Promoting Your Book with Twitter
February 28, 2011 
200 Comments
I have done some research after coming upon a very interesting post by Dana Lynn Smith’s guest post on the BookBuzzr on promoting a book on Twitter. Looking at three different articles I have complied a comprehensive tips list for promoting your book on Twitter.
- Gain quick reputation as an expert by sharing information, posting links to helpful articles, recommend top resources to check out offer tips (like these) and books that may be helpful. Remember that internet marketing is giving a big chunk of yourself and your time before you can expect anything.
- Get into contact with potential and existing customers, promote your URL everywhere you are listed (Twitter, FB, LinkeIn etc.) and use keywords in your Tweets to attract followers in your field of expertise.
- Stay on top of breaking news and trends what your fields is concerned. You can do this by watching the Twitter trends list, sign up for Google Alerts and read top blogs like Technorati and Mashable.
- Promote any and all kinds of book events, like podcasts, seminars etc. And don’t just promote your own.
- Have constant Twitter contests awarding a great prize to random tweeple, this will help you gain visibility and new followers.
- Ask for any kind of help, Twitter people are good people, you’ll be amazed at the information you get by just asking.
- Help your peers by ReTweeting other people in your niche that you follow. You’ll be amazed how quickly your follower list grows – being helpful and informative.
- Promote your own services and products, but make sure that they only constitute 10 – 20% of your total tweets to omit being annoying and ‘unfollowed’.
- Twitter is a great marketing tool. Yes, you may think LinkedIn is the business for business, but nothing beats the synergy created by using both platforms.
- Use the old bird when you travel. There are numerous Twitter apps for mobile phones. Remember that if you disppear and you get less visible. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’. Don’t lose your edge.
Greg Pincus from TheHappyAccident.net reviewed Harold Underdown, author of ‘The Idiots Guide to Publishing Childrens Books’ who did an experiment using Twitter. Here is the skinny of that experiment:
- Harold had reasonable success with the first edition of his book, however, his third edition had updated material and weren’t doing as well as the first edition. He realized he had to let people know and decided to use Twitter as a tool. He decided to tweet mini-quotes, section summaries and excerpt links. These tweets get ReTweeted and grabs the attention of his followers and a broader audience.
- As he’s gone through the book it seems to have dwindled after a couple weeks, a free offer or giveaway sparks recurred interest and needs to be Tweeted often to have effect.
- The metric for the success of the campaign is sales, of course. Depending on your publishing method, you can see the success by the royalty checks you receive.
- Goals that mark success would be increases in book sales, FB followers (also part of the campaign) and Twitter followers, and of course Tweets that go viral.
Then, the third Twitter tool to use for marketing your book is using the power of Twitter lists.The list feature allows users to create lists of twitterers and follow their tweets. It’s like compartmentalizing users. Here is a quick guide to help you make the most of this feature.
- Lists could be both private (which you can follow) or public (which others could follow, having a look at where your inspiration comes from).
- It is advisable to plan your lists around certain keywords people would search for. Create your lists in reverse order (of imprtance) as the latests list will feature at the top of lists you have created).
- Get the new list feature in the right column of your Twitter page. Easily add people to your list by visiting the persons page and then check the list box, adding them to yours.
- Add yourself yo the lists that you create.
- Each list has their own URL that your can promote on your blog and your various social media platforms.
- Promote these lists by using the @ Twitter handle for that list.
Now you have a lot of strategies and tools to promote your book using Twitter as the main source. LEt us know iof you know of any strategies you know Twitter can assist us with.
Sources: BookBuzzr, TheHappyAccident and BookMarketingMaven
P.S. The top 3 commentators on my blog for Feb get’s a $95 prize
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Ivin Viljoen
Image courtesy of renjith krishnan
Related articles
- How to Double Your Retweets In Two Days (socialmouths.com)
- Twitter Lists: Use Them Don’t Abuse Them (uber.la)
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Twitter really helps nowadays to market your business and introduce products that you wanted to launch.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
February 19, 2013 at 6:50 AM
Yeah\, Kyle. But to successful and to not come off spammy, you have to provide value first.
Ivin Viljoen recently posted..How to Build an Email List of Devoted Book Buyers
Hey Ivin, this is pretty useful, was actually searching for some good strats as to how I could actively and effectively promote my business market through Social Media Optimisation, emphasizing twitter. Well you’ve just sure mentioned that right, we should not just stick to what we are promoting, sometimes we are best recognized by recognizing others too most specially experts.
Your article is very helpful and useful.You are right, you have to use a lot of channels to promote your book. Ask your friends and family to re tweet your book.Sooner or later, it will increase your sales.
This is good post. Thanks for sharing this. You are right,you don’t have to promote only your own book, you have to promotes also other book events so that people will also be interested and will check your posts. Be also sensitive in your tweets and posts. Do not bombard your followers with your posts regarding your book, they might block or unfollow you.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
June 4, 2012 at 2:53 AM
That IS a very important thing to remember. Social media is not for spamming. We need to change our approach fro ‘push’ marketing to ‘pull’ marketing. Social media is for social, not for selling.
