It’s the start of a new quarter and tax month. This month’s tip to grow your author business:
Review your bookkeeping records with your accountant
What brought in the most revenue last year? Speaking engagements? Book sales? One-on-one coaching?
What brought that business to you? What path did your favorite clients take to find you? Knowing the first step on that path helps you amplify that step, and solidify the path from stranger to client.
Write down three things you can do to do more of what brought in the most revenue.
Share in the comments below what brought in the most revenue for your author business last year.
Hubspot’s research on social media usage patterns reveals that people generally use Instagram for bonding.
What does that mean in an author’s marketing environment?
Bonding
Instagram users post images and videos that reflect how they see themselves, and who they want to be. It’s emotional content, warm and fuzzy, often humorous, designed to make them closer to their friends, family, and other followers.
They follow others not only to bond but to discover new trends.
What to Do
Create visual content that reflects your personality as an author
Ensure that your posts are emotion-based
Use appropriate humor
Respond to your followers’ posts with likes and the occasional comment
What NOT to Do
Don’t get deeply informational
Don’t be unnecessarily negative; keep it warm and fuzzy
According to the research on social media usage patterns reported in HubSpot’s article, people generally use Facebook for communicating and blocking. While those actions are both obvious, what may not be obvious is that both have value to you, the entrepreneur author.
Communicating
Good Facebook posts encourage followers to communicate with you as a brand. Just as important, a good post encourages followers to communicate about you with their existing circle.
Blocking
More than those of any other social media platform, Facebook users are more likely to block unwanted content. Reasons for blocking range from the extreme (content the user finds offensive) to benign (content the user has no interest in.)
What to Do
Use Facebook for two-way communication. Write posts which clearly indicate your desire to engage, and then, when followers respond, keep up your end of the conversation.
Give your followers the words for word-of-mouth. Write posts which are good communication with your followers but which are also shareable—and ask your followers to share them.
Be yourself unashamedly. Write posts that will make your followers feel like insiders, part of your tribe, even at the risk of alienating others.
What NOT to Do
Facebook is, surprisingly to me at least, a warm and fuzzy place for most users. They’re chatting with family, catching up with old friends, sharing a laugh.
Do not use this friendly communication channel to hawk your wares. Do not pester, badger, harass, harry, or otherwise sell them to death. The type of selling you’ll do on Facebook is what you’d do at the coffee shop with a friend: you might mention your book or services if it comes up naturally in the conversation, in fact, you should, but otherwise, it’s not a pitch-fest, it’s a conversation.
An adjunct: in that coffee shop conversation, you wouldn’t send your friend somewhere else to, say, get a scone to go with their tea, or suggest that the napkins down the street are softer and more absorbent. It turns out that linking away from Facebook isn’t very effective. Keep people on your channel; they’ll go find you elsewhere if and when they’re in the mood.
Do not water down your personality. If anything, dial it up a little. Your insiders will love you more. The propensity to block unwanted content on Facebook is a plus for you: it means you’re not wasting effort and possibly an advertising budget chasing fence-sitters and the uninterested.
Allowing potential followers to self-select is exactly the right thing to do, whether they get down off the fence on the inside or the outside. After all, you can’t have insiders if there are no outsiders.
I’m excited to announce the official book launch date of our client’s book! Tomorrow, March 8, 2019, to coincide with International Women’s Day, Deborah Olson launches The Healing Power of Girlfriends: How To Create Your Best Life Through Female Connection.
Deborah published the book with the assistance of Jera Publishing.
Advance praise for the book:
Deborah Olson details the anatomy of friendship and explains how these components work to strengthen bonds and create flow. Research shows that our happiness correlates to our social relationships; so does our health. This book is a delightful roadmap to cultivate and nurture our circle of connections. The Healing Power of Girlfriends is an engaging, upbeat, and inspiring five-star read. – Laurie Buchanan, PhD, holistic health practitioner, transformational life coach, and ward-winning author
To learn more about our Social Media Book Launch packages and how we support our clients, click here.
“To my social media expert, Sue Canfield, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your stellar efforts to bring the news of my first book to the world through social media. You and your team are exceptional and visionary, and I cannot imagine the past several months preparing for this book launch without you on board.”—Deborah Olson
According to the research on social media usage patterns reported in HubSpot’s article, people generally use Twitter to discover new brands and content, and network with the brand, like-minded users, and other customers. They refer to these actions as Discovering (which is obvious) and Bridging (which they use to mean ‘making connections’.)
Discovering
Good tweets help others find information related to their work, hobbies and interests. It informs them about news and current events, helping them discover interesting content, information, and ideas.
Bridging
These tweets reflect who others see themselves as or who they want to be. Bridging tweets help them
connect with brands
discuss a specific topic with strangers
network
What to Do
Folks are on Twitter to find new things and to connect.
Feed their curiosity by pointing them to something new, whether or not it’s your something new.
Connect them with interesting people and companies, and not just you and yours.
Direct them to new information on your website, your new book, your next speaking engagement.
Give them positive information to share (retweet).
What NOT to Do
Twitter is not the place for bonding, strengthening ties with readers. It’s not the place to be warm and fuzzy.
Folks aren’t here to while away their coffee break with a relaxing read or a cat video. They want a quick hit of dopamine to reward their search for the new and interesting.
This comes with a caveat: don’t resort to click-baiting and pandering. There’s no need. You can always find something new and interesting without going the ‘lowest-common-denominator’ route.
It’s the start of a new quarter and tax month. This month’s tip to grow your author business: 
According to the research on social media usage patterns reported in 
“To my social media expert, Sue Canfield, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your stellar efforts to bring the news of my first book to the world through social media. You and your team are exceptional and visionary, and I cannot imagine the past several months preparing for this book launch without you on board.”—Deborah Olson
According to the research on social media usage patterns reported in