When you ask most people what they want out of social media they have one of four answers:
- Drive traffic to my website.
- Gain more brand awareness – make sure people know who I am.
- Improve my organic search results so I appear on page one of Google.
- Build relationships with my customers.
How do you answer that question? Actually, there is one more obvious answer:
Sell My Books!!
Of course. Don’t we all want that? Social media is a great tool to help ring the cash register, but how you get there depends on what your goal is.
For each of the goals listed above, there can be a different strategy. Some networks are better for driving traffic than others just like some social media is better at making connections than others.
When you create your marketing plan for your book, you need to keep your ultimate goal in mind so that you are focused in your efforts and resist wasting time, effort and money.
CMO.com – Chief Marketing Officer – is a wonderful resource for all things marketing. One of the things I love about this website is that every year, since 2010, they have published a social media landscape identifying those four goals I mentioned and which corresponding social network will help you achieve your goals.
As you can see from the 2014 graphic – those squares that are green are a GO – a great tool. Yellow squares show the so-so options and red squares won’t help at all. So while you may think Instagram is the bees knees, it really is a terrible tool for search engine results and driving website traffic. Click here for the full size 2014 social media landscape from CMO.
Okay, I can already hear you…”But Lisa, this isn’t 2014 any more.” Yep, I know. And with a changing year, CMO has changed their format of the social landscape away from those four goals.
The new landscape is totally changed – just like social media does on a regular basis. For 2015 the landscape looks like this:
As you can see, the focus is now turned from search results to awareness, selling and customer connections. Click here for a full size version of the 2015 social media landscape from CMO.
Personally, the old format is easier to use and that is why I offer up both for you to examine. In the new chart, CMO introduces six new social networks and if you haven’t mastered the original four: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, you may not be ready for WeChat, QZone and Plurk. I know I’m not.
Bottom line: The Internet is an ever changing, valuable way to connect with readers and sell your books. But you must first have a plan and then you can begin to execute the plan. Start small. I recommend the blog – but choose what makes the most sense for you, your time, your abilities and your target audience.