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Who says animators can't be tech entrepreneurs?

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We all know that social media marketing is a must for at least five reasons: 1. Increased visibility 2. Increased traffic and rankings 3. Building authority 4. Making connections 5. Finding potential clients / customers (leads) The biggies in the social network channels are Facebook and Twitter, with Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn following behind. But, should this be the case? LinkedIn in

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Let someone you invite to your network know how you came to find them or be referred to them. It can be as simple as, “I’m long time friends with so and so and I found your contact through her and think our connection here may be mutually beneficial.” Anything less than that is just creepy like the stock messages I’ve been getting on LinkedIn, “Please join my network.” My knee-jerk thinking is, “What do you think this is? Twitter or something? I don’t know you! I only talk to complete strangers on that social network.

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In a recent update notice, LinkedIn noted that it would be “removing the Products and Services tab from all Company Pages” on April 14th. The content there will still be okay, but you won’t be able to add new items. If you have a LinkedIn Company Page, you need to know how you can still promote your products and services through LinkedIn. Using Updates The first way is to use your Updates

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Think you don't have enough venues to post your content to? Well, LinkedIn added one more. The business oriented site allows ALL members to  to publish their content. According to a very interesting article at HubSpot.com: Once you publish, your post will appear on your profile and be shared with your network -- people who you're connected to and members who just follow your posts. You'll

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LinkedIn published a collection of more than 50 essays about the big ideas that will shape 2013, including a number of authors and literary-focused pieces. We’ve collected links to our five favorites below.

Earlier this year, LinkedIn enabled a number of “thought leaders” to create longer posts on the social network, building a collection of short essays from writers and industry leaders.  Here’s more from the post:

We decided to harness that wisdom by polling the thought leaders, and the results were impressive. Industry heavyweights in finance, medicine, education, non-profit, media and more replied enthusiastically to this challenge: What one issue, innovation or event will change the world in 2013? What’s the “big idea” you’ll be betting on?  Over the next year, we’ll ask thought leaders to use LinkedIn to weigh in on a number of other timely and relevant topics, so stay tuned for more online cocktail parties like this one. Let us know in the comments here and in each post, What’s your big idea?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Writers use forums and listings nearly every day for one purpose or another. There are community forums for those in the arts, those unique to writers and critiquing, editing and polishing, and discussions on every aspect of the writing business. Listings come in almost as many flavors and scopes as forums.

Freelancers make the rounds of both communication forms to stay tuned, toned, and in demand. Today I made forays into two separate freelance jobs listings; one within a LinkedIn group of which I’m a member, and another on Elance. I was successful in finding enticing possible job contracts.

If you’ve been around this blog often, you know that I have large projects lined up for the next several months. After the previous paragraph you’re going to ask me why I would be looking for another job of any kind. That’s fair.

I could have my eye on a lovely little boat to use during the summer on our gorgeous Flathead Lake. Or, I could want to travel in Europe next year and want to have plenty in savings to play. Then again, I could simply want a better financial cushion than I have now.

Working on only one large spec project can easily keep me occupied. Having half a dozen doesn’t give me much time to spare, though I still find time for a bit of social networking. Adding a job to the mix right now would be mental suicide, I agree.

Keeping abreast of the market, opportunities, and competition within the freelance writing world, however, is necessary. A plum could present itself at just the right moment to pave the way for bigger success and greater financial security and without stopping by such job sites on a regular basis, the writer can lose out.

Call this activity checking the pulse of the industry. Writers are entrepreneurs. They need to know what’s happening. The market can shift quietly and sneakily as smoke, leaving a writer out of the loop and as adrift as sulfur vapor puffs from a starter’s pistol.

Who could have anticipated the fiction industry shift when Stephanie Meyer’s first Twilight book, or Rowling’s Harry Potter? Those two series set the tone for a major change in the MG and YA children’s book market. Hindsight tells us that vampires come into the light every few decades, their popularity undiminished with time.

Magic and all that it entails has been around since ancient Greece. Fantasy series have been big genre business for decades. The primary component of fantasies is MAGIC. Rowling presented the concept in a slightly different manner and caught the brass ring.

Reading through job listings for writers indicates where the market is moving. Three quarters of what I found on Elance this morning were content writer contracts. The Internet is vacuuming up writers for information dis

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I am what the savvy might term a slow adopter. I tend to like things as they are.  My movies on the big screen.  My books between their covers.  My conversations in person, face to face.

That is not this world.

And if I am less than knowledgeable about Facebook (I am, perhaps, one of its least organized and aware members), have failed to take on Twitter, am not inclined toward Google +, only just yesterday did justice to my LinkedIn profile (how shabby my former presence was), and make more mistakes in typing Blackberry texts than any living writer, I am coming around to the way the world works.

I have an iPad 2 and I use it to read the New York Times (except the Times magazine, which I still prefer to hold), to catch up with the Inquirer, to read the occasional Kindle or iBook.  (The New Yorker and Food and Wine and Vanity Fair still come, old style, to my house.)  My email friends are legion.  I'm an old-time blogger (holding my ground here, refusing to vanish).  And lately I've been thinking about (not dreading, but embracing) the new ways in which the publishing industry works.  Why not an Amazon single, for example, if the audience is already primed for it?  And why not a book with multi-media illustrations—something web friendly, something e-alive?

