In his new book Launch, Michael A. Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, says lightening up on your sales message and helping your target audience with great content is the key to social media success.

Michael offers the elevation principle in a simple formula:
GC + OP – MM = G
Spelled out, the formula reads: ‘‘Great Content’’ plus ‘‘Other People’’ minus ‘‘Marketing Messages’’ equals ‘‘Growth’’

Launch book cover

The idea is to gain your market’s trust and attention by giving them information that is helpful and appealing to them, instead of giving them your sales pitch.

This is a highly cost effective marketing tool if done right, as Michael explains. It just requires research into what your audience wants to know. Then some creative planning to deliver it to them in an engaging way at the right time of day via the right social media.

Basically, Michael says: “Your goal should be to trigger this thought in the minds of people:

‘‘If their content is this good, how much more valuable would their products or services be?’’ Triggering the ‘‘how much more?’’ question is highly desirable and will help turn lurkers into customers.”

Click here to read the first chapter of Launch and get more detail on this powerful marketing concept.

The power of social media to engage and connect with your target audience cannot be ignored by anyone marketing a business today. Public relations people and publicists know offering informative and entertaining content that’s relevant and timely is the key to getting valuable free editorial coverage . The same goes for social media marketing – because offering content that is informative, entertaining and ever-changing is the key to engaging with your audience. Engaging first and selling later is the main principle of social media marketing.

Major brands Coca Cola and Starbucks are said to have five times more traffic to their Facebook fan pages than to their websites. That’s why investing in your social media presence is so important for today’s marketer.  To learn more about social media, a fantastic place to start is by subscribing to Social Media Examiner.

If you don’t have time to learn all about social media and use it to generate leads, then you can hire a social media manager to set you up, train you up, or do it for you.

To get media publicity, you have to have the right attitude. In fact, your attitude is more important than your aptitude, says US book publicist Jodee Blanco in The Complete Guide to Book Publicity, available on Amazon.

Having the right attitude starts with understanding how you can develop a win-win relationship with the media. Unlike advertising, you can’t buy editorial space – you have to earn it.

This means researching the media outlet you are approaching with a well-considered story idea that will appeal to their audience. You earn publicity by helping journalists do their jobs. The win-win comes when you get valuable free coverage money can’t buy and the journalist gets a story.

As Jodee Blanco says: “Many novices are either too tentative or overly cocky on the phone…”  The key is being confident enough to sell your pitch while understanding the media don’t owe you anything. You are trying to help them do their job.

It’s your preparation that brings confidence.

The other key factor to having the right attitude is overcoming fear of rejection. Your book won’t be right for every media outlet, no matter how convinced you are otherwise. When you get no interest or no reply from the media (because it will happen), don’t take it personally. Understand journalists are always busy and are only interested in story ideas that make their jobs easier. It’s not a direct criticism of you or your book. It’s just about finding the right fit with the right media for your topic.

Yours in book publicity

Chelsea McLean

It pays to listen when bestselling Australian author Rachael Bermingham gives book marketing advice. Recently Rachael spoke at a breakfast event organised by Terri Cooper to share how she came to write and publish four bestselling books in four years, including the mega-successful 4 Ingredients.

When I asked Rachael about her most effective book marketing strategy, she was quick to reply with this ‘zero-cost’ technique:

1. Write a kick-ass media release that is eye-catching – don’t be afraid to break the rules and use colours, images, bold and italics to capture the media’s attention.
2. After you send the release, personally call everyone you sent it to within 48 hours.
3. When you get a journalist on the phone, say you are calling to see if they received your media release. If not, tell them about your book.
4. Tell a story and explain how your book benefits people. Don’t ever sell your book – instead, get the right angle for a topic that will engage the media audience.
5. Make it about the community – what they want and need. Appeal to people’s emotions.
6. Watch the media and comment on what is happening within your area of expertise.

You have to sell 300,000 copies to have a bestselling book in Australia. Rachael and her co-author Kim McCosker sold over 950,000 copies of 4 Ingredients 1 which was named bestselling book of 2008 in Australia. You can see their hugely successful media release here -

Sample media release – 4 ingredients

And you can get the book’s media kit and more on 4 Ingredients 2 and 4 Ingredients Gluten Free on this web page

Rachael has also self-published How to write your own book & make it a BESTSELLER which is full of secrets for how to make your book into a bestseller.

Go here to get your copy of this easy to follow guide to writing, self publishing and promoting your own book by a woman who has sold over a million copies of her own books.

Yours in book publicity

Chelsea McLean

So you are about to launch a new book with high hopes of attracting national TV coverage and appearing on the likes of A Current Affair, Today Tonight, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, The Morning Show, Sunrise and Today.

When you pitch to these programs, they show interest! But alas! There’s a catch! Turns out every show wants to be the first to have your story go to air. That means you have to choose and risk disappointing the other programs. What to do?

For most authors, the unfortunate reality is you may not be able to appear on more than one big TV show at the time of your book launch. The producers will ask you if you are appearing on another show and if you have already committed to an interview, they might pass on your pitch because they are worried their viewers will switch off if they have already seen your story.

So what is the best way to handle this when you are seeking to maximise publicity for your book?

You can either stagger your pitches to your most promising TV programs first and wait for their response before moving on to the next one. But this takes time and you need to be ready to start pitching about a month in advance of your book launch. If time is an issue, the other option is to pitch to all your target TV shows at the same time.

A plus for pitching simultaneously is you could play interested shows off each other to encourage them to be the first to say yes to an interview. It might help you move things forward faster if you have more than one major program interested at the same time.

The downside for this is, once you have committed to an interview, it could be too late if another show asks you later. This can be a downer, especially if the other show reaches a larger audience!

Ranking which programs you would prefer to be on first can help you manage your approach and seek the most exposure possible for you and your book. There is no hard and fast answer for how to approach this, but it helps to be prepared and know how it works with TV.

Yours in book publicity

Chelsea McLean