Being tossed around by a tornado…

Have you ever gotten to the point where you have so many things you want to accomplish, or you have so much great stuff happening in your life that you feel like your going to blow a circuit?  It’s been that way recently for me, and in a sense it’s paralyzed me… this is my first blog entry in almost three weeks.

Now, normally my type A, commitment based integrity model kicks in here to tell me that I’ve failed to be regular in my blog entries and starved my regular readers (all 14 of you) of valuable information… or worse, I’ve failed to enlist new readers and build traffic to this blog.  All is lost!

But I’ve been pretty peaceful about this little stretch of down time, and here’s the reason why.  My social media strategy is changing.  And I’m taking time to think a bit before I act.  

When I began writing this blog, my goal was to recount my successes and failures in exploring social media as a marketing platform for authors and their novels.  I hoped to attract the interest of other writers, editors, agents and publishing professionals.  

So what changed?  I made my jourey over the rainbow and landed in Oz.

In a very short period of time, I’ve learned a number of things, and because of the direct and quantifiable nature of social media (I can see how many people are visiting my blog, and from where they are linking), I can refocus my efforts very quickly.  

In a standard advertising campaign (the old fashioned kind we did, say, five years ago), it might take six months to a year to discover whether a particular strategy is producing results… and even then, we might not have been able to tell exactly what we achieved.  With social media, I can see almost immediately how people respond to the information you put out there, and I can change course as I go.

Standard advertising and marketing strategies are generally based on standard data, however inaccurate or opaque.  But as social media evolves, experimentation is often a better means of creating a successful result.  Experience is the key.

So this is what I’ve figured out.

1.) Black and white vs. color:

I still think like an author, or a standard advertiser… I want to create a well written message and have others read it.  I create, they consume.  Not a bad strategy, but in social media, engagement is key.  I want people to involve themselves, talk about what I’m writing, comment and spread the word.  Engagement is key, and it’s a game changer.

2.) The Wicked Witch is dead:

While there have always been marketers who possess integrity, and act in accordance with it, a lot of advertising and publicity has been constructed to create illusion… to deceive the public on some level about an product and it’s benefits.  This really doesn’t work so well when dealing with a public that’s plugged into social media.  

Facebook gaffs are reported within minutes of being inflicted on users, and the dissatisfaction gains ground fast.  Viewers tweet about movies as they are leaving the theater… no more two week window for a studio to pass off a dud film before people catch on.  And readers let their pleasure or displeasure with a book be known on blogs and books sites far and wide… it’s getting harder to control the momentum that comes with this new way of lateral, community based perception and opinion.

Face it.  Old advertising models are dead or dying.  

3.) Find your Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tin Man:

I need to stop acting alone.  Partnerships are key.  Everyone you work with should be honest in their self interest… and provide value to one another.  For me, this has meant forging relationships with authors, agents, editors and other marketers who I respect and whose interest in partnering in book promotion will benefit us all.

4.) The Wonderful Wizard:

In analog advertising, the marketer acts as a middle man, invisibly tweaking a message that has been crafted to represent his client’s product (in my case, the author’s book).  He is the man behind the curtain, and no one meets the great and terrible Oz face to face.  

In social media, there is no billboard with an advertising message acting as a wall between consumer and product, or reader and author/book.  The book is it’s own ad.  And there is no curtain that hides the wizard.  The marketer is visible, and must have his own credibility.  The book promoter must develop her own brand and act in partnership with the author/publisher/bookseller.  

And the key thing for me?  Just as the author has, I must form relationships directly with readers. A blog about marketing books is not so interesting to most readers.  But a blog that actually promotes books would be…

5.) There’s no place like home:

As most people have found at some point in their lives, a house is not a home.  It’s the people you surround yourself with that become your family, and make you feel “at home”.  Social media leverages the relationships you have and can help to create new ones allowing you to build and stay connected to a community.  We have this ability to create community in our hearts, and have had all along.