Tag: social media marketing

Content Pillars Lead Your Social Media Plan

Posted on by CMPR

What is a content pillar?  That’s marketing speak for a theme.  Content pillars lead your social media plan to build an audience.  Once you feel comfortable posting on your social platform, the next step is to identify what you want to write about regularly.  These “pillars” will support your platform and help you create many great things for your followers.

Authentic Content Pillars

Many people are stuck on what to talk about, so they randomly post stuff just to be “active”.  Sadly, that won’t work if you are serious about using social media as a tool to build a following.  You are fighting short attention spans, an overwhelming amount of users, and a mysterious algorithm.  I know it can feel artificial to “create” based on marketing principles and conventions.  However, many people  strike a balance between what comes natrually, and what they need to communicate to grow.

The Content Pillar You Know Best

So here’s what I know from working with artists and writers for most of my life–you are not the best judges of what is interesting to the people who consume your books, music, films, etc.  To authors writing is a purpose, a curse, a discipline, a dream, annoying, easy, difficult, frustrating, and whatever other terms you want to throw at it.  To readers or aspiring writers, your world is a mystery, filled with things they can’t reach on their own.  With this in mind, let’s play with some sample topics around the content pillar of WRITING:

Topic 1: A writing journal, what do you feel like when you write.  Repeat for every day that you sit down at your computer.

Topic 2: Writing advice, tips you provide and those you find from other famous or non-famous writers that you research online.

Topic 3: For fantasy writers, world-building and character-building.  Here you can talk about your process and those of your colleagues, or you can literally talk about the world and characters in your books.   Bring them to life for your audience and talk about what you can’t find between the pages.

Your Goal When Creating Your Content

Your goal is to be able to start with your theme, then take your topics and create a combination of feed posts, stories, reels, or their equivalents on your platform of choice.  For example if you choose to do a journal you could include views that inspire writing as your images.  You could do a reel of something your house pets do when you sit down.  My cat likes (demands) to jump on my lap, then she meows like crazy because I’m typing instead of paying attention to her.  I would put your topic at the top of a page and then jot down all the things that go with it from a visual and an internal point of view.

Cat takes over my work station constantly.
Not mine, but you cat lovers totally get it.

Now, look what you’ve done.  You have some topic ideas that are original to you, and. they can educate and engage your audience.  Ideally it is a good idea to have a couple of pillars that you plan on your content calendar for the month.  Think about who you are trying to reach and what will encourage them to pay attention to what you are saying.  Here are some things we have done for clients over the years that have been successful:

  • For a writer of plausible thriller fiction, we created a tag line for a content pillar that tells readers about Things You Should Know But Don’t.   Every week there are posts relating to something going on in the world that isn’t on the front page, but is important to know.  We organize the posts by topic depending on what is being covered in the news.
  • A male author writing a female character has a platform dedicated to the character who covers her fascinating life, and how to navigate the world as a twenty-something woman.  Her pillars are a regular “Diary” and “Ask Gina”, which is a parody of Dear Abby.  When a new book comes out she talks about what’s happening in her life and teases out aspects to look forward to in the future.

The Simple Things

Once you establish the content pillars to lead your social media planning, you will feel more grounded. It will be easier to generate ideas for different kinds of posts.  As you grow your following, you will learn about your audience and may get suggestions from them.  Sometimes it is the simplist thing that can delight a community.  Recently, an author I met said that she started posting sunrises, because she likes to write at that time.  This took off for her, because, as she said, who doesn’t love sunrises?

For more information and to read more about content creation search “content marketing” on our blog page.  You can also read a recent post Optimizing Your Link in Bio

 

 

 

Social Media for Authors: 5 Simple Solutions

Posted on by CMPR

In October I spoke at an Authors Guild event in NYC about social media for authors.  It was moderately attended at the library but there were over 100 online attendees, which I thought was impressive.  I realize that digital marketing and social media marketing are areas where many people struggle.  I have significant experience and success helping authors.  We even have a Social Media 101 Guide you can download for FREE.   In the meantime, I think there are a few things you can think about right now that can boost your progress.

5 Simple Social Media Solutions

Here are 5 simple solutions to common problems I have noticed when auditing social media accounts for authors.