It's the middle of August.  The days have been long.  I prefer autumn to summer.  I look toward the new season with hope for my October 25 release, You Are My Only, with eagerness to connect with some of you at a variety of talks, and with the high suspicion that I'm about to change the way I go about making of (some) books.  

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Everything You Do Online Reflects on Your Book: Make Sure That Reflection Is Professional
Guest Expert: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

This month’s guest post is a natural extension of last month’s guest post “Do Your Offline and Online Book Promotion Activities Support Each Other?”

In that post I talked about how your book author website should present consistent information about your offline and online book promotion activities.

In addition, all your online book promotion activities should present you as a professional book author, regardless of whether your book was traditionally published or self-published.

Recently a book marketing consulting client asked me why he could not build a website himself for his nonfiction book the same as he had built for his business. I asked if he wanted my honest response.

When he said yes, I told him that his business site did not look professional. (And he agreed.) Then I added, as everything related to a book reflects on that book, he should have a book site that does appear professional.

And this advice about professionalism extends to everything you do online to promote your book.

For example, I’ve noticed typos in the Twitter profile bios of many people. Now this bio has a maximum of 160 characters. Do take the brief time to make sure you have spelled all the words in the bio correctly.

I always proofread my tweets and the comments I leave on blog posts before hitting “submit.” Now I know I may still occasionally miss an error, but I do try to ensure that whatever I write online is professional.

And this same advice goes for tweetchats or forum discussions or whatever.

Why is this so important?

You do not want to appear unprofessional and risk this reflecting negatively on your book.

And as you have spent a great deal of time writing your book, you should take the time to make sure you are not hindering your own book promotion efforts.

Bonus tip for customizing your Facebook and LinkedIn URLs rather than having those long URLs:

Facebook: Sign into your account. Then go to www.facebook.com/username and get your customized URL for your Facebook personal profile.

(Note that this profile must be in your own name and NOT your business name or you are in violation of Facebook terms. See my blog post )

Also, if you have a Facebook Page for business – formerly called a Fan Page – Facebook currently requires that you have at least 25 people who have “liked” your page before you can go to www.facebook.com/username and get a customized URL for your Facebook Page. But when you have at least 25 people, also get a customized URL for this page.

LinkedIn: Sign into your account. Then click on PROFILE (in navigation bar) and click on EDIT PROFILE.

On the right-hand side of the next screen click on CHANGE PUBLIC PROFILE SETTINGS.

Then you’ll see at the top of the next screen YOUR PUBLIC PROFILE URL and click on EDIT.

And, yes, having a customized URL instead of a long, awkward URL can reflect positively on yo

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Guest Expert: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

It helps to have a roadmap to follow when promoting a book, whether it is your first book or your 15th. And if you want to use social media effectively to promote your book, you need to go through some foundation stages before you even get to using social media:

Stage 1: Identifying Your Brand

Now before you say that’s easy – it’s the title of your book, let’s think this through a moment. The title of a book is usually not the brand of an author – even if that author ever only writes one book.

Your brand is what makes you as an author – and by extension the books that you write – stand out from the crowd. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Years ago a mystery bookstore owner told me that people would come into her store and ask for the next book in the alphabet mysteries series. What I at first found incredible is that fans of this series neither remembered the name of the author – Sue Grafton – or the very distinctive book titles, such as “A Is for Alibi,” “B Is for Burglar,” “C Is for Corpse.”

Sue Grafton has a very distinctive brand – alphabet mysteries. What’s your distinctive brand?

Stage 2: Your Book Author Website

Your book author website is your home base for all your book activities regardless of whether your publisher also gives you a page on the publisher’s website.

It’s important that you have a site that you completely control. This way you can make changes at a moment’s notice (for example, when you get a last-minute invite to do a radio interview or book signing). I recommend a self-hosted WordPress.org site for this (which can include a blog) (note that this is not the same as a hosted WordPress.com site).

Whether you have an existing site or are planning a new one, be sure that the site is up-to-date. In other words, do not have any outmoded web design elements such as a slow-loading Flash introductory page.

People today want their information instantaneously. When they land on your website, they want to know what is this book (or books) about, fiction, nonfiction, who’s the author?

You want also to be sure to have such elements as an email optin system that will enable you to keep in touch with your book fans.

Stage 3: Your Social Media Activities

Now you are ready to have an effective and active social media presence in order to connect with prospective fans. I recommend starting with one of these sites and then adding in the others:

• Facebook personal profile
• Facebook (business) page about your book or books
• LinkedIn profile
• Twitter account

And as you are a book author, you will also want to take advantage of the book promotion opportunities on BookBuzzr.

Be sure to use the same good headshot across all these sites to help in recognition. And you’ll want to learn as much as your time allows on how to effectively participate on each of these sites.

For example, it’s important to remember that Twitter is NOT about selling your book. Twitter is about sharing information and occasionally mentioning your book.

Of course, if you have a blog, which is definitely a good idea if you are a writer, then you can post the links to your new posts on all of the above sites.

(F

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While searching around LinkedIn the other day, I came upon a presentation on an art director's profile showing the books she had art directed. There was a link to the application she used called SlideShare. I immediately signed up and started creating my own with PowerPoint. You can view it here. I think it's a great idea for illustrators! When you're trying to connect with potential clients, they can easily check out your work. You can have up to 3 presentations uploaded. I plan to create another one for licensing. Remember to save your images under "save for web…" before you place them in PowerPoint to keep your presentation small. I didn't the first time around which made it huge! Good luck!

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