due to the technology that’s able to deliver it) you’ll see more “micro-trends” than ever before. These “micro-trends” may be based on old or new content, and may be something I consider “flash flood” marketing, which in my mind is a subset of viral marketing. Basically, it’s what happens when a topic overpowers the social media space extraordinarily quickly, but it ends up disappearing just as quickly, leaving a mess in its wake.

    4. A “Good” Social Media Campaign is a “Customized” Campaign. — I highly recommend that you take a hard look at why you want to create a campaign in the first place. Social media may not work for every writer or business, no matter what someone else might say, because throwing “content” on a website without any sort of a goal — tangible or otherwise — is a big waste of time.

    Additionally, since you have the ability to test “responses” to your campaign through your web analytics package, don’t be afraid to edit or revise old content to leverage new social media trends. By this, I mean that since social media often has a “content component” based on your web presence (e.g. website, blogs, products, videos, etc.), don’t be afraid to revise old content to be more contemporary with a trend.

    This is especially true if you have a page on your website that gets a lot of search engine traffic. Often, many readers don’t look at the date when they’re researching a topic or getting hooked on a trend, so be sure to keep that in mind. I’ll add dates to my content revisions to help people understand when I’m editing a page and for what reason, so that I can leverage social media when it’s appropriate.

    5. Not Every Goal is about Getting Followers or Traffic. — As a web analyst, I’m often amazed to watch how a website might increase their visits by 1,000% or more, and then notice that their sales remain unchanged for weeks afterward. Visits, followers, fans, friends, etc. are not the end all, be all of social media because the numbers don’t mean anything unless you can tie them back to something you can hang your hat on — conversion.

    For example, say you’re a small pizza restaurant in New Jersey and you offer a really awesome social media campaign that attracts fifty thousand plus followers on Twitter. All of a sudden, you have a great number of followers! Do you have the personnel to manage your popularity? What happens when, in a day or two, the campaign buzz dies off and Twitter has moved on to something else. Now you struggle getting anyone to interact with you and you notice that your sales haven’t really picked up. Why? Of those fifty thousand plus followers, how many of them live near your restaurant? Do you offer online delivery services to accommodate sales? Were you prepared for both success and failure?

    Regardless of your situation, remember that social media success is often in the eye of the beholder. In many ways, social media can be “just” about brand awareness. As long as you have your goals defined once you do your homework and understand how social media may work for you, you’ll be very successful because you’ll understand the “reality” of the tools.

    6. Think Long-Term. — If you’re going to get into social media, be prepared to grow your channel over a longer period of time. There is a time (and place) for attaching yourself to trends, but that solely depends upon what you (or your business) wants to get out of social media. Regardless, this is not a place where you want to have a set-and-forget mentality. When you “forget”? That’s when your followers do, too. The flip side, is that if you’re in-their-face too much just tweeting about your online catalog, be prepared to get ignored. Social media wasn’t created for businesses, it was created for people.

    7. Social Media does not Work on Your Schedule. — Are you a nine-to-five business? Have you budgeted a half an hour a day for social media? Remember, a social media buzz can happen when you least expect it. It doesn’t happen on your schedule, and it can often occur when you’re not on the clock. For this reason, if you’re active in the space you’ll need to teach several people how to monitor your social media accounts (even if they don’t have log in) to see what others are saying about you so you can respond appropriately.

    8. Social Media Crosses International Borders. — Internationalization is a topic on many people’s minds. One “hidden” benefit of social media is this: just by signing up for a popular tool’s account provides you with the means to interact with someone from the U.S., Germany, Brazil, Japan, England, etc. Keep this in mind if your product is only available in the U.S., you might want to make your product’s availability clear. I recommend listing that up front in your bio and prepare your customer service department to handle those types of questions. Why? Well, this relates to my next point about how people on social media don’t want to feel cheated. Don’t engage a potential customer if you can’t deliver your product. They’ll walk away unhappy and might just talk about you in a negative way.

    A good example of where you might often run into problems is for social media-based “contests.” I recommend offering digital coupons or gift certificates if the winner is outside of your targeted locale.

    9. Don’t “Trick for a Click.” — While there are cases when you want to incite people to click on a link, you never want to trick someone for a click. When a reader or a customer feels cheated, they don’t feel engaged with your brand (or your personality) and they leave with a bad taste in their mouth.

