Content Marketing: How to Attract More Customers

 

Are you looking to attract prospects, convert them to customers and keep them coming back? Then social media and content marketing are a match made in heaven.

The key to success is to make the connection between content marketing and social media. Let’s look at the content needed to get your marketing to that lucrative intersection.

#1: Attract Prospective Customers

The first question on a prospect’s mind when considering a purchase is, “What solutions are available?”

Your goal is to create awareness and make sure that your solution meets the buyers’ need when they’re ready to make a decision.

According to data from Google and Shopper Science’s Zero Moment of Truth report, consumers in 2011 consulted an average of 10 sources before making a buying decision. That’s up 100% from five sources in 2010.

The number of sources a buyer consults before making a decision doubled year over year.

Successful businesses are communicating with prospects on social networking sites and directing them to the material the prospects need to make an informed decision. How are they doing this?

One way is to create informational articles.

Social network users are constantly sharing, curating and consuming informational content. Often, the headline or a short description of the content appears on the social network together with a link to view the content on a company website.

Businesses need to share this informational content and have it written for prospects who are in research mode, learning about the solutions that are available.

Charles Schwab, a financial planning company, distributes links to resources via social networking sites and makes them available for prospective leads who reach out via social media.

Charles Schwab diverts this prospect who is early in the buying cycle from Facebook Page to a free resource on their website.

Another method is to raise awareness of your products and services through informational webinars and seminars.

Informational webinars and seminars can demonstrate your expertise while providing prospects with the information they need during the research stage of the buying cycle.

This tweet from Cleveland Clinic is an excellent use of social media to lead those interested from Twitter to the informational content a decision-maker needs to make a choice.

Cleveland Clinic provides a link via Twitter to register for a webinar for those considering epilepsy surgery.

In this case, the conversation begins on Twitter, but continues to a registration page and ultimately to informational content delivered via webinar.

Key Takeaway: Conversations about your products and services often begin within social networks, but additional content may be needed to assist the prospect. Make sure that those who are communicating with prospects via social media are aware of all of the resources your business has available for prospective customers.

#2: Convert Prospects

The second question on a person’s mind when considering a purchase is, “Which is the right solution for me?”

Businesses that successfully convert new customers from social media create and distribute content that provides proof points to the sale. Content that assists in meeting this goal proves that your solution provides more value than the other solutions the prospect has researched.

A very effective piece of content to meet this goal is the demo video or “explainer” video. The social media tool Little Bird provides a demo video on their home page that displays the tool in action and details the benefits.

Little Bird investor Dharmesh Shah provides a link from Twitter to see a demo of the application.

A second piece of content that will build the type of trust that closes the sale is the case study. Case studies close sales because they prove that others have had success with your solution.

The Mayo Clinic has dozens of success stories on their website that they distribute via Facebook.

This Facebook link leads to a Mayo Clinic success story that provides proof of their expertise.

A third piece of content that can convert leads into sales are white papers. For B2B marketers, the white paper is a staple piece of content used by possible buyers to assist in the decision-making process.

Gene Marks, an author, writer and speaker, makes good use of social media and white papers.

This tweet diverts those interested in CRM software from Twitter to a white paper download page.

Key Takeaway: Create content that provides the proof that prospects are looking forbefore they will part with their hard-earned dollars. Distribute that content through social media channels.

#3: Keep Existing Customers

The last question on a buyer’s mind is, “Am I happy with the decision I made?”

This goal is about retention and referral. Successful businesses will use social media and content to keep customers satisfied.

One type of content that retains existing customers is support documentation.

At the Crazy Egg software company, part of their content and social media strategy is to reduce the number of support tickets and raise customer satisfaction by resolving as many issues as possible through the use of online content.

Crazy Egg efficiently handles this technical issue with a link to support documentation on their website.

They could choose to divert these questions to a tech support phone call or email-based ticketing system, but in many cases this is neither convenient for the customer nor efficient for the company.

A second content type that increases loyalty is documentation of best practices.

Businesses that create content that teaches customers how to get the most out of their product or service will increase customer satisfaction.

Charles Schwab provides in-person workshops that teach their customers how to better manage their money.

This tweet leads interested individuals from Twitter to a registration page and ultimately an in-person workshop.

Another content type that increases retention of existing customers is case studies.

While the function of the case study in converting a new customer is to provide a proof point, the case study is also useful in retention because it provides guidance to the existing customer.

Unbounce, the landing page software company, does an excellent job of providing case study material to existing customers.

Unbounce’s Ultimate Guide to Landing Page Optimization report has numerous examples of the do’s and dont’s of using their software.

This Unbounce customer is grateful for the additional value the company provides through its content, so he shares a link to it on Twitter.

Key Takeaway: We’ve all heard that it’s much cheaper to keep existing customers than to find new ones. Use social media and content marketing as a customer-service tool to increase satisfaction and referrals.

Final Wrap-Up

Social media and content marketing are joined at the hip.

Social networks like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn are not always where a conversation begins and ends. To attract, convert and keep customers, social media and content marketing should be parts of a seamless marketing, sales and customer-service strategy.

Your current and future customers are using social media. Make sure you have well-planned content marketing and give your social media team the information they need to share the content your audience needs.

What do you think? How do you integrate content marketing with social media? Leave your tips and comments in the box below.

Social Media Examiner

10 Tips and Tricks to Stay Safe on Social Media

 

Many of us spend a large amount of our time on social media - Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, or other sites. We share our pictures, our feelings and our memories. However, we also share a lot of personal information on these sites, whether we know it or not.

Because of social media’s large presence and the amount of information we share through it, it is extremely important to be a smart social media user. Follow the tips below to help you stay safe while using these platforms.

1. Don’t Overshare

It’s easy to share information on social media, and much of it is content you may not deem important. But individuals with bad intentions can use the excessive personal information you share to commit crimes, such as stealing your identity, breaking into your house when you’re on vacation or stealing packages off your porch.

This also goes for LinkedIn; the more work and education history you share, the easier it is for thieves to steal your identity or guess your passwords. Be careful of any specifics and details you share online, and before you hit “post,” consider how the information could be used by someone of ill will.

2. Check Your Privacy Options

On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all of the other sites, make sure your security settings are where you want them to be.

It’s wise to make your Facebook profile private to users that aren’t your friends and to request the approval of your Instagram followers. Limit the personal information that other social media users can see by adjusting your privacy settings on each of your profiles.

