Dear Socially Stephanie,
I just wrote a book about how to excel in a job interview. It is available on Amazon. What is the best way to go about getting it publicized and in front of as many potential buyers as possible? I have posted it to my own pages, but that's not working, and I have limited time and resources for offline promotion (conferences, book fairs, et cetera). Do you have any advice as to how I might get the book in front of the influencers who could help propel it to success?
Promotionless in Portland
Dear Promotionless in Portland,
Congratulations! What an accomplishment. Give yourself a pat on the back because the hardest part is over. Well, sort of; a big chunk of it is, at least. Okay, enough patting, now let's get down to business.
Online Influencers are going to be the fuel for your promotion, so we'll focus on an Influencer outreach approach first. Got it? Good!
The first thing I want you to do is put your Thinking Cap on and define every type of person who would be interested in this book. This is your target audience, those who will pay for your work because, frankly, they can't afford not to have this knowledge. So, who are those people? Students are an obvious target. Unemployed? Yup, they'd also benefit. You get the point. Now create a massive list, starting with the broadest group at the top, and keep going from there.
Now that you've defined your audience, you'll want to define where it is they're likely to be online. I'm talking specifically about bloggers. What kind of blogs does your audience read? The bloggers who write these posts are your Influencers. To find them, start off with a Google search with terms that may describe your book:
-Job Interview Tips
-How To Land A Job
-Career Advice
-Getting Back Into The Job Market
These are keywords that will yield the types of sites and blogs that write about what your book covers. Learn who these bloggers are. Fall in love with them, and get them to reciprocate that love.
How do you make an Influencer fall in love with you? Well, first, introduce yourself via email and charm the hell out of them. Compliment them, tell them exactly what you love about their work, share their content on your own social channels. You're building a relationship here, and relationships are mutually beneficial.
Now it's time to show them you're worthy of praise, too. Give these Influencers a quick synopsis of your book. Make sure each message you send out is targeted exactly to each blogger's audience. Since they're looking for new and fresh content for their blog, if you get your messaging right, you should at least get a response. You might even want to offer them an exclusive chapter to give to their readers as an incentive. You know what I say about incentives...they work! This is bait. You want your new readers to eat it up so voraciously that they'll be running to Amazon to buy the whole book.
A blog post and review would be your BCS - Best Case Scenario. However, some bloggers might not have the time. Okay, okay, don't fret. Perhaps a quick Tweet or Facebook post might be more doable. Have at least 10 Facebook posts, 10 Tweets, and 10 LinkedIn updates pre-written for your new-found-friend, aka Influencer. This way, they don't have to do much in order to share your content with their network. (You might be thinking this is a bit pushy. It's not. As a blogger, this type of thing makes me very happy, and I'm more likely to share with my network. Less work for me, good results for you. WIN WIN!) Oh, and be sure to include the direct link to buy your product. Nothing worse than forgetting that, believe me!
Now that you have your Influencer outreach down, let's talk about what else you can do. Guest blogging. You want to get your name out there as an expert and you need to do it fast. There are a ton of sites that accept guest blogs. Search Google for terms like "submit guest post" or "guest blog opportunity" to find sites that offer this. By guest blogging on a related network, you're exposing yourself and your style to a built-in audience.
Well, it looks like you have some work cut out for you - but then again, no one ever said that being a fabulously successful author was easy. Good luck!
Socially,
Stephanie
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Illustration by Jesse Wells