somersault

According to Eloqua (@Eloqua), “you don’t have to sell high-fructose foods or video games to amass a meaningful Facebook fandom. Even a marketing automation provider can inspire a vibrant Facebook community.”

Our newest presentation, “10 Ways to ‘Solve’ Facebook for B2B” (#B2Bfacebook), highlights 10 actionable tips – real things you can start (or stop) doing to make a measurable difference in your Facebook marketing efforts. The tips are derived from our collaboration with BrandGlue (@glue), which grew our Fan page by 2,500%, increased Facebook-referred traffic by 150%, and increased Fan engagement to about 3x industry norms. The creative was executed by JESS3 (@JESS3) and PageLever (@PageLever) supplied the data.

When posting on Facebook, these actions hurt your efforts:

·         Infrequent posts

·         Inconsistent posts

·         Declarative posts

·         Repetitive topics

·         No call to action

Read this in full.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Social Media/Word-of-Mouth tab.

Here’s an example of leveraging the power of social media marketing. In Adweek (@Adweek), Tim Nudd (@nudd) reports a “clever little tourism stunt:”

The tiny village of Obermutten in the Graubünden area of Switzerland has gotten itself a sizable online following — putting itself on the map for would-be visitors — through its pledge to print every Facebook fan’s profile picture and post it on the town’s bulletin board.

The campaign, by ad agency Jung von Matt, has been a big success — with the town of 79 people now boasting more than 12,000 Facebook fans. The bulletin board quickly overflowed, so the townspeople have been finding various barn sides to use for the excess.

The case-study video [above] claims that more than 60 million people worldwide have now heard of Obermutten. Traffic to the Graubünden tourism website is up 250%. And the campaign cost of 10,000 Swiss francs reportedly brought in earned media of some 2.4 million francs.

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you strategize your social media marketing.

On SocialTimes (@SocialTimes), Megan O'Neill (@maoneill) says, “Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective kinds of marketing when it comes to influencing purchase decisions.” The following Infographic from WOMMA (@WOMMA) and Column Five Media (@columnfive) takes a look at just how important and effective word of mouth marketing is, online and off.

Enlarge the Infographic.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you engage your consumers so they mention your brand often in their social networks – online and offline.

On The Proactive Report, Sally Falkow (@sallyfalkow) encourages you to map your brand’s social graph. She says “your stakeholders are on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and they’re connecting to each other.”

It’s quite likely that your content is filtering into the social graph across many platforms and nodes. One customer likes a video you post and adds it to their Facebook page. One of her friends tweets the link. A colleague of his sees it and adds your video to StumbleUpon and a follower there posts it to Digg. As it travels across the graph people add comments. Later it gets seen by a journalist researching a story or someone searching for a solution to a problem.

Invest the time to map your social graph. Locate and build relationships with your brand advocates and online influencers.  Respond to your detractors and convert them to fans.

There is real ROI in mapping your social graph and making it possible for your stakeholders to share your content .

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you graph your brand’s social map.

On Search Engine Watch (@sewatch), Ryan Woolley (@RyanWoolley) explains the above SEO Tactics chart (available in print) in a 4-part series, covering

·         Keyword Selection

·         On-site Optimization

·         External Influences (Off-site Optimization)

·         Reporting & Analytics

For example, Woolley writes about applying direct response methodology, granular keyword-level data analysis, and focusing on quality over quantity as being 3 keys that drive SEO success. He describes how to determine which keywords to focus on, what relevance means, attention to user intent, and business impact.

Read each essay by clicking the above bullets.

The Blog Herald (@blogherald) offers bloggers “a brief overview of some of the facts that you need to know in order to stay safe online. For example

1. The Web is world-wide. As such, your content will reach virtually every country and every jurisdiction in the world. As mentioned above, the facts below are based on US law but you always have to remember that what is legal in one area may not be legal in another. That can, in some situations, bite you.

2. As a blogger, you’re posting works to a public forum. Even if only a few people read your site, the law treats it largely the same as if you had screamed everything in a crowded square or printed it on the cover of your local newspaper.

3. As a blogger, you’re responsible legally for what you post and, posting anonymous or pseudonymously is not a guarantee against legal consequences. Such steps can help avoid other consequences, such as professional ones, but generally not legal ones.

Read this in full.

Stay informed with SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) dashboard of more than 400 links and RSS newsfeeds specifically for publishing and marketing executives.

Springwise (@springwise) reports that the advantage of the printed book’s ability to have the author handwrite at a book signing a personal message to the book’s owner on its pages is now gone. “Kindlegraph (@kindlegraph) aims to challenge that, by enabling authors to send personalized, digital inscriptions directly to the reading devices of their fans.”