You can also edit your privacy options to require a security question to be asked when logging on to the site from a new IP address, which will help prevent your accounts from getting hacked.

3. Verify People and Pages

Before you accept a friend or follow request, look at the individual’s page. If you know them and can verify that through the information available, then it’s probably safe to approve them (if you want).

If the information on their profile page doesn’t seem to add up, or you’re not sure if you know them, don’t be afraid to deny (or just ignore) a request.

If there are a lot of typos, only limited pictures or posts that just don’t sound like the person you think it might be, you should proceed with caution. It is not uncommon for people to impersonate other users or even brands on social media and use it to take advantage of other users. Keep this in mind and do a thorough check before you accept.

4. Do Not Violate the Social Media Policies of Your Company

Be familiar with the terms and conditions that regulate social media use at your work. Some obvious no-no’s are using company property to check your personal social media pages or posting on social media about co-workers.

You should never share company-specific details online - for some companies, this may even qualify as the sharing of trade secrets and can land you in big trouble.

5. Know How Sites Use Your Information

Many social media sites sell some of your information to advertisers; that is how they keep the use of their sites free. You have a right to know, however, exactly what information is being collected and how it is being used. Most social media sites will have this policy posted somewhere on their company website, but if you can’t find it, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for a copy of this policy.

6. Don’t Buy into the Popularity Contest

Contrary to popular belief, the more is not necessarily merrier when it comes to social media friends. Make sure your “friends” online are actual real people that you know. For any “friends” that you’re not sure about, dig into their profile a little bit more and if you still have concerns, don’t be afraid to remove them from your network.

Having the most “friends” out of all your friends is not worth the risk if it leads to imposters knowing too much information about you.

7. Check Your Password

Make sure your password is something that could not easily be guessed by someone scrolling through your Facebook, YouTube channel, Instagram or Twitter (e.g. if all of your posts are about your dog Binkie, then don’t make your password Binkie123).

It’s also best to have a different, unique password for each social media site. If you access social media from your phone, be sure that your phone also has a unique, difficult-to-guess password.

8. Sounds Too Good to be True? It Probably is.

When a social media account gets hacked, the account will likely start posting offers for various goods. A common example is RayBan sunglasses for $19.99!.

Do not ever click on these links, no matter how tempting. It’s nice to also let your friend know if you think their account has been hacked.

9. Install Antivirus Software

Make sure that any computer you use to access social media has antivirus software.

Because of the sheer amount of posts and links and profiles related to social media sites, it’s very easy for viruses to sneak into the content, particularly if you do inadvertently click on a malicious link. Good antivirus software will also protect your pages against viruses that are trying to steal your information.

10. Lose the Location

It’s tempting to tell the world exactly what you’re doing exactly when you’re doing it and exactly where you are. That, however, is not a smart practice. As was already previously mentioned, this can make it easy for thieves to take advantage of the fact that you’re in Aruba for a week. But it also makes it tempting for individuals to stalk you during your everyday routine.

Make sure to turn off all location settings on your social media sites so that Facebook or Twitter doesn’t announce to the whole world that you posted that picture at the gym Monday morning (when you were supposed to be at work).

As with most things, it’s important to listen to your gut when it comes to social media. This friend request looks a little weird? Ignore it. That ad has too many typos? Don’t click on it. The friend of a friend of a friend that you approved keeps commenting on all of your pictures? Delete him. Remember that your safety is always the number one priority.

You can never be too cautious when it comes to social media. However, if you follow these tips listed above, you’ll be off to a good start.

 

Sophie is a technology enthusiast at Security Gladiators. A writer by day and a reader by night, she is specialized in tech and cybersecurity. When she is not behind the screen, Sophie can be found playing with her dog.

6 Secrets to Success as a Social Media Manager

 

Being a social media manager is a multifaceted job: You’re a data analyst one minute, a community moderator the next and an innovator and entrepreneur after that. Whether you’re a freelancer looking to score your next big client or a job seeker eager to land a new opportunity, here are tactics you can employ right now to rise up in social media management.

How to Succeed as a Social Media Manager

1. Know Your Channels

You won’t land gigs, or an interview, if you’re not experienced in programming content on the top social media channels. Being comfortable in Facebook and Twitter is a good start, but depending on your skills and client list, consider taking some time to work with other platforms like StumbleUpon, Pinterest and YouTube. Also on your to-do list: Keep up with channels that are gaining momentum like video hub Vine, shopping site Wanelo and slide hosting service SlideShare.

 

2. Beef Up Your Graphic Design Skills

You don’t have to be a Photoshop god, but having a keen eye for design will place you far above the competition. Social media is saturated with content, and the posts with fine-tuned images are the ones that stand out. Graphic design skills carry over into every corner of marketing, as well.

3. Make an Infographic to Show ROI

One of the biggest challenges in social media management is showing return on investment (ROI): in short, proving to clients and potential employers that your hard work generates real results. Take the data from your best campaigns and put it all in one place.

Then, use that finely tuned graphic design skill (or hire a designer) to make a stunning infographic that you can send to future employers and hand out at conferences to promote yourself. The benefit is vast: Not only will an infographic support your claims with stats, but you will demonstrate that ability to communicate visually.

4. Demonstrate Your Ability to Handle Sticky Situations

Responding quickly and tactfully to online disasters not only proves your aptitude as a social media manager, but it proves your ability to stay calm amidst chaos—a skill essential to any media job.

5. Get Some Testimonials

Can you think of a time you got some excellent feedback after a stellar social media campaign? Whether it’s from a coworker, client or former employer, a few affirmative sentences from others can go a long way. Post these on your website or solicit them on LinkedIn to lend some real-world credibility to your hard work.

6. Target Your Next Goal

The strategy you employ now will vary depending on the role you seek. If you’re striving for a social media manager job at a targeted company, you’ll want to keep honing your skills as a jack of all trades. But if your long-term hope is to secure a C-level position or start your own company, now would be a great time to build a social media consulting practice. Work on your sales know-how to grow your client base and follow the big players in your field of choice.

3 Ways to Use LinkedIn Analytics

 

If you run a LinkedIn company page, you may have noticed the little Analytics button.

