Category: News

3 Social Media Metrics That Do Not Matter

Posted on by Liz Bachmann

Often we find ourselves judging people based on the number of followers an account has or the size of their email list. However, these things don’t really matter. They are called “vanity metrics” because they do not help you make better business and marketing decisions.

What are Vanity Metrics?

Vanity metrics are metrics that look amazing on paper. They can tell a really positive story. But — and this is a big one — they don’t do anything to advance your business goals. 

#1 Followers

The number of followers you have on a given social media platform does not matter. Follower counts can be easily manipulated. Have you ever been approached by one of those Instagram accounts that offers x number of followers for a fee? 

Those followers will never engage with your page or convert to a paying customer or client. Therefore, they are useless. 

Instead, look at the number of people who have reached out to you because of your platforms. Or how many of your ideal clients you have managed to reach. These metrics are far more likely to give you direction with your content than solely looking at follower counts. 

#2 Likes

Likes are another vanity metric that cannot really tell you how your content is performing. Measuring likes with other forms of engagement like saves or comments may be helpful, but honestly, lots of likes just make us feel popular. They don’t do much to meet our business goals.

#3 Subscribers

Subscribers are like followers. They don’t matter unless they will convert and/or are your ideal client. Although it feels nice to have a lot of attention, it is far better to have a small number of incredibly loyal and active fans than a large number on a spreadsheet.

So what metrics should you track?

These depend on your business and social media goals. If you are trying to engage your current community, comments are awesome. If you are trying to spread awareness, retweets and shares are your best friends. 

Trying to create a one-size-fits-all plan for marketing or metrics won’t work because each company and each ideal client/customer is different.

If you are interested in developing your brand and social media strategy, send us an email at cmprteam@clairemckinneypr.com.

For more social media tips, check out these articles: 

Skyrocket Your Organic Reach on Instagram with Video

3 Quick Tips for Using Instagram for your Personal Brand

A Roadmap to Using Bookstagram for Online Book Publicity

Design 101: Fonts

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

Design is a critical element in most aspects of marketing, PR, and social media. It’s the thing that catches people’s attention and draws them in. It could be a book cover design, a flyer, or a graphic you plan to post on your social media feed. If you’re diving into designing things yourself, you’re sure to run into a very important choice at some point – what sort of font will you use? If you’ve never done it before, it can be intimidating. Many programs come with a set of default fonts that you can use freely when you’ve bought the license. However, this can be very limiting. People who have been designing for a long time can often recognize popular fonts on sight. If you want to use font effectively and stand out in whatever you’re making, here’s where to start.

What to look for in a font

The styles of fonts out there are endless- from creepy to elegant to academic, there is something out there that can fit your project perfectly. The first step is understanding what kind of a message you want to get across in your graphic. If you’re designing a book cover for a children’s series, you might choose something rounded and fun. For an invitation to a virtual event, you might want to choose something with looping, cursive-like elements. If it is a more casual event, something with a hand-written print look might be appropriate. If you’re unsure of exactly what you want, try a few different ones and see what fits the look of your graphic. Looking at examples of graphics you like and finding fonts that are similar can be a useful starting point when you’re at a loss.

Where to get fonts

I’m a huge proponent of DaFont, which is a repository of custom fonts where people with a passion for design can upload their work. It’s where I start my searches. Not only is it a large database, but it has fonts clearly sorted and labeled. There are distinct categories for every font to help you find the perfect one. The designers also put their usage terms upfront on DaFont. This is important because to legally use some fonts, you may need to purchase them beforehand. Some are only free for personal use but might require payment for commercial use. Others are 100% free for both personal and professional use. Some may not be used commercially at all! Make sure to check this out before even downloading the font. Beware of fonts that might imitate popular IP (the Harry Potter font is a popular one), since this could also land you in legal hot water. 

