Promote Yourself

Social Media 101

Here You Will Learn:

What is Social Media/Social Networking?

Social media refers to the tools and technology that people use to connect and communicate with one another. It includes, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Flickr, other photo sharing sites, and much, much more.

A social network is an online community of people who are connecting to each other via a particular website or service. They are generally public (so anyone can join it), and feature a posted profile for each member, along with opportunities for them to communicate. The result of these connections can be many things, such as: sharing contact information, photos, videos, and professional opportunities. LinkedIn is a great example of a professionally-oriented social network.

The process of connecting with someone via social media and social networks is sometimes called “friending” (on Facebook) or “following” (on Twitter). Regardless, the basic concept is the same: You connect with people to share and communicate—to spread the word about your work more widely than you could offline.

Back to Top

Why Use Social Media?

Just like ACX itself, social media tools open new channels of access and opportunity. Think of these tools as the key to growing your potential fan base.

Sharing is the central aim of social networking and social media. Online, people share news, photos, professional connections, updates, blogs, and other information. And everyone in the same network, or on the same site can comment on any of the information being shared. This creates a dynamic, ongoing, “live” conversation.

Using these social network tools selectively allows you to control your online persona. For example, you may want to post your status to Twitter and to your personal Facebook account, but not to your LinkedIn Profile or your Facebook Fan Page. It’s easy. With a couple clicks, your message goes out to all of the places you’ve selected—and only to those places. All of this helps to raise your profile and build recognition for you and your work. In other words, it helps you get the word out about your audiobook to a practically unlimited audience of buyers.

All of this helps build bonds between individuals based on what they have in common. It helps to spread information broadly. It helps to raise your profile, building recognition for you and your work. In other words, it helps you get the word out about your book to a practically unlimited audience of buyers.

You might email a colleague about your new audiobook. She might tweet about it to her 500 followers on Twitter. Her witty message could then be retweeted to thousands, and it could spark interest in 10% of those readers, who then visit your blog, where they learn more about you, and find a link to your book on Audible.com. From there, they buy your book. This is just an example, but you see how the platform that is social media can have a direct impact on your exposure and, subsequently, your audiobook sales.

This means, leveraging social media outlets could have an impact on your royalty rate, which increases as you reach certain sales targets. Bolstering sales is just another good reason why you should use social media to get the word out to potential buyers.

Back to Top

Where to Start?

The social media landscape changes constantly, with new services and concepts popping up almost every day. But never fear. It works if you just keep it simple: Focus on the core social networking sites—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn—and start building a presence there.

Once you’ve done that, consider starting a blog. It’s much easier than you might think—in fact; plenty of services do most of the work for you.

Then be sure to maintain your online profile regularly. You can have fun doing it, while also growing your fan base…and your royalty rate.

Back to Top

Why Wait?

All of this is in fact easy. If you can use ACX, you can join Facebook or LinkedIn, sign up with Twitter, or start a blog.

So, start spreading the word. Build a profile, make connections, promote yourself and your work, and start selling more audiobooks. It’s not hard, and the financial reward for your efforts can be big.

Back to Top

Terms to Know

Blog
A blog is a website or page that is essentially a public journal. Typically blogs are updated often, (even as much as once a day), and you can use them to share whatever information about your life or your work that you choose. You don’t have to be a coder to have a blog—plenty of services make these sites easy to build and update.

Tweet
A tweet is a short message—140 characters at most—that is sent via Twitter.

Widget
Widgets are the small icons that you see on web pages—the Facebook logo is a common one. They are a simple way to bring the functionality of other applications right onto your blog or website. By clicking the widget, your reader can do something—watch a YouTube video, see a photo—directly on your site or blog, without having to navigate elsewhere.

Tag
Tags help classify online information—information like your blog posts or pages and your videos on YouTube. A tag is simply a word or short phrase (or a collection of words and phrases) that you attach to a page, post, photo, or video. That word or phrase describes your content, so that it is easily found when users are browsing or searching. For example, if you went to see a performance of Shakespeare in the Park and wrote about it on your blog, you might tag your post: “theater, Shakespeare, outdoor performances, Central Park, free,” and perhaps also tag a few of the actors' names.

Podcast
A podcast is a type of broadcast: It’s a digital recording of audio or video, released regularly and made available online for users to download to their personal iPod or other portable player.

Back to Top