    You can see this effect through your web analytics package. If you know you’re intentionally being vague or not offering enough information, you might notice an increase in traffic visitors to that one link, but only that one link. Of course, one-click traffic can be a frequent occurrence with social media even if you didn’t trick for that click, but it is a potential “why” behind your data. For that reason, I recommend providing genuine content and a frequent review of your conversion goals to target your visitor’s “second” click rather than just the “first.”

    10. Consider the “Spam” Effect.” — Remember that spammers also use social media, and not every tool is effective blocking against spammers. Over the past, few weeks, I’ve noticed spammers infiltrating real-time trends via Twitter. These “fake” trends are not only annoying, they can often turn people off from different forms of marketing if they think it might be spam. In many ways the spam effect has affected legitimate campaigns and businesses, because spam mirrors traditional viral or in-your-face marketing tactics to manipulate algorithms and get noticed. Keep the “spam” effect in the back of your mind. Sometimes, the difference between a “click” and an “eye roll” is about how you deliver the message, not necessarily what it contains.

    11. Experiment with “Content-Specific” Tools. — Even if you go into social media in order to leverage trends, keep in mind that you might get more success out of tools that specifically relate to your goals for social media or your core functionality as a business. If you’re a bookstore or a writer, get on GoodReads. If you’re a professional or a job seeker, leverage LinkedIn. In other words, you may find that your “social” success comes from a targeted tool on a topic that relates to you and not through a generic tool.

    The flip side to this argument, is that even if you don’t want to use the tools, it’s a good idea to avoid getting “brand-hijacked.” I recommend signing up for the tools to ensure your name or brand is protected even if you never plan on using them. If you do leverage tools like Facebook or Twitter, though, be aware that you can do some content customization based on your social media goals.

    12. Emotion is a Strong Motivator. — Remember when I mentioned trends and how social media doesn’t work on your schedule? Well, sometimes when you engage in social media you may find that you get poor results not because the timing wasn’t right, but because you didn’t emotionally appeal to people reading your content. For example, you may offer innocuous or “fun” content that has absolutely nothing to do with your business and get a ton of responses.

    If you want a good example of how emotion can effect a trend (and subsequently) sales, consider the Susan Boyle phenomenon from the show Britain’s Got Talent. Here’s a press release from Musicnotes.com about how Susan Boyle impacted sheet music sales.

    13. Do Not Just Talk About How Great You and Your Products Are. — I do not care if you have the best product in the world, do not use social media to just add content about how great you are to sell your gadget. Just like your website might have “lurkers” (e.g. people who visit your site but don’t buy anything) your social media accounts might also. Your number of followers is not any indication of how successful your content is, because quite frankly social account maintenance is time-consuming for anyone.

    I should point out that “brand” social media account might get a little more leeway, but once your customers find you online they do expect some interaction. I recommend incorporating how you’re going to address customers via social media as part of your overall campaign. In this case, it helps to be proactive rather than reactive.

    14. Check the Terms of Service for Every Tool. — I cannot stress this enough. The ownership and distribution of content on the web is a very sticky point for many content creators (e.g. writers, artists, companies, etc.) and we are still in the wild frontier where internet law is still developing in many cases. I mentioned a few terms of service in my post about Who Owns Your Content When You Blog, Facebook Twitter?. If your content is important to you, please do yourself a favor and check out the terms of service before you engage. This will help both you and your social media professional (should you hire one) tailor a campaign customized to your goals, including where you want to drive your traffic. For example, if you’re a photographer and you typically send people to Picasa but you don’t like their terms of service? You might change your web strategy and send them to Flickr instead.

    15. Social Media is Almost Impossible to Track. — Last but not least, please remember that social media is almost impossible to track. Your web analytics package will offer you a three-dimensional view of how a visitor comes to your website and what they do when they get there, but it does not tell you what the visitor is doing before they get there.

    Many metrics for “social media reach” have been created based on sheer mathematical numbers; e.g. #of followers vs. #of replies or #of fans and visitors. These metrics are exceptionally misleading because they do not take into account a) how often someone logs into their account to see your content and b) when they view it. To put this in perspective: just because you might have 10,000 people in your network does not mean that all 10,000 people read all of your content, all of the time, exactly when you post it. Additionally, since there are a ton of different ways to use these tools, it is quite possible that someone can view their social media activity and appear “active” without ever logging into the tool. If web analytics tracks three-dimensional visits, consider that social media tracking is about the fourth dimension — TIME. Until the social media tools offer a premium service where they allow you to see data for your particular profile, you will only be able to see the effects of your efforts, but not the data you’re used to seeing for your own site.

