Someone once said that the difference between traditional marketing and Web marketing is the difference between getting attention and giving attention. I couldn’t agree more
Let’s say I want to get your attention and you’re on the other side of a busy road. I will probably wave and shout. Let’s say I get your attention and you cross the road and come to me. What should I do now? Should I keep waving and shouting in your face? It probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
A lot of websites are waving and shouting in their customers’ faces. Big fancy intro pages, flash animations, and pop ups are all attention-getting strategies, when what’s needed is to give some attention. Why? Because the customer has made a deliberate decision to visit us; we’ve already got their attention. Now they want to do something. They want some questions answered and they don’t want anything to get in the way.
If you use attention-getting strategies on your website, you stand a strong chance of really annoying your customers.
– Gerry McGovern, Killer Web Content
If you’re an author, people are undoubtedly visiting your site because someone told them they might like your books and they want to learn more about you. How are you welcoming them? Are you giving them what they’re looking for?
Posted by Stephanie Leary in How To, Marketing at 2:56 pm •
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Valeria Maltoni, who did a helpful post last year called 100 thoughts on marketing, has just posted 100 thoughts on social media. Great stuff.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Marketing at 8:33 am •
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I’ve been watching Mary Russell’s Twitter feed for several weeks, and it’s fascinating. Not because I’m a fan of the character — The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is still in my TBR pile, and I’m swamped with revisions on my own book at the moment — but because it’s such a great use of social networks for book promotion. Mary has hosted at least one contest and a Twitter house party in the time I’ve been following her. She’s also posted bits of ‘A Case in Correspondence’, which is an interesting project in its own right. There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance about a historical character actively taking part in online discussions and linking to things on YouTube, and yet I find it utterly charming.
Today, I found a brief interview with Laurie King on how she does it. If you’re considering how to approach social media, this is well worth reading.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Marketing at 10:19 am •
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Nettuts+, a site for web designers, has done a roundup of book-related designs they find inspiring — and it features our work! Justine Larbalestier’s site is the second one listed! I’m thrilled to have our work on the same list with other sites I love, like DailyLit and IndieBound.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Announcements at 5:01 pm •
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Author Justine Musk is writing a great series called “building your author platform even if you’re not published yet.” Part one explains why you should, and part two talks about what to do after you’ve created your blog.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in How To, Marketing, Social Media at 5:09 pm •
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We’ve just posted Alan DeNiro’s new site — just in time for the launch of his first novel! Congrats to Alan. I loved his short story collection and can’t wait to read Total Oblivion, More or Less.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Client News at 11:18 am •
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The Writer’s Guide To Twitter covers everything: picking a username, the etiquette of following and retweeting, how to use hashtags and chats, spam, and more. This is a great series.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Marketing at 2:01 pm •
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LibreDigital research confirms something we’ve always heard anecdotally: readers who check out online sample chapters are more likely to buy books.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Marketing at 6:09 pm •
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Harlequin’s Malle Vallik always has excellent advice on social media. Her column today at Romancing the Blog is excellent:
A great social media tool is the comment section of your blog or someone’s blog that you’ve identified as worth following. This someone else has already started the conversation and they are hoping, wanting a new friend to join in. Good commenting helps establish your online presence and builds your author brand.
And then she offers five ways to comment effectively. If you already live comfortably online, these things might seem obvious. If the blogosphere is foreign to you, this is a great explanation of comment culture.
Posted by Stephanie Leary in How To, Marketing, Social Media at 10:18 am •
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MySpace has just introduced a beta feature that will let you sync your status with your Twitter account. Log in to your account and go to the ‘sync’ section. Give MySpace permission to use Twitter, and you’re done! You can choose whether the sync goes one way (Twitter updates MySpace) or two-way (MySpace updates Twitter and vice versa).
Big thanks to Todd Jones on GetSatisfaction for pointing this out!
Posted by Stephanie Leary in Marketing, Social Media at 7:28 pm •
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