Let’s look at what LinkedIn Analytics offers and how you can use it to check your progress and guide your content strategy:

1. Visitors

This is the first section you’ll see in your analytics dashboard. Tracking your page visitors provides insight into those who are viewing your page but not necessarily following it. This section gauges page views and unique visitors, and it offers a full demographic breakdown similar to the one you will find under the Followers section.

How can this help your content strategy? We always want to be generating awareness and building our audience, and this is one way to check out who had initial interest in your page but didn’t follow it. Look at their demographics, and identify ways to add topics or adjust your content so they would want to follow (while retaining your current audience).

For example, if your visitors include people who work in the software industry, consider including more tech- and B2B-focused posts.

2. Updates

The Updates report breaks down each individual post and provides data regarding impressions, clicks, video views, CTR, social actions and engagement rate.

Also found in the Updates report is a graph mapping all available metrics over an adjustable period of time, similar to the Visitors graph.

How can this help your content strategy? The data here key on which types of content do well with your audience. If you notice posts about a particular topic are receiving a high amount of “likes,” or if asking questions drives higher engagement, consider mixing in more of those posts.

3. Followers

You’ll see an initial breakdown of organic versus acquired followers (via sponsored content) in the highlights bar. Below that, you’ll see my favorite part: demographic data. LinkedIn provides a breakdown of your followers according to these demographics: geography, job function, seniority, industry, company size, function and employment status. You can toggle among them by clicking on the dropdown menu (shown below).

Other insights include follower trends; you can see whether there was a spike in growth at any given time.

How can this help your content strategy? This can be a great tool when planning content. Do you have a large number of entry-level employees? Think about content that covers getting jobs in your industry or the basics of using certain tools. Are your followers at the management level? Share more content about strategy.

Tailor your posts to the industries people are in. If a large number of followers work at companies with 11–50 employees, think about content targeted at small businesses. This information can be used so many ways. Don’t let it go to waste.

There is nothing complex or tricky about LinkedIn Analytics. It’s a simple, free tool that can provide baseline guidance about improving your page and catering to current and potential audiences.

A version of this post first ran on the Shift Communications blog.

Editing Tips to Improve Your Business Writing

 

Editing is an essential step in developing effective business documents. Besides correcting grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors, editing can make your writing easier to understand and more persuasive. Here are a few simple editing tips that can help you make your business writing clearer and more effective.

Replace complicated and long words and phrases with simple ones:

Simple words often convey the same meaning as complicated ones, but require less space and are easier to read. For example, you can change ‘facilitate’ to ‘help’; "operate" to "use"; and "substantiate" to "prove". Replacing wordy phrases with single words will make your writing more readable and efficient. For instance, replace "on a regular basis" with "regularly" and "at this point in time" with "now".

Edit your business writing to replace passive voice with active voice:

For example, change "Innovative products and services are offered by our company" to "Our company offers innovative products and services". Using active voice requires fewer words and is more direct.

Break up long sentences into shorter ones:

Research has shown that comprehension goes down when sentences are too long, so aim for an average sentence length of 20 words or fewer. You should break sentences over 35 words into two sentences, if possible, when editing.

Create a conversational tone by using the personal pronouns "you" and "we":

This is important when you want to connect with your customers and be perceived as approachable. For example, change "Advice can be obtained from our customer service department" to "You can get advice from our customer service department".

When editing business writing that is meant to persuade your readers, change "our clients" to "you". For example, "We offer you a comprehensive range of programs and services" sounds conversational, while "We offer our clients a comprehensive range of programs and services" does not.

Another way to make your writing more conversational and friendly is by writing "we" instead of repeating your company name throughout the document.

Remove clichés:

These overused phrases have lost their meaning and merely waste space. Examples of common clichés include phrases such as "at the end of the day", "for all intents and purposes" and "as safe as houses".

Avoid using business and technical jargon:

Like clichés, many of these terms are overused and have vague meanings. Corporate jargon includes words such as actionable, best practice, buy-in, drive (as in "drive sales"), incentivise, operationalise, repurpose and value proposition. When editing, think about your readers and replace words they won’t understand with common terms.

Read the first draft out loud to judge how it sounds:

Is it complicated, wordy or pompous? Rewrite it to make it more human and less robotic.

Editing is an important step in business writing. By applying the editing tips outlined here, you can improve your business writing and communicate more effectively.

 

 

Credit: Wordnerds

6 Tips For Young Writers Who Want To Get Published

 

When you imagine what a “typical author” looks like, do you picture a gray-haired, bearded professor, or a refined, mature woman old enough to be your…mom? You may think that all published writers have spent many years honing their craft. But believe it or not, some authors experienced publishing success while they were young. Mary Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was just nineteen. Christopher Paolini began writing his first book, Eragon, at the age of fifteen—and it was published three years later. And Alec Greven’s book How to Talk to Girls was published when he was nine years old!

So if you’re a young writer itching to see your work published, consider these tips:

Strategies For Young Writers: Land Your First Publication Credit(s)!

1. Write every day. Remember the old saying, practice makes perfect? It’s true! Whether you spend just a few minutes or more than an hour, it’s important to put aside time to write every day. Don’t worry about word count, speed, or even editing. Use writing prompts, freewrite, and experiment with styles and topics to expand your skill set. Trying out different genres and forms will also help you find your niche and your unique voice.

2. Read, read, read! Read like a writer: Question the plot, settings, and characters. Think about what works in the story and what doesn’t. Read classics, contemporary work, and everything in between. Even books you dislike will help strengthen your writing skills—figure out what you would do differently. Examining other writers’ styles will help you develop your own.

3. Edit your work. It’s a fact of life:You haven’t had as many years to practice your craft as more mature writers have, so your drafts will need more rewrites. It’s tempting to submit work for publication the instant you finish writing—especially when you’re eager and impatient! But failing to edit is forfeiting opportunities to improve: Typos are a hallmark of first drafts—and they’re among literary journal editors’ biggest pet peeves. Keep in mind, self-editing is a vital skill found in every successful writer’s tool kit—develop it now!

4. Start “small” with school and local publications. Looking for publication opportunities? They’re probably right under your nose! Your school literary magazine, school newspaper, and publications specific to your township are all great places to start your path to publishing. School publications exist for the very purpose of giving a voice to students, and many town-run publications are thrilled to publish local talent. Submitting locally will teach you about the submission process—and you just might start building a list of publication credits!