Created by Evan Jacobs, a former programmer at Amazon, Kindlegraph is designed to facilitate a closer connection between authors and their fans. To personalize their ebook, users log in with their Twitter credentials and select from a list of popular ebooks. So far approximately 1,700 authors are involved, with around 7,500 books listed.

After selecting an ebook, a request is then sent to the author who, after logging in, will see a list of current requests. There is space to type a personalized message, and clicking “Kindlegraph it” will send the message to Docusign APIs which embed the signed message and sends a PDF back to the reader’s Kindle.

Jacobs hopes that authors will use it as a means to build relationships with fans; for example: sending preview chapters or short stories before they are published. A video on the Kindlegraph’s website explains how the platform works in more detail.

Read the full story.

Also see our previous blogposts, “Ebook Autographs” and “How Authors Can Autograph Their Ebooks.”

Mark Coker (@markcoker), founder of ebook distributor Smashwords, wanted to know how readers discover ebooks. So he posted a survey at the ebook forum Mobileread (@mobileread), “challenging readers to select the single most common criterion they follow to discover their next read.”

To capture a broad range of usable data, I suggested 12 answers, one of which was “Other.” Respondents were allowed to select one answer only since I wanted to identify the single most important discovery criteria.

The most-selected answer was “Recommendations from fellow readers on online message forums, blogs and message boards," with 29% of respondents choosing this. By contrast, only 4% selected, “Personal friend/family member recommends it to me.” I think this is fascinating, because it implies readers might trust the collective wisdom of strangers and online acquaintances more than they trust the recommendations of immediate friends and family. At the risk of placing too many eggs in this basket, remember 71% selected something else....

What to make of the results? How might authors and publishers focus their e-publishing efforts based on the data?

·         Target readers who are active in online communities because they influence their fellow readers

·         Maximize the availability of your book so readers can randomly stumble across it and sample it

·         Boring titles, unprofessional cover images and poorly written book descriptions are instant turn-offs

Read this article in full.

Also read our previous blogpost “Where & Why We Buy Books.”

More research on a variety of topics is available on the SomersaultNOW dashboard under the Research tab. Stay abreast of the latest information with this helpful online resource for publishing and marketing executives.

Video production has become a vital and necessary skill for book publishers because of the Web’s culture that elevates video to the top caliber on the attractiveness meter. If publishers are going to appeal to the Millennial generation to read books, video is going to have to be used.

On Publishing Perspectives (@pubperspectives), Steve Stockman (@SteveStockman), the author of How to Shoot a Video That Doesn’t Suck, offers ten basic tips for novices in book world videomaking:

1. Think in shots (create motion, don’t press play and let it run endlessly)

2. Treat Your Video Camera Like a Still Camera

3. Don’t Shoot Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes (close-ups, faces, reactions)

4. Use an External Mic

5. The Rubbermaid Rule (don’t overestimate the length of your video; if you think 10 minutes, 3 minutes is better)

6. Two Words Guaranteed to Take Your Video Viral: Naked Celebrity (if you don’t have that, there’s no guarantee, so make the best video possible for your book’s audience)

7. Take Video Seriously (ie. invest in it, train staff to do it right, or hire the pros…)

8. Treat Your Author Like a Star (avoid bad lighting, poor sound quality and don’t use video that doesn’t make them look like a rock star…)

9. Tell a Story (beginning, middle and end…)

10. The Book Brain and the Video Brain are Different Brains

Read this in full.

Also see, "Surveying the Good and Bad in Book Trailers."

On O’Reilly Radar (@radar), Jenn Webb (@JennWebb) interviews Rochelle Grayson (@RochelleGrayson), CEO of BookRiff, (@BookRiff), a publishing start-up going live at the end of September. Jenn asks, “Ever want to compile your own cookbook, travel guide or textbook? Has your publisher edited out sections of your book you'd like to share with interested readers? BookRiff aims to solve these problems by creating new ways to access and compile content.”

Her interview explains how BookRiff works and how it can benefit publishers and consumers. Rochelle says her company is based on an open market concept, allowing publishers to sell the content they want at prices they set and consumers to buy and customize that content as they see fit; each getting a percentage of sales along the way.

A Riff is a remix of chapters from published books, essays, articles, or even one's own content. The concept behind BookRiff is to create an online platform that allows consumers and publishers to remix and to resell content, while ensuring that all original content owners and contributors get paid.

BookRiff’s target audience is “domain experts” who can curate — and perhaps even create — content that is of interest to a specific reading audience. This could include things like cookbooks, travel guides, extended “authors editions,” and custom textbooks.

Read this in full.

How do you foresee this effecting your publishing/sales/distribution plans for the next 12 months?