Real Time Web for Old Time Books: The Benefit of Social Media for Publisher and Authors
By Fauzia Burke
Real Time Web was coined to describe online activities in real time -- from status updates on Facebook, to microblogging on Twitter to uploading photos and videos on other social media sites. With the ease of mobile devices like iPhones, this type of communication has grown tremendously in 2009. Now Google (video) is offering the power of real time web searching to millions everyday. Although you may cringe when considering the personal implication of searching your updates and Twitter feeds, you can't deny the benefits to publicity and marketing.
According to Nielsen, social media and blogs are now more popular than email. As marketers, this presents us with a great opportunity. Reader engagement is not only important in today's market, it is essential. Although your web site is important, a savvy marketer knows that a page on Facebook is even more important for interacting with fans and potential readers. With Google and Bing now offering real time search results, the ease, power and speed of sharing information is changing before our eyes. Word of mouth has never been shared faster or more easily. It is important to remember that social media is public communication, you probably should never share personal information, comments or thoughts you don't want spread. But you can't simply ignore what investors are calling a new Web Revolution.
By staying off of Twitter and Facebook as a marketer you are not only missing out on community building, but you are also unaware of the conversations taking place about you, your books, and your competition. Real time search results are changing the speed at which a conversation spreads online. It is more important than ever to manage brand and reputation on social media sites. Content is streaming live with or without your blessing.
Some fantastic sites that offer good information on Twitter conversations are Topsy which shows how many people retweeted you. For example, if you do a topsy search on my name you'd see that my HuffPost blog about Facebook was retweeted 118 times, others were not as popular. Sency allows you to search topics and conversations, and Dailyrt allows you to track what is important to people right now.
These tools can allow you to stay on top of messaging. For marketing and publicity people, it can give you fresh ideas and leads for more exposure. For editors, it may give you ideas for your next book project and for authors it can most certainly show you what's important to your readers right now. Opinions are being shared online and in real time, and now through searches we can find them and notice trends and measure excitement.
Today if you do a search for Oprah on Google, the search results will include social media results, which means you can see what people said about Oprah a minute ago (see midway down). If that doesn't inspire awe (and a little fear) in you, I would be amazed.
Conversations are happening online in real time and now these conversations are being tracked, measured and searched. By becoming part of the community and paying attention to the dialogue around you, I believe your marketing efforts will benefit greatly this year and in the years to come. Real Time Web is becoming the norm -- there are tons of apps and programs coming that will make it easier for us to know what people are saying, where they are gathering, and what they are reading in real time.
© 2010 Fauzia Burke
Author Bio:
Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, an Internet marketing firm specializing in creating online awareness for books and authors. For more information, please visit FSBAssociates.com. Follow FSB Associates on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FSBAssociates
What are your thoughts, tips, and disagreements as readers/reviewers, authors, publicists/editors, and sellers of books around the issues shared above? How about your experiences with social networking and some of its newer developments? Are they working for you?
Thanks for reading Layers of Thought.
5 comments:
very interesting article! thanks for sharing it :-)
My very first thought: 1984.
As far as the "social" sites, I am a wallflower and prefer to remain one.
And Twitter: I just can't force myself to be constantly stupid in 140 characters or less.
I don't go phishing for new readers; rather, I wait for those who find me because they like the content of my blog.
These are my personal opinions and are not meant to reflect on anyone else.
Angela -
You are so welcome.. I thought it was interesting as well.
I love foretelling....
Charlie -
I know what your saying...you should read this newer YA sci fi called "Feed". Very good, satire - I am bordering on a 5 star for this one. I think you would relate.
Some folks don't have the option of sitting back and waiting for readers to come to them.
I had a real aversion to twitter as well for awhile and it does have its MAJOR annoyances... but it looks as if Social Media is moving beyond twitter to include something more - even if we aren't part of the movement...we can still watch.
Thanks for the comments.
It will be interesting to sit back and see.
You know, Shellie, I think the big advances in publishing are in the YA area. I loved Suzann Collin's "The Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire", and I'm waiting for the final in the trilogy.
Perhaps more adults are reading YA than YA because of its creativity. "The Book Thief" is a good example.
What gets me is you have a ton of followers, but where are they at comment time? You work very hard at this blog, but have no real feedback to what people are thinking.
Charlie -
Yes there a lot of excellent YA fiction out now. There is a of junk too. I have "The Hunger Games" here on my shelf.
I do think you would like "Feed".
Audio is so nice you can do it passively - when driving... we are listening to it on an ipod speaker thingy...
"The Knife of Never Letting Go" is supposed to be really good too.
As for the number of followers and comments... John and I were both thinking and talking about that.
He had a few comments when he first started posting reviews and the last several reviews he has gotten nothing.
I am of course new to this so am at a loss. I have thought of a variety of reasons that I won't list here.. some understandable others not so great.
My thought about your blog and the large number of comments is that it is very personal in nature. You have also been doing it for awhile so have built relationships with your followers. Me/us - we/I am still working on that... but you can't do that for 200 plus followers. It becomes impersonal at a point.
I have also seen bloggers burn out trying to keep up with comments. I also know a bunch of bloggers whom do not respond to their comments or just to a few. I also see bloggers who get tons of comments on each post.. they are so so busy.
I have an anonymous commenter who just suggested that I need to give more opinions if I want more followers... but his/her English and writing is poor.
Interesting thoughts... yours are of course are welcome as always. :)
BTW - my new nook needs a new battery... hows that for funny?
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