    In addition to the reasons listed above, try not to get too worked up over your number of followers. Why? Well, not only may your followers change frequently, it’s quite possible that not all of them are valid accounts. Having said that, if you want hard numbers that you can test there are ways to be able to do that based on your end goal — conversion.

    If you are selling something, consider that a social media-specific coupon could turn into a viral promotion in and of itself. Compare that to your other (non-social media) offers and see if they are more (or less) successful, then refine your technique based on timing or trends. I recommend fostering a base of content first, so that your coupon is a frame-of-reference for your potential customers.

    If you don’t have something to sell, your social media goals are probably different. For example, you might say that you want X number of new followers by a certain date or that you want to use social media to increase your RSS feed subscribers. Regardless, think “long-term” to achieve those numbers and you’ll have better success. Your network will be more engaged and refine itself over time, because the people in your network will get to know “you” rather than your “account.”

For all of these reasons and many more, if you’re serious about starting a social media campaign, you might want to consider hiring a social media professional to promote your book or product. A professional’s job is to stay on top of social media so you don’t have to. Based on what I’ve said here alone, you could end up saving money by hiring someone to help set up your campaigns for you.

Hope this helps! Feel free to pop in your thoughts in the comments below. 🙂

May 11, 2009
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Book Trailer for Argentum, My Online Serial Novel

This is the first time I’ve delved into producing video. I’d appreciate you providing me with feedback if you have the time to check out this short book trailer for Argentum, Book One of the Violet War series I’m writing.

March 28, 2009
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Lessons in Personal Branding for Writers: Day One

One of the most challenging things to do in today’s competitive market is to develop a personal brand. A writer whose name is recognizable will find work not only based on their skill, but also on their reputation. It’s very easy to understand this from a publisher’s perspective, because a well-known author who writes a book might sell more copies of their new release than a “new” writer that has never been published before. While that might be the most straightforward example, the same can be said in the business world, too. Would you hire someone as a corporate blogger if they didn’t have their own blog? Aren’t you more likely to take “how to” advice from someone who has experience doing the things they’re advising?

This week I’d like to share with you twenty-five lessons I’ve learned over the years. Each day I’ll cover five lessons that have helped me develop my brand as an author. I hope you enjoy reading this series and invite you to offer your comments on these lessons that I have learned.

1. Don’t Plagiarize

Plagiarism. Although the very word sends many writers into raging fits, the fact remains that plagiarism does exist. I covered this a little earlier when I talked about how search engine technology helps to catch plagiarists. In that post I gave an example of plagiarism in action, and how the author was caught by two readers who had used Google to double-check the originality of her work.

As a professional writer, engaging in an act of plagiarism is probably the worst thing you could do for your career. Not only will you lose professional credibility, but your readers will probably feel that you betrayed them, too.

2. Consider Writing Under a Pen Name

Are you a fantasy author but plan on writing political satire? Do you enjoy online marketing but want to write about the negative effects of the internet? There are many reasons why a writer might choose to write under a pen name. These reasons range from protecting their identity to distancing themselves from their current “brand.”

Building a brand around a fictitious identity seems pretty challenging to me. If I were going to write under a pen name, I’d definitely seek out advice from publishers and agents before deciding on a course of action.

3. Specialize in a Particular Form of Writing

Are you a better technical writer than a fiction writer? Know how to write screenplays but not great at writing short stories? One of the ways you can take control of your brand is to play to your strengths. By making a name for yourself in a particular style of writing, you can really focus your efforts and increase your chances of getting published. I’d like to mention that there are drawbacks to specialization, because once you develop a brand in a particular market it’s really hard to shift gears.

I navigate around this issue in two ways. First, I choose more than one speciality. Secondly, I force myself to have a clear understanding why I’m writing a particular style or subject. For example, I write horror and dark fantasy genre fiction because I enjoy writing about what makes a hero a true “hero.” Most of my stories have either a hero or a villain at the heart of the plot for that reason.