5. When sending your writing into the world, target the right publications. Don’t have an impressive cover letter with a long list of publication credits? Afraid editors will balk when they learn your age? Don’t worry! There are several journals and contests specifically for young or first-time writers! You can also consider publications that are actually run by young people. There are also publications that simply don’t wish to see cover letters or lists of credits—the editors let the stories, essays, or poems speak for themselves. Be sure to research journals and contests thoroughly before you submit your work. Each publication has specific guidelines for formatting, word count, and subject matter—and will expect you to follow them!

6. Reach out to a writing mentor. Writing may seem like a solitary or even lonely endeavour, but it doesn’t have to be, especially when you start young. Join an age-appropriate writing group or sign up for a reputable workshop. It’s especially important for a young writer to find a writing mentor: an established writer (perhaps a teacher, older family member, or schoolmate) who has experience in the world of writing and publishing and is happy to share what they’ve learned. The world of publishing is big—it can be overwhelming and a little scary! It helps to have someone guide you through it.

Culled from Writers Relief

20 Recommended Classic Novels You Can Read

 

There are various advantages to reading novels - ranging from having something to give you a little entertainment when you are bored to opening you to a world of imagination and creativity while also building your diction.

Here are 20 classic novels recommended for you:

1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. Middlemarch by George Eliot
5. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
7. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
8. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
9. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
10. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
11. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
12. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
13. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
15. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
16. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
17. A Passage to India by M. Forster
18. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
19.  In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

 

Have a happy reading time!

7 Crucial Instagram Tips for Marketers

 

According to Social Media Examiner’s annual report, in 2018 some 69 percent of marketers planned to increase their investment on Instagram and 74 percent planned to learn more about how to best use the social network.

Driving this spike in interest is a quickly growing audience and considerable popularity with younger consumers. Instagram now has more than 800 million active users, with 71 percent of US adults ages 18–24 and 72 percent of US teens ages 13–17 on the platform.

Though most marketers understand the power of the platform, actually establishing a successful presence remains a challenge. Many marketers are still unsure about which types of content to post, when to engage, how best to reach audiences and what the social network’s full range of features include.

To help, here are seven steps that every brand should grab to achieve Instagram success:

1. Optimize your business profile.

Your Instagram efforts should begin with your profile. It’s both a key to unlocking important backend platform features, as well as an essential tool for encouraging consumers to engage.

Before doing anything else on the social network, ensure that you’ve got a business account, not just a regular one (watch this video to see how). Business profiles give organizations a set of tools—advertising options, analytics insights and additional contact information fields (call now, shop now, email and directions) that aren’t available to standard users.

Once you have a business profile, develop it. Because Instagram is so visual and light on text, its profiles do much more heavy lifting compared with other social networks. This is a valuable chance to tell your brand story in your bio, engage with a good avatar and include a link to an external webpage.

2. Focus on high-quality, beautiful visuals.

What do younger consumers want to see from brands on Instagram? To find out, parent company Facebook polled 11,000 people, ages 13–24, from around the world.

The survey uncovered a clear preference: people want high-quality, beautiful posts.

As the researchers said in the report:

Instagrammers appreciate aesthetic quality in visual content and will often make the effort to transform the banal into a thing of beauty. Brands seeking to engage teens and young adults will want to offer an organic experience by aiming for quality, too. Images and video will ideally be beautiful, thoughtfully composed and artfully presented.

Keep in mind that your images and videos don’t have to be perfect from the start: Instagram has a range of powerful tools available—including filters and collages—that can help turn content pieces into things of beauty.

3. Share a mix of photos, videos and stories. 

Should your brand be posting photos or videos to Instagram?

The answer is both. An analysis by NewsWhip found that average engagement on photo posts increased by 46 percent last year and the average engagement on video posts increased by 53 percent. The researchers also found that photos tend to get more likes and videos tend to get more comments.

Also, don’t forget about Stories. The vanishing content type that Instagram copied from Snapchat has been a smashing success, and more than 300 million people are now daily active users.

4. Experiment with posting times.

What are the best days and times to post content to Instagram?

Often the research is contradictory and confusing. For example, a report from Sprout Social states: “The best time to post on Instagram is Wednesday at 3 p.m., Thursday at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 3 to 4 p.m., and Friday at 5 a.m.”

What’s a marketer to make of this odd mix?

The first takeaway is that general rules aren’t very useful. Each brand has a unique audience with unique behaviors and it’s only through trial and error that you’ll find the best schedule for your specific content.

The second takeaway is that the most effective slots are often unexpected. While people do tend to use the platform more on certain days and times, these periods are also when competition is greatest. By experimenting with when you post, you may find opportunities for higher engagement that you didn’t know existed.

5. Tap into the networks of other users. 

It’s impossible to talk about Instagram marketing without talking about influencers—and with good reason. The number of sponsored posts has more than doubled on the platform since 2016 and the Instagram influencer market is expected to reach $2.3 billion next year.

What’s powering this incredible growth? Fundamentally, it’s being driven by the fact that brands recognize that the best way to reach larger, and/or targeted, audiences on Instagram is to engage followers beyond their own.

While influencer marketing has its challenges, it’s a highly effective approach on Instagram when executed well. Also, marketers should keep in mind that it’s only a part of a wider range of tactics that engage the networks of other users. For example, creative hashtag campaigns have similar effects in terms of extending reach.

6. Integrate e-commerce directly into posts.

One of the powerful and relatively new features that’s sometimes missed by marketers is theShopping on Instagram offering. Once enabled, this lets you create “shopping posts” that allow for the tagging of up to up to five products with details and pricing.

You can also add a “shop now” button to your profile that will bring people directly to your external digital storefront. This lowers the barrier between consumers engaging with your posts and purchasing products.

7. Use Instagram’s sophisticated ad platform.

Finally, don’t forget that organic posts are only part of what makes Instagram such a powerful marketing tool.

The platform has a wide range of different ad formats—including photo ads, video ads, Carousel ads and Stories ads—that enable brand managers to creatively and effectively engage audiences. All of these options are powered by Facebook’s impressive Ads Manager tool, which gives advertisers precise targeting options, useful performance insights, and robust campaign management capabilities.

Michael Del Gigante is the founder of MDG Advertising. A version of this post originally appeared onthe MDG Advertising blog.

