Audiobook Marketing and Social Media
Whether you are someone who groans at the thought of social media or someone who is excited by new ideas on how to use social media to market your audiobook, this post is for you.
Social Media Grumps
Social media can be overwhelming when we start to dive into all the many potential ways to do it, the time some social media experts advise we commit to it, and the steep learning curve. Honestly, if you’re a writer, and really prefer to be writing your books, then social media can feel like an irritating distraction. So what’s new here?
Two things:
- What to post to make it fun
- The strategy: where and why
What to Post/Tweet/Share/Blah blah blah
When you’re working on the content for your current book project, or thinking about your independently published book projects, you may wonder about things, you may have questions, you’ll have decisions to make. Those can make interesting and engaging tidbits to share on whatever social media platforms you play on. And if social media doesn’t feel fun yet, then maybe this approach will help. For example, “I’m trying to decide how to kill off a really despicable character in my next book. Got any great ideas?” Who wouldn’t want to chime in on that?
The Strategy
Pick Your Playground
To market your audiobook, you get to pick one or two social media platforms that you most enjoy – just one or two. Doesn’t matter if it is FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever, just pick a platform and go play there regularly. It’s like recess at school. You get to go out and play every day.
Calendar
Schedule brief playdates on that platform and stick to your plan so you don’t get sucked in to the social media vortex time suck.
Connect the Online Dots
Make sure you are connecting your dots. Just like those Connect-the-Dot pencil activities, it is really valuable to connect your online dots. That’s what we’re doing with AMP (Audiobook Marketing Program). Whatever platforms you are on, look for ways to refer to your posts on the other. If you blog, post a link to your blog post on the social media platforms you have selected. If you think of it like a fun connect the dots activity, instead of an overwhelming virtual headache, that will make it a LOT more fun. This connecting of the dots is part of what makes your audiobook more visible and more likely to be found by all those folks out there who are looking for a book just like yours.
Speak the Language of Your Fans – Use “Make Believe”
The other big thing that helps your fans find your audiobook is the words you use. Think back to when you were a little kid. Ok, now let’s make believe that you are looking for a book that is just like the one you actually wrote. You’re on Google or Amazon and you are going to search for the book you want. What are you going to type in the search bar? Now, for real, go do that. Does your book come up? If so, AWESOME! If not, are the books that come up just like yours? Great! Check out what other a propos words you could also use? If not, go back to make believe and try some other search terms. Once you’ve found the right words to find the books like yours, USE THOSE WORDS in your book description and social media.
Upcoming Posts
In upcoming posts, I’ll get into the following topics:
- PAV Author Community: working together to expand our audiences
- Getting Audiobook Reviews
- Awards entries
- Leveraging Amazon’s Author Central
The AMP package includes:
- Creation of 3 video trailers about your audiobook, using the cover image and audio clips from your audiobook (and potentially other images from your book, or pertinent images, that you provide) as well as answers to author interview questions we provide
- Roll out of the videos over the course of the 3-month AMP campaign
- Post the videos on the Audiobook Authors YouTube channel, exclusively for the Pro Audio Voices community of authors
- Optimize the video descriptions for maximum discoverability, including links to retail purchase pages, author website, author bio, book description, other books by, social media links, GoodReads page, and Author Central page
- Provide the embed code for posting optimized video on the author’s website (our team can do that for you at an additional cost)
- Post the videos on the author’s Author Central account
- Perform a ranking boost using a proprietary boosting program used by the marketers for top achievers such as Tony Robbins and Bob Proctor
- Post the video on several social media platforms. For best results, follow Audiobook Authors on social media. We will provide links to make it easy.
- Audiobook Authors will follow and connect with participating authors on social media on which the authors are active, including YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