4. Don’t Make Claims You Can’t Support

Have you ever met a writer who claimed they had a book published but really didn’t? Agents often hear about writers who have a book to pitch, but don’t have it finished yet. (I made that mistake early on but learned my lesson since then.)

It is natural to talk yourself up when you’re networking and trying to get published. Even though the competition is really fierce out there, there are ways to promote yourself without stretching the truth. When you make a claim, be ready to back it up because you never know who you’re talking to. The same person you’re promoting yourself to now might be a contact that influences your career later on down the road.

5. Beware of “Over” Self-Promotion

Developing your personal brand goes hand-in-hand with the phrases “online reputation management” and “online self-promotion.” Even though there are a number of free tools out there to help you develop your brand as an author, be careful not to overuse these tools and talk about yourself too much. It’s exceptionally important to remember that while your online activity may only be for professional use, people use these same tools every day to share details about their personal lives and talk with friends.

For examples of how other authors use these tools, all you have to do is ask your fellow writers and readers. Since other writers are more likely to support you and maybe even promote you, they’ll give you the best feedback money can buy.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this first installment of “Lessons in Personal Branding for Writers.”

February 23, 2009
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The One Skill Every Writer Needs to Learn (and it’s not about writing!)

When was the last time you addressed a crowd of people? Or, for that matter, when was the last time you were in the middle of a crowd at a sporting event, concert or a rally?

If your answer is not that often then read on my fellow writer, because the one skill we need to develop is our ability to present ourselves visually and audibly. By the end of January, I will have conducted my third podcast interview and/or panel and well? Third time’s a charm?

The first podcast interview I did was to talk about a setting and game I had been designing at the time. When I say that I could have put your grandmother to sleep I’m being kind. You see, I wasn’t really sure what the best thing was to communicate, so I threw everything out there. Writing promotional material is one thousand times different than speaking it, because you have the chance to read, review and edit what you’re working on. In an interview, you may not have the questions beforehand so it’s even more difficult to think off-the-cuff.
Read More…

January 11, 2009
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Free, Freemies and the Undervaluation of Goods and Services

Free services, free products and free samples have been the cornerstone of marketing ever since the first snake oil salesmen peddled their magical tonics, promising to cure all of your ailments by drinking the contents of their bottles (which was usually alcohol).

In the early days, you might say that “free” was also considered a “gift” by the customer. The balance of power seemed to be set squarely in the hands of the retailer whose generosity encouraged customers to “try before they buy” early on, in part because there weren’t as many retailers as there are now. In this retail history timeline, you can get a general idea of when different retailers formed their business. Arguably, there seems to have always been a push-pull relationship between the retailer and the consumer which, in many ways, has been affected by marketing techniques that rely on simple, human psychology.

The Internet’s Impact on Valuing Goods and Services

I feel that that “traditional” push-pull relationship has been severely impacted by the internet in ways that we are only just beginning to understand. Instead of walking into a store, the customer now visits what stores they want to, when they want to. You can’t force a “clickpath” through your site like you can with a retail store, because if a customer doesn’t want to shop or buy your services all they have to do is close their browser. Indeed, many disreputable sites grab onto your browser tightly, trying to pull out all the stops before they let you say “No.”

In my opinion, the internet has played a much, larger role in the valuation of goods and services than we might think. Part of the challenge, is that the internet is too accessible and too fast, which allows savvy users (a.k.a content creators) to take advantage of the tool. Over time, tiny, niche markets of illegal products and services pop up to fill a void when traditional businesses don’t (or can’t) move fast enough to meet demand. Other businesses support the “free and cheap” model, however, by undercutting realistic prices. For example, wholesalers sell goods without any sort of mark-up, setting a lower bar for products that are normally priced higher elsewhere to cover a store’s costs. Bartering systems and online auctions also deflate prices, but also inflate them in some cases when the product is rare and unavailable elsewhere.

When used appropriately (and legally) the internet is a powerful marketing tool that offers a different model than traditional, brick-and-mortar strategies. The challenge with the internet, however, is that accessibility has a hidden cost. If not diligent and managed correctly, easy access and constant “clearance” prices can breed familiarity, raise typical expectations and blur the production value for the consumer. As a result, everyday people who do not make their living as an artist or a writer or a professional blogger don’t understand the cost involved when copyright is violated. People who once saved for that Rolex watch or pair of Manolo Blahniks either find them for next-to-nothing, or use credit (another form of accessibility) to fulfill their immediate need.