  1. Use your photo as your profile picture.  The panel I was on in October was unanimous with loud head shaking (if you can imagine that) when someone asked whether they should use their book jacket as their profile photo.   No.  You may write more than one book, so what happens to the following you have built on the current one?  People feel more connected to people and tend to trust profiles that feature a person, not a product.
  2. Make a plan.  Posting here and there is not the way to gain an audience.  Algorithms like to get to know you and to find that you are reliably connecting with interested followers.  Decide how many posts you want to do on a weekly basis on specific days of the week around pre-determined time slots.  Figure out what your topics are beforehand and try to be consistent.  This is especially important on your Instagram grid.  Random posting looks messy and disjointed.  If you want to show people a great photo of you on vacation, use the Stories function.  Otherwise think about what you want to share and try to stick to the topics and themes.
  3. If you hate it don’t do it.  My colleagues agree that if you absolutely can not see yourself feeding a social platform don’t get started.  It looks worse to have an empty page than it does to have a small follower count, but an active page.
  4. Spend a few dollars.  When you are starting out try boosting or advertising a post to a target audience.  See what kind of engagement you get.  If it doesn’t work well, try a different topic or image.  If that doesn’t work consider changing your targets.  Play with the platform and spend $20 for 4 days of boosting.
  5. Play.  Yes, I am telling you to play with social media.  Try different combinations of colors, images, videos, text, themes, topics, audience targets, and bids for boosting to see what starts to stick.  People born before 1985 have a more difficult time using social media.  That’s ok.  I’ve seen otherwise completely anti-tech and anti-social people get excited about the amount of creativity they can apply to start a conversation or make an impression.

You Can’t Break Your Social Media

So writers, try testing out a few things and let your work entertain you in the process.  You can’t break anything when you start out, because you haven’t built anything yet.  Worry about mistakes when you have thousands of followers.  The only caveat is that you try to avoid the same topics you wouldn’t bring up at a party: Sex. Politics, and Religion

I would love to see the community you are creating on your social platforms.  Follow me at @mckinneymediagroup and I’ll follow you back!

For additional ideas check out our blog channel and search “social media”.  You can start with advice on timing: When Should You Start Being Active on Social Media?

Why is Your Digital Personal Brand Important in 2021?

Posted on by Claire McKinney

Why should you care about your digital personal brand?  It’s not just your reputation, it is also the 21st century platform that enables you to work, socialize, sell a product, and plan and achieve goals. I was speaking with an author recently who publishes a book every year.  Prior to 2017 he says his books would sell 2,000 + copies in paperback.  Since then, he is lucky if he sells 200.  What happened?  Did his fans abruptly change their minds about his books?  Was he blackballed from Facebook? Since he is a self-published author, his primary means of selling was online, but somehow it was as if he had disappeared from cyberspace.

How do you disappear in cyberspace?

Sometime in the last five years between changing algorithms, and a critical mass of over three billion people on social media, the rules changed.  When once you could post a few times a week on a platform, build a reasonable audience, and become more popular, now you have to have a brand and a plan.  Enter CoVid, the constant stream of bad news and politics, stores shut down, and more people online than ever before, doing everything from work to school to entertainment.   Do you think this is temporary? Nope.  Even when more of us venture outside of our homes,  experts say the move to digital was fast-tracked by necessity, and much of it is here to stay.

How does a digital personal brand work?

Imagine that you are a high school science teacher by day and host a podcast on sci fi entertainment by night (or any other time).  As a teacher you go to school, see students, engage with colleagues and parents, and have a reputation as an effective educator.  You tell people about your podcast and you gain a few downloads from your connections, but nothing that will justify the time it takes to put your shows together.  How can you solve this problem and make your podcast successful?

If you had a digital personal brand with a presence on social media platforms and a business page for your podcast, you would have a base from which to start growing an audience.  You could utilize Instagram and Facebook to post your audio and link to iTunes and other streaming services.  You could research people interested in your topic and connect with them to get listeners as well as potential guests and topics for your show.  As you build your audience you could offer promotions and incentives for them to provide content for you to repost, tagging the original user.  Then you will show up in that user’s network with exposure to all of their friends and followers, and so on, and so on.(Anyone remember that Faberge commercial for shampoo?)

Why do you need to put YOU first to get noticed?

