How Social Media can give ANY Author an Edge

Posted by admin

August 15, 2007

Imagine you had one place, just one place you could send the media, prospective reviewers, book buyers, bookstores, distributors, bloggers, fans, other authors — anyone at all who wanted to know all there was to know about you and your book?

Not only a place where they can learn more; but a place where they can:

View all your major media coverage.
See all of your past and present press releases.
Look up all of your past and future events.
Read all of your book reviews.
Download multimedia material like author photos, book cover art, press kits, sales sheets, podcasts, vidcasts, book trailers, etc..
View your biography, along with links to any social or business networking profiles you may have like LinkedIn, Myspace, Second Life, etc.
Check out your own purpose-built del.icio.us page linking to other sites relevant to you or your book.
Subscribe through RSS feeds to any portion of information on the site.
Share any content of the site with their friends or colleagues, via email or by posting to social bookmarking indexes like del.icio.us or Digg with one click.
Send you an instant message using AIM, Yahoo Messaging, MSN, Skype, etc.
Link directly to your latest blog posts.
Search the site or the entire Web using either Google or Technorati.
Link to other blogs or Web sites that are relevant to your message.
See all Technorati tags related to your content.
Comment directly on your media coverage, press releases, events, and book reviews.

This place is called a “Social Media Newsroom.”

You may have heard the buzz about “Web 2.0” or “Social Media” and brushed it off as a passing fad; but the reality is that social media is the future of the Web.

By definition, social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. Social media sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact.

The social media newsroom fulfills this purpose while also taking advantage of the tremendous indexing opportunities social bookmarking services like Technoratti, del.icio.us, and Digg provide. Imagine that each and every entry made in your newsroom (this includes all of your media coverage, book reviews, press releases, bios, photos, book images, podcasts, events, etc.) was not only indexed in Google and all of the other search engines, but also in every social bookmarking index - accessible by millions and millions of bloggers. This is the true power of the social media newsroom for authors — exposure.

Beyond this fantastic exposure though, lies the reason the social media newsroom was created to begin with. It has become the blueprint for the new media - a media that understands multimedia, that wants a one-stop shop for every bit of material they will need for their coverage: fully downloadable and print ready, easily shared with their colleagues, along with links and searches that will lead them directly to more relevant information. Most importantly, though, is that this is a place that welcomes their comments, and interactivity.

Now, many of you may ask: “I already have a Web site with most of these things on it, why do I need a newsroom?” And a valid question, too. Here are two main reasons:

First of all, a newsroom tells the members of the media, book sellers, and reviewers that you are making a serious effort to make their jobs easier. A social media newsroom is like a press release: Imagine how difficult it would be to extract the information the media needed if everyone’s press releases took on a different format? Now, imagine that every time a reviewer or columnist needs information on a book or author, they first have to learn to navigate the site to extract that information. The standardization of the social media newsroom is, therefore, like the standardization of the press release. And it won’t be long before sites without newsrooms will be overlooked in favor of those with them, the same way a non-standard press release is ignored over standard ones.

Secondly, as we mentioned earlier, a social media newsroom means that each of the entries in your newsroom, from a press release to a simple image, is automatically indexed in search engines as well as social bookmarking services, since each entry is itself a separate page of sorts. This means that someone could find your site by running into an image of your book, or by searching for a blog on the subject of your book, or by looking up relevant sites tagged in Technoratti or del.icio.us. Think of it this way: You can have one lottery ticket in the pot, or one hundred - you figure the odds…

A social media newsroom should not necessarily replace your existing Web site, though. You still want a place to be blogging and to have a more traditional place to present other information - especially if you have other faces. You will also do all of your “selling” on your Web site - YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA NEWSROOM IS NOT A SALES TOOL! Your newsroom is meant to be a neutral place to present all of your media materials - just like a press release - just the facts! All of your sales tools will reside on your newsroom, however, so you can easily send buyers there to download your catalog, sales sheets, etc.

Many authors may not have enough media coverage or reviews as yet to justify a complete newsroom; but that does not mean they can’t take advantage of social media optimization. Those authors should consider building their Web sites using a blogging platform like WordPress to power their sites. You get all of the benefits of social bookmarking, RSS feeds, etc. as well as a very easy way to build and maintain a feature rich Web site. Vistit http://www.empoweredbywordpress.com for more tips. Of course, the perfect scenario would be to have both!

Check out the two author’s sites below:

http://www.owenegerton.com

http://www.joemoconnell.com

Both of these sites link to a social media newsroom, so that the sites themselves are freed up for other uses.

Or, go directly to their newsrooms here:

http://www.owenegertonnewsroom.com

http://www.joeoconnellnewsroom.com

Contact the authors, comment on the entries - that is what it’s all about!