Google Fonts is also a place to find fonts that are licensed for both commercial and personal use. It has less choices in terms of categories and gets a bit more technical in its filter system. It is still a comprehensive resource, and you won’t need to worry about whether a particular font is licensed or not.

There are a lot of choices out there – so happy hunting! If you do plan on making your own graphics for social media use, make sure to check out our social media tag for helpful tips!

Marketing Fiction: Beyond Book Reviews

Posted on by Claire McKinney

At the recent Pikes Peak Writers Conference (PPWC) I gave a presentation on identifying major and minor themes that can help with marketing fiction.   Let’s face it.   For indie authors, book reviews in any traditional sense are difficult to come by.  We all want to end up in the New York Times, but there are over 1 million books published every year and only 52 New York Times Book Reviews.  Even with a publicist who knows people at the Times who make editorial decisions, by the numbers it looks like a long haul to getting that review in the paper.

The Problem with “Book” Marketing

Many writers think of their books as singular products, referring to them as my “novel”, “mystery series”, “fantasy”, “romance”, “coming-of-age novel”, etc.  I have been working on marketing fiction for twenty-five years and I can honestly tell you that trying to sell your book to a reviewer based on, “this is a great new novel” is not going to cut it in our competitive world.

One Solution to Fiction Promotion Challenges

There are many strategies you can use, like digital pr, but the one I suggest first is dissecting your book to go beyond book reviews. In my presentation, I described the process using a book we all know, The Great Gatsby.  I analyzed it through a more comprehensive lens–digging deep into any promotional angle I could find. Here is an outline of the process you can try on your book(s).

The Deep Dive for Marketing Fiction

  1. Open a blank document or take a clean sheet of paper. Write the title and genre of your book at the top.
  2. Make two columns, one called “book assets” and the other “my assets”
  3. In the “book assets” column write a list of the locations in your book; any topics that it covers (in Gatsby the list included Prohibition and Class Wars); and anything particularly interesting about the characters.
  4. In the “my assets” column make a list of things that pertain to you and your brand, such as where you live and where you grew up.  Add items like what you do beyond writing; any parts of the book based on your own personal experience; why you wrote what you wrote; and any additional interests, hobbies, or skills that you have.
  5. Now make a list at the bottom of the page of where you can imagine finding interest in the items in either list.  Is there a story in the media that relates to your topics?  In addition to being a novel, does you book include anything of interest to health care, psychology, or business? If your book is a mystery, note mystery outlets that you would target online and in print.
  6. Finally, pretend you are a reporter and write some mock headlines based on your list of angles and outlets.  The Great Gatsby in today’s world might inspire a headline like “Class Divides in New Novel Mirror the Culture of Celebrity and Billionaires vs. Everyone Else”; or “New Novel Explores Whether Class is Defined by your Market Value or by Knowledge and Manners.”

Thank You English Teachers

Remember English Class?  Yup, this process has some similarities.  The exercise will help you think about marketing fiction in a broader way.  It will also help enhance the number of opportunities it will have in the media.  Marketing fiction is always a challenge.  The first step to getting more press and attention is to see how many latent themes and topics your book can address.

For information on marketing fiction, see Case Studies #3

Explore our blog and search for what you need to know.

Expanding Your Organic Reach on Instagram: Video Content

Posted on by Liz Bachmann

Instagram, like all other social media platforms, changes constantly. However, it has never been easier to build an audience organically on Instagram because of short form video content. 

Using Short Form Video Content: Reels

Yes, I am talking about reels. If you aren’t using reels, and you are missing an enormous opportunity for growth. For example, when we had less than 90 followers, we created a reel that got over 3,000 views! Personally, I have an account that had around 1,100 followers and created a reel that has 1.3 million views – and is still growing. Needless to say, no other type of content would have received that sort of attention. Not every reel will go viral — most won’t — but in my experience they consistently have a larger organic reach than any other type of content.

Why is Video so Important for Increasing your Organic Reach?