Source: PRDaily

5 Common Mistakes Made in Resume Writing

 

There are many reasons why people generally find it tasking to get job offers or invitations for interviews. One of such reasons is the fact that they make unforgivable mistakes when writing their resumes. Resumes are extremely important documents that should be written with the utmost detail and attention to avoid mistakes. Here are 5 common mistakes made in resume writing.

 

Ignoring Keywords

We’re in the information and technology age, as a result, nowadays most resumes are reviewed electronically before they are seen by human eyes. It is, therefore, important to pay attention to keywords when writing your resume. For a good number of organizations or HR consultancy firms, the first round of culling resumes happens through keyword spotting with a hiring software, and if certain keywords are missing from your resume, it is unlikely to make it past the first round. Be sure to use keywords related to the industry you are interested in when writing your resume; use keywords in your job description; be sure to use keywords repeatedly from time to time (but try not to overdo it); and basically just ensure you include exact keywords in your resume and recognize their place in your industry.

 

Being Too Lengthy

If you’re an average working-class professional with less than half a decade of experience, it’s only appropriate for you to condense your resume down to a page or two pages at most. When writing your resume, regardless of your years of experience or professional level, ensure you use words diligently and avoid being unnecessarily verbose. No hiring manager has the time to sift through ‘ramblings’ in your resume to get to the vital information needed to get you past the screening phase. As a result, you need to pay attention to your words and use them responsibly when writing your resume. Additionally, you can ask a family, friend or close contact with some experience in the area of resume writing to help review your resume and advise you on the parts that need to be cut out, rephrased or paraphrased.

 

Being Vague or Unclear

When hiring managers review your resume, some of the most important things that they are concerned with are your quantitative tasks and accomplishments. It can be detrimental to you to be vague about these when writing your resume. Even when putting descriptions about your former positions, you need to be specific with the details of what you accomplished in these positions. Try to put descriptions in your resume in terms of what you have accomplished, rather than simply listing titles and describing everyday tasks.

 

Typographical and Grammatical Errors

This should be avoided at all costs because it makes the applicant seem careless and irresponsible, or worse, ignorant about correct grammatical terms and structuring. It sets a precedent for employers or hiring managers to draw very unflattering conclusions about your attitude and verbal, writing and grammatical skills. Your resume, therefore, needs to be grammatically perfect; and one way to achieve this is to go over it multiple times after writing it to correct errors. You can also give it to a friend, family or close contact with relevant experience to go over it and help correct errors.

 

Cutting the Meat Out of Your Resume

The fact that your resume shouldn’t be too wordy, doesn’t mean it should be lacking relevant information. Be wise about the way you write your resume, and avoid cutting things short unnecessarily because you are trying to conform by all means to the one page standard. Just try as much as possible to give concise summaries of important information, but please don’t leave out important information because you are ‘trying to avoid being too wordy’.

Credit: Jumia

How to Make Marketing your Fiction a Reality

 

The book market is a crowded one and authors need to keep looking for creative ways to make their books stand out. There are crucial steps you should take so that your fiction can be noticed by a potential reader who probably has other fictional works begging for his attention. In this post, we'll show you three of them.

Marketing Your Fiction: What and What Do You Absolutely Need to Do?

Create and Enhance your Author Website

Your author website should give readers an opportunity to experience your personality and story settings. It should tell your reader all they need to know about you while equally giving them an experience that will stick and make them long for your work. Use quality artwork and images to give glimpses of your story that will make the reader salivate even more. Here's an example of a great author website.

Also, if you want to do the best job marketing your fiction, you've got to avoid using bland language and instead use fascinating text to tell readers about you from a dramatic point of view. Note that if your website is boring, they will assume your book is boring as well. Also, offer free content like unpublished short stories, video trailers, contests and tour dates. Fans love free stuff!

Newsletters Are Like Love Letters

You know those job sites that keep sending you emails and you really don’t know how to make them stop? Yes, this is something similar but a little less annoying. On your website, there can be a section where the reader can fill in his or her details to get regular updates from you. Now, instead of sending annoying emails making it all about you and your upcoming book, you can make it about them. How? Let your newsletter be reader-focused with articles, short stories, book previews, latest news, etc. Then chip in your book promotion.

In the example below, author Helena Rookwood shares some personal updates to her readers in her newsletter, and at the end she adds some book recommendations - books that aren't even hers but that her readers would find interesting.

 

This strategy ensures that whenever your readers get a mail from you, they won’t ignore it because they know it is worth reading. You can add social media promotion as well, but do not depend on that alone.

Create That Reality Feel That Readers Can Connect with

Readers will connect more to your story when there is a feel of reality attached to it. Let your characters go through real-life situations that are peculiar to your community and that your audience can relate with - poverty, domestic abuse, tribalism, religious battles, etc. Ask yourself how your characters will fare in today’s world and use that answer to show changes in the society. Then, write articles around your idea and let those articles draw attention to your book. Jump on social trends, unsolved mysteries etc. Build your fiction around a truth that most people can relate to.

If you would love the assistance of excellent professionals in making your fiction a reality, then reach out to SOIPublishing and get started.

 

3 Successful Ways to Promote Your Business on Social Media

 

Looking for new ways to promote your business and put your brand in front of social media users?

Wondering what’s working for others?

It’s possible to keep your social posts focused on your brand and avoid seeming self-centred and overly promotional.

In this article, you’ll discover three ways to promote your business on social media more often without turning people off.

 

#1: Turn to Micro-Influencers Who Share Your Brand Aesthetics

What’s wrong with branded content in the first place? “Most branded content is advertising under a thin layer of information or entertainment. Scratch the paint, find an ad. It’s the brand putting itself first,” Andy Crestodina explained. In other words, branded content is self-serving, and your audience knows it.

The solution: Don’t create it yourself. Instead, go the way of influencers. Unfortunately, here’s where terminology can get you in trouble. Influencer marketing is normally presented as old-school networking dressed up in fresh, digital clothing. Build relationships. Add value. Create a roundup or two. Then reach out for links and shares.

When it comes to branded content, however, influencer marketing is far more akin to advanced product placement. Step one: Get your product or service into the hands of someone your audience trusts. Step two: Get that person to create content around it. Step three: Integrate their content into your platforms.

This article on how to set up a social influencer marketing campaign provides fantastic guidance for getting off the ground. But what exactly does this approach look like in action?

