Welcome Frances Caballo and a Guest Post: "Five Tips for Creating Your Author Platform"

Welcome Frances Caballo, author of Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers Who Want to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write.  I feel very enthusiastic about sharing today's guest post because it is an area in which I am desperately learning as much as I can. I know I will definitely put all "Five Tips for Creating Your Author Platform" to very good use!

     

Thank you to Renee Roberson, blog tour manager at Wow- Women on Writing for providing today's guest post as part of Frances Caballo's blog tour.

Five Tips for Creating Your Author Platform

We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media—

the question is how well we do it.

—Erik Qualman, How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

Today we understand that social media marketing is an essential ingredient of our author marketing platform that we can't ignore. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are well rooted in our world, and networks such as Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are no longer newbies.

Yet practically every day a new application or social network— RebelMouse, Pheed, LibraryThing, Write or Read, etc.— emerges, and it can boggle our minds and tax our energy.

But you needn’t worry about having to jump on the bandwagon of every shiny new innovation because there’s a basic tenet of marketing that still applies for author marketers: know your audience.

Audience is a marketing term that simply refers to the people for whom you've written your book. For example, did you write your last novel for the YA (young adult) market? Are your colorful books designed for children between the ages of three and six?

Did you write a historical novel about France for all the Francophiles in the world? Is your Hiking on the Edge of the World nonfiction book written with hard-core hikers in mind?

Knowing your audience enables you to hone your marketing efforts and focus your social media attention on those platforms where you are most likely to encounter your readers. It's easier to do than it may seem at first glance.

For example, if you write with young adults in mind, then you'll need to be on Twitter and Tumblr because that's where you're most likely to find that demographic.

If your target market is women who are fifty-plus in age, then you'll need a Facebook page. Did you write a book about dressing for success? Then you definitely need an active presence on LinkedIn as well as Pinterest.

If you write chick lit, you probably won’t want to spend too much time on Google+. Instead, you’ll want to focus your efforts on Facebook and Pinterest, where women dominate the user base.

Five Tips for Creating Your Author Platform

Here are five tips to get you started on your marketing platform.

•  Your first step is to hire someone to build a WordPress website for you that includes a blog. Don’t use Vista Print for your website and don’t let someone talk you into using Joomla. WordPress is today’s go-to content management system for websites.
• Decide who your audience is and study the demographics of each social media network to determine which ones you should be using.
• Resist the temptation to embark on using four or five social media networks all at once. Start with one, get to know it, conquer it, and then move on to the next one.
• Be consistent in your posting on social media networks and your blog. Write new blog posts at least once a week. Post a minimum of once daily on Facebook, twice daily on LinkedIn and four times a day on Twitter. Use a scheduling application to help you be consistent in your posting.
• You will be known and followed based on the content you post. Make sure you post the best, most up-to-date content within your niche every day. Use the website Alltop.com or a curation application such asScoop.it to help you find the content you’re looking for.

What tips would you suggest to a newly published author?

Thank you Frances Caballo for sharing these helpful social media strategies! And, yes, developing a website has become my top priority. Also, I will be posting a review of AVOID MEDIA TIME SUCK here on All Things Audry in the near future. As I begin to read it, I am amazed how much time I actually waste on social media. Scheduling really is everything!  

About the Author: 

Frances Caballo is a social media manager for writers and author of  Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write, Social Media Just for Writers: The Best Online Marketing Tips for Selling Your Books and Blogging Just for Writers. Presently, she is the Social Media Manager for the Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter, the San Francisco Writers Conference, and the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. 

Avoid Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers Who Want to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time to Write.

Synopsis: Social media is no longer an option for writers--it is a required element of every author’s platform. If you’ve been avoiding Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social networks because you think tweeting and posting will take large chunks of time out of your day and leave you with little time to write, think again. Using social media to market your books doesn’t need to be time-consuming. And with the four-step formula you’ll find in this book, it won’t be.

Whether you’re a seasoned or a newbie social media user, this book will introduce you to posting schedules, timesaving applications and content-rich websites that will help you economize the time you spend using social media to promote your books. You will learn:

• How to create and perfect your author platform.
• Where great content exists on the Internet and how you can use it to further your brand within your niche.
• The importance of being social and applications that make this task easy and fun.
• Tools that enable you to track and measure your success so you can better understand the return on investment of your valuable time.
• Which tools prevent you from accessing the Internet when the time comes to sit and write that next book.
• Exercises for introverted writers to help you feel comfortable on the social web.

Frances Caballo is hosting a book giveaway for Avoid Social Media Time Suck on Goodreads during the month of April.

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I'm standing atop my virtual author platform here to share with you my novels:

GOING BAREFOOT IN GREENER GRASS

A wedding, a broken engagement and plenty of kick off your shoes fun!

Spring-fling low rate of $5.99 on KINDLE and NOOK

SECRETS, LIES AND APPLE PIES

An affair, an epic car accident and a basket of delicious deceptions!

Yummy read at $5.99 on KINDLE and NOOK