People like video because it is perceived as authentic. Video allows you to connect with your audience in a way that is just not possible through still images. This is largely why Instagram has increased the ways in which you can share video content on their platform. 

Additionally, content like reels is being pushed from several different areas within the app which increases the likelihood of your content being seen then liked, shared, or commented on!

How to Share Video Content on Instagram

There are several ways to share video content on Instagram: 

  1. Stories: You can share short form video content on Instagram that will stay for 24 hours. These allow you to engage authentically with your audience and post several times a day without overwhelming your audience’s feed. 
  2. IGTV: Long form videos are great for IGTV. Generally these should share evergreen content like a podcast or educational videos. You can organize them into series based on topics. 
  3. Short video posts: You can post short videos to your feed as long as they are under a minute. These can add interest to your feed. 
  4. Highlights: Save your stories and reels shared to your stories to the top of your feed so people can rewatch them after the 24 hour period has passed. 
  5. Reels: One of the newest features on Instagram and a phenomenal way to grow organically. These can be synced with trending music, dances, or lip synced audio. But it doesn’t have to be that fancy, you can also do a simple, short talking head video where you share valuable and entertaining information. 

Pro Tips for Video Content on Instagram

  • Include closed captions
  • Look at hashtags like SEO for your videos (yes, use all 30)
  • Create branded covers for your video content that looks good in your feed as well as a standalone graphic

Don’t Post Aimlessly!

You shouldn’t post video content to Instagram just to post video content. Each piece should have a purpose and be a part of a larger strategy. If you are looking for help with developing your strategy for social media growth, we would love to hear from you.

Additional Resources: 

3 Tips for Using Instagram

3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Social Media Efforts

Tik Tok and Book Promotion

 

Book Review: On a Sunbeam

Posted on by Sonya Dalton

I picked up On A Sunbeam on a whim. The back of the book promised an LGBTQ+ sci-fi love story in the form of a beautiful graphic novel. I was instantly sold. I’m nothing if not a sucker for space adventures with a side of unapologetically queer characters, and this book delivered.

The Plot:

On A Sunbeam focuses on a young woman named Mia. She joins a crew that roams the far reaches of space to restore ruins on other planets. With a diverse cast to support her, the story is part space exploration and part slice-of-life as Mia works towards her true objective: She wants to find out what happened to her old flame from boarding school, Grace.

At first, the book hops between the past and the present. The story of how Mia and Grace met is woven around the narrative of Mia’s current-day life. Mia forges new relationships with those around her but can’t seem to let go of Grace, driving herself and the crew into the furthest recesses of the universe to find her. The story is more about the people within it than the plotline itself. I personally find this compelling, but it can lead to some odd pacing throughout.

The Art:

While the plot itself is straightforward, I’d be remiss to not spend time speaking on Walden’s artwork. I particularly love the way she handles the past vs. present scenes in the beginning of the book. Her linework is messy and dynamic, which can make it hard to tell characters apart at times, but she handles the time skips very well through color. Walden paints the present in shades of maroon while the past is blue. This allows the reader to clearly understand when the storyline shifts. When the two timelines converge to one, the color palette expands to allow for some visually stunning pages.

Walden’s simplicity in her character design is made up for entirely by the energy she spends on backgrounds and scenery. The linework may be scrawling at times, the text handwritten, but the book feels warm as a result. Even scenes meant to convey the vast, emptiness of space are rich and overwhelming. Walden’s visual storytelling is perhaps her strongest selling point.

Final Thoughts:

For me, the book was less of the advertised love story and more of a story about love. It’s about the connections we make with the people around us and how those can have lasting effects long after they’ve come and gone. It’s about rebuilding those connections and bringing past into present and settling regrets. It’s a soothing book and an electrifying read. If you don’t mind plot taking a backseat to characters and you love unique takes on sci-fi aesthetics, I highly recommend this book.

My Score: 9/10

For more reviews from the CMPR team, click here.