Founded six years ago, Pura Vida Bracelets evolved from a college graduation trip to Costa Rica into a multimillion-dollar e-commerce empire. Alongside a host of tools, their marketing has revolved heavily around influencers.

In this paid influencer post, Pura Vida was able to leverage Rachel Brathen’s (@yoga_girl) 2.1 million followers and track ROI through an exclusive coupon.

As co-founder Griffin Thall explained to me, “Our team digs through Instagram to find creators and influencers that fit our brand’s vibe. We communicate via email and feel them out for ‘trade for product’ or paid collaboration in return for photos, posts, IG stories, IG lives, account take-overs, and giveaways.”

That approach has yielded massively popular posts on influencer accounts as well as on Pura Vida’s own.

With content creators whose audiences are fewer than 50K, Pura Vida trades ‘product for photos’ to leverage micro-influencers.

And it’s the simplicity of Thall’s explanation that offers the most hope for branded content. By seeking out creators with fewer than 50K followers or influencers with more than 500K, you can scale your approach to fit your business.

#2: Give People a Way to Share a Laugh with You

If you’re going to create and host branded content, there’s one ingredient that unites nearly all of the top performers: humour.

This isn’t just because everyone likes to laugh. In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger discusses the close connection between physiological arousal and sharing. Simply put, pumping hearts lead to busy fingers (digitally speaking). As surprising as it might sound, “Funny content is shared because amusement is a high-arousal emotion.”

Denny’s Tumblr is an excellent example of how to make funny work. From bizarre pictures of horses with their midsections Photoshopped into an English muffin to blogs titled “How do you kill a pancake successfully? I need to know for research purposes,” their content communicates that they don’t take themselves too seriously and you shouldn’t either.

Denny’s Facebook Live Q&A with a pancake was pure branded gold.

Along the same golden lines was Hamburger Helper’s Watch the Stove campaign. More than just humorous, Watch the Stove brought on serious musical heavyweights, and as General Mills’ Senior Marketing Partnership Planner Ashley Wright put it, “We tried to take away any corporate aspect of it.”

Humour is a great way to make it feel like your branded content isn’t, well, branded.

#3: Integrate Brand Advocates’ Social Content Into Your Marketing

Much like influencer marketing, user-generated content (UGC) has been around for years. However, brands have only recently begun to systematically integrate it into their marketing.

Why? Because from sales to social, UGC is conversion gold.

In How Companies Will Use Social Media In 2017, Ryan Holmes points out that UGC “taps into users’ basic impulse – the one at the heart of social media’s appeal in the first place – to create and engage, rather than sit on the sidelines passively.” Campus Protein, for instance, does this masterfully by soliciting, sharing, and regularly posting content made by customers.

This UGC was submitted by a fan, and distributed on a host of Campus Protein’s accounts and added to their on-site checkout process.

But sharing isn’t all Campus Protein does. Having collected over 1,800 reviews and countless images through their hashtag #teamcp, they’ve taken all that UGC and integrated it into their product pages as well.

With their hashtag #Gymshark, Gymshark takes a similar approach and uses UGC in top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel content.

The reason for this integration comes straight from the data. According to Yotpo’s benchmark study of more than half a million online shoppers, people who see UGC are 166% more likely to convert than those who don’t. In essence, when you leverage UGC in branded content, you make the customer the hero, instead of the company.

Gymshark mixes their in-house content with UGC both off-site (such as on Facebook and Instagram) as well as on-site to reach new customers through their existing customers’ connections.

Generating UGC comes down to a handful of intentional steps. First, actively invite people to provide UGC not just on social but especially through transactional emails like order confirmations. Second, make submitting UGC as easy as possible with dedicated hashtags. Third, use UGC tools like Yotpo or Engage Hub to collect reviews, ratings, photos, and customer stories.

Remember, you’re not your best salesperson. Your customer is.

Conclusion

The truth is, despite the explosion of branded content, few have overcome its fundamental problem: Everybody hates branded content.

For example, Beckon’s study “Marketing Truth or Marketing Hype?” found that “while branded content creation is up 300 per cent year over year, consumer engagement with that content is totally flat.” According to their numbers, a mere 5% of all branded content accounts for 90% of total engagement.

That’s an uncomfortable ratio. But it also presents an opportunity. If 5% fuels 90%, then getting branded content right has huge payoffs.

Thankfully, it’s no secret what makes content lovable: for people, by people, that entertains and educates. In the words of the 20th century’s patron saint of advertising, David Ogilvy: “You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.” The same thing is true today.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these methods for getting your audience to love your branded content? Do you have any other tips to share? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Social Media Examiner

10 Reasons Storytellers Should Dabble in Poetry

 

There was a time when poetry enjoyed mainstream popularity. People who read poetry weren’t unusual or lurking in some counterculture, hipster coffee house. Ordinary folks read poems, enjoyed poetry, and discussed poetic works.

These days, fiction takes centre stage in the world of language arts. We love movies, TV shows, and video games, comic books, and novels. Fans gather online and at conventions to celebrate their favourite stories and characters. And this other genre seems to have been relegated to the cultural backseat.

In Shakespeare’s time, entire plays were written in verse. Think about that: entire plays written in verse. Keep in mind that in those days, plays were the equivalent of movies and television (live-action entertainment). Imagine if the lines from films like Titanic, Star Wars, or Game of Thrones were delivered in rhyming verse, and you begin to get an idea of just how wide an audience poetry once reached.

Today, poetry is relegated to a precious few; most people who read poetry also write it. The lack of interest in it is confounding. You would think that in a one-click world of instant gratification, poetry would be embraced. You would think that in a world where music propels such widespread fandom, poetry would be appreciated. And you would especially think that in the greater writing community, where words are currency, poetry would be celebrated.

But oddly, many writers dismiss it. Some say they don’t understand it. Others don’t have the patience for it. A few remark that there’s no money in it. The reasons that most writers don’t embrace poetry vary; but the lack of appreciation for the form is omnipresent.