Ivin recently posted..Creative Commenting Ideas.
I think you should have generous amount of true followers. It’s no use having a million followers, but you only have 500 who are actually following you. Thanks for the idea!
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM
That makes sense Eddie. When you have a large following there is vonly a core of those that are your true followers.
It’s just that for successful Twitter promotion, you have to make sure that your tweets aren’t perceived as ads. Your posts need to offer people something, whether it’s information or entertainment.
This is so very informative. I’d also like to learn how to create an e-book will you help me please? It rang to my bell when I read your article. Thanks a lot!
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:45 AM
Sure Tamara. You really only have to do some research on our site. You will find most of the information here.
Hi Ivin, I think twitter is such a good place to advertise your book. Actually you can brand yourself into all social media sites.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:47 AM
Yes, Bill, you sure can. There’s many other ways, but Twitter sure is powerful.
Social media is one of the most effective way to promote your product. I have been using fb and myspace. I have been thinking about twitter and heard so much about it. I am so trying it today.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:48 AM
GHet off of MySpace today
It’s a waste f time. My top 5 are Twitter, FB, linkedin, Youtube, Google+ and then lately of course, Pinterest.
Hi! I’m saving this post. I’m not Tweeting yet just getting into Facebook. But I know I need to do this. Yet another unknown for me! I seem to be getting into a lot of these lately.I love the tips. I’m not necessarily promoting a book (yet). But I think these tips apply to a lot of other uses for Twitter.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:49 AM
Well, Judith, soon as you get a book done (or a new one), build a page for fans. It’s a great communication tool.
I appreciate you mentioning all strategies and tools to promote your book in Twitter. I like when you mentioned that internet marketing is giving a big chunk of yourself and your time before you can expect anything. It’s easier said than done, but anyone who wants to be successful should give out their all first.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:50 AM
Yep, give first before you expect anything back. It takes a lot of time, so before you quit your job, build some traction online first
If you want more followers and you aren’t a Kardashian, you have to go out and find them.
I use Tweepi to find people with common interests. If you follow Joel on Twitter, I think you and I might find each other interesting.
Tweepi lets me enter Joel’s Twitter handle — @jfbookman — to see a list of his followers and select which ones I want to follow. (It’s worth noting that one of Tweepi’s premium features allows you to exclude people with a low Klout score, just one indication of how Klout is becoming important in the Twittersphere.)
Naturally I’m hoping that this is reciprocated and that you’ll follow me back. I’ve met some great people this way.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:52 AM
Wow, thank William. I have to try Tweepi. I’m doing it the old way right now. So, I’ll definitely give it a try. The Klout exclusion is really great. Thanks!
As your blog is also where many of your readers might go before buying your books that promotional power makes Twitter an essential part of any author platform and marketing strategy.
Fortunately Twitter is an ecosystem in which talented developers are thriving by making useful tools. Five in particular have become crucial to me since I realised the importance of Twitter to my success and started taking my use of the network seriously.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:53 AM
Hello Stacy. I’m glad you’re using twitter for marketing. It’s not the only tool to use, but definitely one of the powerful ones.
Some great tips here. I can only see the social factors when marketing becoming more important in the future.
Facebook, Google +1 and twitter seem to be the way forward.
If you can have a popular post on Digg/Stumbleupon or reddit you would get 1000s of eyeballs on your new book too.
Jessie recently posted..Car loans for bad credit
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:56 AM
I don’t really pay attention to Digg, Stumble or Reddit. I do get a lot of traffic if one of my network peeps Stumble it, but it’s because her network is big and responsive.
Right now the best promotion is in web, facebook, twitter and other social networks allow us to find a lot of customers and we don’t have to pay for this kind of adverbs.
Twitter: @ivinviljoen
May 29, 2012 at 3:58 AM
Hello Jane. You have to be on the web. You can do it traditionally as well, if you have a network of people. The web is very crowded, so the challenge is to target properly.
Ivin
You have a very helpful site and I particularly enjoyed this blog. I am soon to launch a self publishing shop and have spent a considerable amount of time researching and found this blog to be enlightening.
I will add you to my blogroll.
Nige
Nige recently posted..My steep learning curve – working to open The Little Self Publisher’s Shop
Thanks Nige for the blogroll love. Hope to hear from you soon.
Ivin recently posted..Sucessful Blog The Next Step
I really liked your article. If you go to vincestead.com you can get your book done for $200, and get it listed on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and make money from the book, and the digital downloads people buy. You won’t find a cheaper price. You can go to this link to see more info about it:
http://www.vincestead.com/Make_A_Book.html
Thanks Vince. It’s worth a look
Ivin recently posted..UnderDog Reality TV EP 20
3 Great studies. Well done in giving us some good stuff to try out. Thanks!
Always a pleasure Melissa.
Ivin recently posted..Book Marketing- Radio Interview Tips
Ag, Bob. Why are you always busting Ivin’s chops. He gave proper credit everywhere I can see. Thanks for a good researched article. I just still haven’t figured out how to use Twitter to translate Tweets into profits.
Thoughts?
Did you enjoy ‘scarping content here?