Used to getting what they want (when they want it), a new breed of consumers has cropped up that is negatively impacting businesses that make money on intellectual property (i.e. content or artist creation) in this economy. I dub them the “freemies.”

What is a Freemie?

A “freemie” is a consumer who believes that because they want a product they should have it for free because the business or individual is making enough money without them. They are the rebels of the consumer generation, the ones who will knowingly (or unknowingly) pirate intellectual property because they believe that they can’t be caught.

YouTube!, for example, expressly states in its rules an official policy about copyright. Yet, there are movies offered on YouTube! in twelve minute chunks that can only be removed by “the official copyright holder.” Besides YouTube!, there are file-sharing sites, image search engines, blogs, etc. that offer the “free” product of the day which (from what I’ve found) not only violate the original copyright — but cite Creative Commons.org as the copyright on holder for the person offering the freebie. Using CC in such a way is, in my opinion, incredibly heinous because not only is the person in question offering the product of someone else’s work — they are taking credit for creating it, too.

Couple this underground market with the sense of entitlement that “freemies” have, and it ends up killing a creative professional’s chance of profiting on their work. We’ve seen “freemies” either set out to create a better mousetrap for next to nothing, undercutting the full-time professional’s cost of doing business in unreasonable (and unrealistic ways) — or they take that same mousetrap and post its designs for free believing that they are providing a favor for those that want those designs.

How to Avoid the “Freemie” Impact on Your Business

Although the battle to protect copyright is far from over, I believe that there are ways to resolve the “freemie” experience peacefully. Since I am more familiar with writing, in my mind the answer to turning a freemium into a premium, is to avoid what conventional wisdom might tell you.

    DON’T Try to Correct or Get Angry with a Freemie — As someone recently put it, “Would you walk into a McDonald’s and steal a hamburger? No? Then why would you steal (insert item) from me?” While that is tongue-in-cheek, it’s a bit less threatening than “I’m going to sue you.” There is a risk with attacking a freemie, and that risk can be your online reputation. A negative online reputation may steer paying customers away from your store even if the freemie was “in the wrong.” Although, if you have a legitimate copyright challenge with what someone is doing, by all means act accordingly but proceed with caution. You don’t want a legitimate complaint to turn into a “he-said, she-said” scenario.

    DON’T Ignore the Freemies Completely — Instead, build “free” as part of your business model to offer free samples to new customers and allow for easy distribution. Accessibility should be a consideration in any online business — personal or otherwise — because it is a function of the internet.

    DON’T Try to Compete with a Freemie — You have to eat, pay your housing costs and get something nice for yourself every once in a while. Just because freemies exist, doesn’t mean that you should try to compete with them by undercutting your prices or waste time trying to create something that’s better than what they’ve done. Consider the time you have as precious, and dump that into energizing your business rather than competing with “free.”

    DO be Realistic about Your Prices — Do yourself a favor, and price yourself out competitively. Find out what other people are charging for the same services and know who your real competitors are. The more competitive your prices are, the less chance you’ll have of sticking out like a sore thumb.

    DO be Honest about Your Production Value — A professional resume writer may charge in upwards of four hundred dollars for a resume. If you’ve never written one for another person before, can you be honest with yourself about the quality of the product you provide to charge the same rate? Again, this comes down to knowing not only what you are selling, but how realistic your expectations are of selling it at the quality level you provide.

    DO Flaunt Your Specialty or Talent — By having a specialty, you are proclaiming that this is the area you either are an expert in, or one that you are proficient at. Avoid the over-used “expert” tag, and opt for speaking to your vast body of experiences that support your rate, your product quality and your reputation.

    DO Remember that the Freemie Customer is Not Every Customer — You know your customer best, and if you do you should know that not every customer is a freemie customer. Here’s where your web analytics and other business metrics can really help you define and cater to your existing market.

    DO Learn from a Freemie — What are your freemies telling you? Did your product get delayed in shipping? Did you miss hitting a trend at the right time and place? Take a lesson from your experiences with a freemie and try to anticipate the next time something like that might happen.

What about you? What are your thoughts on how “free” has changed the way we look at the value of a product? Creativity?

December 9, 2008
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