How Poetry Benefits Storytellers

Despite all the competition for our attention by creators of art and entertainment, poetry still manages to find an audience, especially among writers. Storytellers, in particular, reap great benefits from dabbling in poetry, both as readers and creators. Here are ten ways that poetry can inform, inspire, and boost storytelling:

1. Language: Poets learn how to be precise and economical with language in order to produce carefully crafted stanzas that resonate clearly, effectively, and emotionally. Composing poetry forces us to think about language so we can find the best possible way to communicate an idea.
2. Literary Devices: Poetry teaches us literary devices like alliteration and assonance, and we can then apply these concepts to our prose to make it more rhythmic or memorable and to help it flow better. Many poetic devices translate well to other forms of writing, and they can also open the door to the many literary devices that are exclusive to storytelling.
3. Imagery: Most poets strive to paint pictures (or craft videos) with words. We say, “Show, don’t tell.” We learn to choose a poem’s language in such a way that the reader can see the poem in their mind’s eye, clearly and vibrantly. Because storytelling is about crafting scenes, which are visual, this is a priceless skill for storytellers to develop.
4. Emotion: The primary goal of many poems is to evoke some emotion from the reader. Most storytellers share that goal. We want readers to feel for our characters, to become emotionally invested in them and their struggles. Through poetry, we learn how to craft language with emotional resonance.
5. Musicality: Musicality is probably one of the most underserved elements of fiction writing, often ignored in favour of other story elements. But the flow and rhythm of a sentence in a story can have a profound impact on readers, even if they don’t realize it. Because poetry places a lot of emphasis on musicality, this is a useful skill that can carry over into storytelling.
6. Vocabulary: Much of writing comes down to word choice. Writers of all forms want to choose the best possible words for whatever they’re trying to communicate. And while we can certainly tackle word choice in fiction (and non-fiction) writing, poetry, with its laser-sharp focus on language, often does a better job at keeping word choice at the top of a writer’s mind.
7. Form and structure: It’s a lot easier to study structure with a one-page poem than with a 500-page manuscript. Poetry also teaches us how to work within established structures when we learn how to write form poetry such as sonnets or haiku. While these skills might only be loosely related to most forms of storytelling, they’re definitely useful in areas of scriptwriting for television, film, or the stage.
8. Daily writing practice: Regular writing practice is of utmost importance for any writer. What to do when you’re working on the fifth draft of your novel, or when you’re between books and focused on marketing? Poetry is an excellent way to get your daily writing practice in, because poems can be short and quick to draft.
9. Quick reads: As with providing quick-fix writing practice, poetry also provides quick-fix reading. For writers, reading is just as important as (if not more important than) writing. But sometimes life gets busy. We don’t always have time to read the next chapter in the novel that sits on our bedside table. Reading a poem a day is the perfect way to get some daily reading in.
10. A fuller toolbox: All of these things come together to give storytellers a fuller toolbox packed with writing tools and techniques.

 

Are you a storyteller? Have you ever dabbled in poetry? If so, what did you learn from it that carried over into your fiction writing? If you’re a storyteller who has never dabbled in poetry, are you willing to give it a try? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box.

Writing Forward

5 Tips to Help You Finish Your Novel

 

The idea of writing a novel can be an exciting experience, but the processes involved, from start to finish, could seem like too high a mountain to climb. A lot of writers are faced with this and most times shy away from writing a novel because of it. Since you have most probably started your novel, which could be why you are reading this article, here are some tips to help you finish your work.

1. Go for a run: It doesn’t have to be a run, but you should engage in any physical exercise or activity that excites you in order to get energized to finish your work.
2. Create a realistic timeline: It is important to create a timeline for your work, but it also has to be realistic. Take note of how many pages you will write on a daily basis or on a weekly basis and stick to it.
3. Skip any passage that is slowing you down: It is possible that you have not been able to finish your novel because you can’t seem to come up with an idea for a particular passage. Rather than staying stuck on that passage, just move forward and keep writing, then you can get back to it later.
4. Avoid distractions: One of the ways to complete your novel is to go somewhere with fewer distractions when you need to write. That way, you will be able to get more done in a short amount of time.
5. Avoid perfectionism: Trying to attain perfection in writing usually takes a lot of time and is usually almost impossible to attain. So, when you are writing, avoid going back to re-write or change things constantly. Just keep writing until you are done with the whole book.

After you are done with the writing, you can now re-write and edit thoroughly.

 

It is also important that you don’t compare yourself to other writers so that you don’t get discouraged; just focus on getting your novel out of your head, one chapter at a time till you get to the end.

 

All the best.

Simbiat Bakare

4 Time Management Tips for Social Media Managers

 

It seems that a social media manager’s job is never done. It doesn’t matter what time of day or day of week you’re in, there’s always more to do. Social media moves at an astronomical pace, and it can be hard to keep up.

In fact, research has found that the top two barriers impeding adoption of social business within organizations are lack of overall strategy and competing priorities.

Raise your hand if the scenario below sounds familiar:

A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager

6am – 12pm

• Check company social media notifications before you even roll out of bed.
• Quickly respond to any messages or tweets
• Sneakily check for brand mentions as you’re stuck in traffic
• Schedule all brand messages for the day across all social networks
• Eat lunch at your desk while checking your personal Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages

1pm – 5pm

• Research articles that are relevant to share with your brand’s online community
• Check your company email and social media sites for new notifications
• Respond to any brand mentions or comments
• Identify influencers to connect with
• Get caught up in not one but two trending topics on Twitter
• How is it 5pm already?

6pm – Midnight

• Review daily social media performance
• Schedule morning social messages
• Register for an interesting social media marketing webinar about visual content
• Cannot function…need sleep

Making the time to execute on a comprehensive social media strategy that garners results can rattle even the most experienced marketers.  Social media marketing is flush with its own set of challenges and distractions.  Below are 4 helpful ways to help you focus and manage your social media marketing activities.

#1 – Determine Which Tactics Have the Biggest Impact

Reuters estimates that the average worker loses 2.1 hours of productivity every day to interruptions and distractions.1  To avoid wasting time begin by prioritizing your week.  While it’s true that unexpected issues can come up plan for the best and the worst.  If you have 3 hours per day on average to complete tasks related to social media strategy what will you get accomplished in those 3 hours?  If you were only to have 1.5 hours per day what would you want to get accomplished?  Proper planning will lead to improved productivity and efficiency.  Also, take some time to determine what your top distractions are and eliminate them.

#2 – Optimize for Productivity

Focus on what will have the largest impact on your productivity. Determining what time of day you are most productive, and which activities are most significant will help you to stay on track.  Are you an early riser, night owl, or somewhere in between?  Creating a daily schedule and routine can significantly improve your productivity.  You will also want to keep in mind statistical data which points to the best times of day and days of the week for engaging in social media activity.