The science teacher may think creating her podcast is the hard part, but it isn’t.  The first step is having the content.  Then she needs to plan on how she is going to be in front of people who are spending time in the digital space.   Brian Solis says that we have become a society of digital narcissists.  To make that premise work to your advantage, you will need to figure out who you are; who you want to be; what you are promoting; and how you are going to communicate all of this in a consistent, branded manner on digital media.

 

What Does it Cost to Hire a Publicist or Digital Marketing Consultant?

Posted on by CMPR


If you are an individual or a small business, the question of what does it cost to hire a publicist or digital marketing consultant is an important one.  If you are just looking for an intern to post for you on Facebook and Instagram and you aren’t in need of a professional strategist, plan, campaign, etc., then this may be more than you need.  If you are investing in your business, career, product launch, or all of the above, then read on.

Several years ago I wrote a blog about hiring a publicist and it continues to generate traffic and interest.  Although the goals of these jobs are the same, the tools we use and the way we go about getting the job done has changed.  Instead of becoming less demanding as a result of a shrinking traditional media landscape, our jobs have grown.  In order to be successful we have to grow communities, sell to target audiences, conduct events virtually and in person, and get press attention every time we hit a goal.   The cost to hire a publicist or marketing consultant is going to be based on the level of experience of the person/team and the amount of time your project is going to take.  The more experience, skills, and services you want, the larger the budget.

What Does it Cost to Hire a Digital Marketing Consultant

I specialize in individualized brands, which include authors, experts, academics, thought leaders, and specialists of any kind.  Most of these people develop their images on social media in order to gain the credibility they need to sell something or be featured in the mainstream media.  The best way to do this these days is through social media.  There are so many firms out there offering social media services it is very difficult to know what to pay or what you should get.  Here are a few services to look at when you are deciding who to hire:

Plan and Strategy: Whether you are already on social media and are not getting the results you want, or you are completely new to this world, a strategy and plan are important.  A lot of people will worry about posting more and creating cool content without understanding how much their efforts are achieving.  You need to know that in order to make a difference and accomplish your goals.  Firms that offer these services should be spending at least four to six weeks working on your plan and strategy and additional time teaching you how to implement it.  The cost: $10,000 – 20,000.

Monthly Content Development and Posting:  This job requires a range of things from writing blogs to designing graphics and composing posts on multiple platforms.  It will require materials from you including photos, boilerplate copy for your business, and any slogans you use.  Video content can come from you directly in the form of single, in-person commentary, or be developed further by your marketing team.  This may also include running ads.  Posting will include a content calendar, scheduling, and analysis.  The range of costs: $600/month for a single campaign on one platform – $2,500+/month on multiple platforms.  The cost is dependent on the number of platforms and the amount of content that needs to be produced and scheduled.

What Does it Cost to Hire a Publicist?

I’m sure if you are Lady Gaga you are spending many thousands a month to have a PR team run your brand.  At that level you have someone listening and monitoring your brand on social media, planning, posting, blocking press and news stories, granting interviews, and more.

For our purposes, we are going to stick with a more general level of service and cost.  Again, there are many service options and people who offer them.  I differentiate them in a couple of ways “plug n’ play” and “customized campaigns”.

“Plug n’ Play”: These services are usually very reasonable, but they are limited.  If you are looking for someone to accomplish a part of the job for you, like offering a list of media contacts or pitching a set number of outlets, this would work for you.  The costs: For a limited campaign or service: $hundreds to purchase lists; $5000+ to be pitched to a specific list of contacts and scheduled for reviews or interviews over a short period of time (6 – 14 weeks).

Customized Campaigns: A campaign like this could involve regional and national media, bloggers, influencer targetting, event planning, national media, and speaking engagements.  Depending on whoever else is on your team it could also involve social media and brand management and marketing.  If you are looking for long term public relations for yourself and your brand the costs are usually set monthly for a contracted period.  If you are planning a single product launch or book launch then the campaign is usually set up as a “project” and charged accordingly.  The costs: $3,500 – 5,000/month for a retainer/contract, $20,000+/project.

Whether you are looking to grow your brand, business, or product, it is important to have a plan and a way to execute it.  Hiring an expert is an investment.  Being informed about the services and costs will help you determine what you will pay to have done and what you will do on your own.