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As many of you already know, FSB Associates provides online book publicity and are wonderful to work with. FSB makes it possible for bloggers like me to have access to some of the finest books being published today. Led by the founder and President of FSB Associates, the amazing Fauzia Burke, who is also a featured blogger on The Huffington Post, FSB continues their support of bloggers as evidenced by this special article written by Fauzia. If you missed another article I was proud to post by Ms. Burke, "I'll Take a Community with that Book, Please!", you can read it here as well as find out more about the author. In this day of social networking where if you aren't on Facebook or Twitter or one of the other social networks, you are missing out, especially in getting your blog out to everyone, this article brings to light the part they play in our wonderful world of books! Thank you to FSB Associates and especially to Fauzia! So now enjoy "Real Time Web for Old Time Books: The Benefit of Social Media for Publishers and Authors".
Old Time Books:
for Publishers and Authors
According to Nielsen, social media and blogs are now more popular than email. As marketers, this presents us with a great opportunity. Reader engagement is not only important in today's market, it is essential. Although your web site is important, a savvy marketer knows that a page on Facebook is even more important for interacting with fans and potential readers. With Google and Bing now offering real time search results, the ease, power and speed of sharing information is changing before our eyes. Word of mouth has never been shared faster or more easily. It is important to remember that social media is public communication, you probably should never share personal information, comments or thoughts you don't want spread. But you can't simply ignore what investors are calling a new Web Revolution.
By staying off of Twitter and Facebook as a marketer you are not only missing out on community building, but you are also unaware of the conversations taking place about you, your books, and your competition. Real time search results are changing the speed at which a conversation spreads online. It is more important than ever to manage brand and reputation on social media sites. Content is streaming live with or without your blessing.
Some fantastic sites that offer good information on Twitter conversations are Topsy which shows how many people retweeted you. For example, if you do a topsy search on my name you'd see that my HuffPost blog about Facebook was retweeted 118 times, others were not as popular. Sency allows you to search topics and conversations, and Dailyrt allows you to track what is important to people right now.
These tools can allow you to stay on top of messaging. For marketing and publicity people, it can give you fresh ideas and leads for more exposure. For editors, it may give you ideas for your next book project and for authors it can most certainly show you what's important to your readers right now. Opinions are being shared online and in real time, and now through searches we can find them and notice trends and measure excitement.
Today if you do a search for Oprah on Google, the search results will include social media results, which means you can see what people said about Oprah a minute ago (see midway down). If that doesn't inspire awe (and a little fear) in you, I would be amazed.
Conversations are happening online in real time and now these conversations are being tracked, measured and searched. By becoming part of the community and paying attention to the dialogue around you, I believe your marketing efforts will benefit greatly this year and in the years to come. Real Time Web is becoming the norm -- there are tons of apps and programs coming that will make it easier for us to know what people are saying, where they are gathering, and what they are reading in real time.
© 2010 Fauzia Burke
Author Bio
Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, a Web publicity firm specializing in creating online awareness for books and authors.For more information, please visit www.FSBAssociates.com.
2 comments:
thanks for the post, but I'm a reader not an author.
Thank you, China, for your comment. I am also a reader but with my blog, I found it interesting and informative to know that I have another way to get my blog to readers. As a reader, I now know some other places to look for book info plus some of those Twitter sites were foreign to a Tweet-challenged person like myself. So much to learn that I throw my hands up myself sometimes and dive head first into a good old paper and binding book! :-)
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