Neil Patel of Quick Sprout recently published an infographic that details some of the best times to publish on various social media platforms.

#3 – Tips For Better Time Management

I have often thought that I was invincible and could simultaneously focus on every task at once.  A balancing act acquired from years of having too much to do, and not enough time.  I considered multi-tasking an art form and a higher form of organization than my counterparts who only focused on one thing at a time.  I could not have been more wrong.

In recent years I’ve had to buckle down and force myself to devote all of my attention to one task at a time.  I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved and the level of my stress has decreased significantly.  Some tactics that have worked for me include:

1. Closing my email when I’m working on social media tasks
2. Exiting from all browser windows and tabs except for the one I need to work on
3. Disabling chat or closing chat windows to avoid distraction
4. Picking 15 minutes a day to indulge in activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, or chatting with friends.
5. Spending 30 minutes to an hour each morning reviewing emails and responding, do the same thing before leaving at the end of the day.

It is significantly easier to stick to your schedule if you are working ONLY on the tasks you have scheduled in the time allotted.

#4 – Use Social Media Tools for Better Time Management

Depending on your available time and social media content strategy, there are many tools that can help you accomplish more with less time.  Below are three different types of tools that social media marketers can use to get the most out of their time:

Content Curation Tools

• Scoop.it
• Storify
• Feedly
• TrapIt

Social Aggregators & Management Tools

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Sprout Social

Want more? Here’s an awesome list of 22 social media management tools

Still Feeling Overwhelmed?

In order to help you better focus on the tasks at hand ask yourself the following questions:

• What are your top 3 social media goals and do you have a plan for reaching them?
• How much time can you dedicate each day to using tactics to reach these goals?
• What steps can you take to improve your focus while completing social media activities?
• Which type of tool: curation, aggregator, or social bookmarking can you use to help save time?

Sometimes, there are just too many moving pieces for your internal team to execute on. Know when it’s time to call in reinforcements and work with the social media marketing experts to help manage your workload.

What have you found are your biggest daily distractions when trying to manage a social media marketing program?

Image via Shutterstock

Top Rank Blog

Book Marketing Tips For Self-Published Authors

 

In this post, you will get ten book marketing tips to help increase your book sales as an independent author.

Self-publishing is not a new phenomenon anymore as it has now become an integral part of the publishing landscape.

However, there is one component that remains a stumbling block – getting your book to sell.

Book marketing is tough, hard work, time-consuming and can even be dispiriting. If that’s not enough, it can also be expensive.

We all hear about the ones who ‘got lucky’ such as Amanda Hocking and E L James, but these are rarities. However in saying that, they didn’t achieve success without a lot of hard work either.

Self-published authors have no choice but to face up to the onerous task of promoting themselves.

However, traditional publishers are now cutting back on their book marketing budgets, so more and more of their authors are having to use social media to ‘flog’ their wares as well. It’s becoming a level playing field.

So what can you do to give your book a chance? Here are ten ideas.

1. Write a great book.

It may sound silly, but it’s the very first ingredient in getting a book to sell. Knowing what readers will like isn’t easy, so don’t expect that just because you’ve written a book, it will sell.

In my case, my favourite book is my very worst seller, so what would I know?

2. Social media is a must.

If no one knows about you or your book, how can they buy your book? Social networking is a ‘one thing leads to another’ tool, so by continually expanding your contacts you help build your author brand. Another good reason to exploit social media is that it is free.

3. Don’t try to sell – try to market your book.

Do not use social media to sell books. Selling is not marketing. ‘Buy my book’, ‘Check out my book’ and ‘My book is free today’ messages are 100% guaranteed to make you look like a spammer.

Could you imagine Neil Gaiman or Dan Brown sending messages like this?

Talk about yourself, other people, post intelligent comments and interact and get known.

Marketing is about ‘brand recognition’, so your objective is to become known as an author. When you are successful at this, your books will then hopefully sell themselves.

4. Use every contact point you can find.

Set up accounts on all social media sites related to books. Goodreads, AuthorDen, Shelfari or any other you find. Also use sites such as Stumbleupon, Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook. All of these will add to your search engine listings and get your name ‘out there’.

Set up a Google Alert for your name so you can be notified whenever your name is listed on a new search engine entry. Remember that you are marketing yourself as an author, not direct selling books.

So remember to write an intelligent and informative bio or description for these sites. If you are an author, show people why when they first read your bio.

5. You must have a blog.

While a website is a useful central resource for information about an author and their books, a blog is much more dynamic and should be the conduit through which all book marketing is driven.

Having new informative blog posts circulated through a number of social networks is a great way to expand your reach and attract new readers. Also, regular blog posts will be indexed by Google and Bing and help bring new potential readers to your blog.

6. Giving away ebooks is cheap marketing.

Free books should never be seen as giving away money. They should be viewed as an introduction to your writing and your name to new readers, and the more, the better.

Even if an author has only one title, a free book offer can help build a base of readers for the second and third books.

I use Kindle’s KDP Select program, and when I offer any of my titles for free, I’m pleased if 500 readers download the book. I’m even happier when 5,000 do. And thrilled if 20,000 do.

The more, the better. There are 6 billion people in the world, so you have plenty of market left.

7. You should budget for paid promotion.

Pay for some exposure, but within reason and your budget. There are many options available to buy advertising or promotion, and high traffic sites can boost exposure for your name and title.

I’ve used a number of sites, and while some have been more successful than others, it’s a long-term game of building your author brand.

8. Keep your cool.

Always be positive and never enter into conflict on any platform on the Internet.

Arguing, criticising and being obnoxious are sure-fire routes to failure. Never ‘flare’ on the Internet as comments made in a temper will last forever and tarnish your reputation. Ignore bad reviews, nasty comments and trolls. Rise above their level, always.

9. Keep writing.

Write another and much better book. Quite simply, the more books you write, the better you get, and the more chance you have of making book sales.

10. Stay positive.

Don’t check your book sales hourly. It’s depressing. Do it once a week, or even better once a month. You might get a surprise.

Marketing a book takes time and patience, so stay positive and think about what little things you can do each day that will help find new potential readers.

Source: Just Publishing Advice