If you’re still operating on the misguided notion that social media is not here to stay, or even worse, that it is not a viable option for PR pitching, then step away from this chapter and by all means go back to playing with your mint condition Atari Pong Game.
If however, you do understand that social media is vibrant, ever-increasing and valuable then keep reading!
Today’s lesson is about pitching and social media. What follows are some tips for you to employ if you really want to find the best possible places to pitch yourself, your products or your brand online.
1. Don’t pitch on social media platforms where you don’t have a presence. Set up your Facebook Fan page, your blog, your Twitter account and shine up your LinkedIn.com profile as well.
2. Don’t push out generic pitches to anyone and everyone on these accounts.
3. Do your research and don’t mass pitch lists of folks. This is really a no-no on social media platforms.
4. Don’t write your pitches with you in mind, write them with the producer, blogger or journalist in mind.
5. Practice makes perfect. There is something incredibly valuable about learning to pitch a brand or product in less than 140 characters.
6. Don’t pitch a journalist or a blogger more than three times if you’ve not yet had a response from them.
7. If they ask you to stop pitching them – really do.
8. Don’t twitter-stalk journalists or bloggers.
9. If you cannot fit your pitch into 140 characters or less, rework it until you can.
10. Always follow-up with a thank you if a blogger or twitterer shares your news with their readership.
The Web is an incredible tool for authors and PR people to use in finding new book lovers to pitch books too. While one can spend thousands of hours searching for new book blogs and book reviewers – there are also free tools that are available to you and that we encourage all our authors to utilize. It’s very important that authors stay empowered in working collaboratively with their PR firm so that no opportunities are missed.
When it comes to Twitter, if you’re an author and you’re just starting out, one of the ways to find people to follow is to use the Wefollow tool. If you hit this link, you can see the Wefollow books list – http://wefollow.com/twitter/books . These are Twitter book reviewers, publishers, and media people who write about books or work in the book industry. This is a free tool that you can use anytime to find some more book folks to follow.
If you want to find more libraries on the Web a great resource to use is GalleyCat’s listings at this link – http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/best-library-people-on-twitter_b11945 .
The other important thing to remember as an author on Twitter is that you use your tweets to provide strong visibility for your book. Too often authors are letting others tweet on behalf of them or focus too much on sales jargon instead of tweeting about the book and why readers would want to identify with it.
Another tip we give authors during their book signing tours is to make sure they highlight and follow the bookstores that they’re appearing at on their Twitter feed. This is a great reciprocal way to acknowledge and support the independent brick and mortar stores that are supporting authors in incredible ways.
To find bookstores who are twittering – see this link on Wefollow – http://wefollow.com/twitter/bookstore .
If you do a book signing at a brick and mortar store – take a picture and post it out across all your social networks as part of your support of the store as well as your book. And make sure that you tweet out your date and time for signing prior to the event. Thank the bookstore via Twitter as well.
Make sure your PR agency is also keeping up with the latest tools online and offline so that you’ll have the competitive advantage! Ask them if they are open to you sending them blogs that you want them to reach out to. Ask them if they pitch to Twitter book reviewers and online blogs/sites. Ask them how often and how many and see if you can see samples of links and posts they’ve garnered on behalf of their authors.
Above all, use the best of online and offline tools to make sure your book comes out on top!
If you’re an author, whether you are working with a publicist or without a publicist, it’s very important to keep in mind that part of your success is being able to answer the who, what, why, when and how for the media and its listener base.
We’re all curious about the latest trend, breaking news, new innovations, interesting and unique people or products, and the media is exactly the same way. Imagine if you can help create a new trend with your book or ideas. Imagine giving the media a brand new angle for coverage of a saturated topic.
Creativity is key to providing the unique news-hook for your book or your platform so that the media wants to feature you. Authors must think about how their book applies to the hot issues of the day – it’s a constant and ever-changing focus. One of the basic questions to ask is, “Is my story relatable? Does my story tap into something that people are worried about or an issue that might be controversial?”
For instance, some very prevalent issues as I write this column are the environment, the economy, the oil spill, the family crisis in terms of parenting and stresses on family, diets and healthful living. Each day a new opportunity presents itself to pitch your story forward in a meaningful and news-hook fashion.
Think how you can be part of the news discussion almost in real-time, as it is happening. Don’t discount your opinion and how it might be valuable to many other associated topic interviews beyond your book.
Whether it’s hard-hitting news interviews or feature pieces, the key for you is to be able to successfully tie-in these larger issues to your book or your platform, and speak effectively on those when you are tapped by the media.
Reporters and media need credible sources, and you are the best possible source for them as long as you’re well-versed in your topic area and you are armed with verifiable facts.
The media is counting on you to be the expert, to elevate the discussion and help everyone progress to a deeper understanding of the topic or subject manner. If you think of several different angles for the story, this will help you in creating something unique from your expert perspective. Asking questions is key to this practice.
Who is important in this story? How will my interview impact the listeners, and why should they absolutely be listening? How can I effect change in their lives through this interview?
The media aims to establish significance of any story for their listener base, and they rely on their guests to help them do that. The more a news story applies to current events and topics, or is relevant to the listener community at large, the more opportunity and success you’ll have to be a featured expert.
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