This weekend I found a huge list of “Upcoming Author Conferences & Events for Authors” at the Selfpublishingadvice.org website, run by The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), an organization which I highly recommend to independent authors.
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Great Events for Authors.
This list of upcoming international events contained everything from book fairs, festival of literature, publishing conferences, writers weeks in many parts of the world, literature festivals, a self-publishing conference, the Book Expo America (BEA) to the famous 2016 San Francisco Writers Conference and the Paris Book Fair.
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How to Spread the Word?
As I like to let our clients and readers of our blogs know about all events related to books and writing, I started to post the events for February and March on our timeline at Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest – or so I wanted… However, I got stuck very soon, as almost all of these event organizers did either not have:
- any sharing buttons at all
- only sharing buttons for Twitter and Facebook – or only Facebook
- only one or two buttons to their own social media sites
- no sharing buttons – but TWICE buttons to their own social media sites
- only a Facebook like button, but no sharing button
- IF there were sharing buttons, they often miss Google+
- and the worst: NO follow buttons and NO sharing buttons!
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Unprofessional – but Bragging…
“BookExpo America (BEA) is the leading book and author event for the North American publishing industry”. As they do not even have a single sharing button on their event website, how should journalists and publishing insiders spread the word about the event? Charging premium prices for membership as well as for the event, one would think they could afford a professional marketing team.
Missing sharing buttons on the San Francisco Writers Conference as well… They have no sharing buttons whatsoever, only two buttons to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
I am not listing every event here that offers no possibility to spread the word online as it would go on for pages. At none of these event websites did I find a pre-worded Twitter “Click-to-Tweet” button (or other social media for that matter).
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Social Media Sharing Buttons.
At the Amelia Island Book Festival page, visitors can only share via Facebook. However Facebook restricts very much these kind of posts, and only a few of their followers can see them. Many people use FB only for their private accounts. It is important to have sharing buttons with Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. You never know where people are active, and not every post is suitable for every site.
For example, I personally would not post about a writers conference or book fair on Pinterest, but for sure on LinkedIn, where I am connected with other writers and publishing professionals.
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Many users on social media sites don’t know what to post every day. And finding an article or a website with publishing / writing news that can be shared is always a welcome post – done in a second. To spread the word they do not even need to open their own social media page. Just click and go!
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Google+ Buttons for Better SEO.
Of all event sites, only the Kairo (Egypt) Book Fair and the Habana (Cuba)… had sharing buttons to Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. These events are organized by IPA, the International Publishers Organization. Their website is professionally set up and their events can be shared all over the internet just by a mouse click.
THE most important reason for Google+ is SEO, the Search Engine Optimization, which means your post / link is immediately available through a Google search.
Try it out: post something on your Google+ timeline, and type the title a minute later into Google search: Your own post will appear on Google’s first page. 90% of the traffic to our blog comes from search engines thanks to Google+.
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Click-to-Tweet:
Pre-worded tweets are a fantastic way for online visitors to talk about an event. Implement Pre-Worded Tweets. An excerpt from our latest how-to-book:
Use a website called Click-to-Tweet which offers this great function for free. It’s the easiest and fastest way to promote, share and track your content on Twitter. Invite readers to spread the word is to implement pre-fabricated tweets, where you choose the text to put into designated spots into the manuscript of your website.
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As you already have a sales page on Amazon, you can add the URL in your tweet form. Here is an example of the code for our latest book:
<a href=”http://ctt.ec/d2GTd”><img src=”http://clicktotweet.com/img/tweet-graphic-trans.png” alt=”Tweet: 111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer” /></a>
Click to tweet is not only handy to spread the word about your next book within your book; it should also be implemented in your blog or website. More about this feature: @clicktotweet.
BlogTyrant writes: “All you do is enter the quote in the box on the right and then click “generate link”. You then use the URL that they give you as the destination for your anchor text. You can add these at any part of your post, it doesn’t have to be a block quote. It could just be a cool little phrase you use to sum up a paragraph or article. Make sure you make the quote short enough to allow people to retweet it within Twitter and make sure you include a tiny URL of the post where the quote came from.”
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Why not use this Free Promotion Buttons?
Event organizers pay thousands for their websites, for their advertisement, to find corporate sponsors, to write press releases, and many more marketing activities. But why do they not use the only free and very efficient method to spread the word?
If you’re going to dedicate all of that time to an event and create a website, you want to get the most out of it, right? The success of the announcement largely depends on how many people read about it and one important way to increase readership is to include social share buttons on every post.
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Search engines include the strength of a link in social media as an algorithm ranking factor. Strength is measured by calculating the number of times that content is shared, tweeted, and posted in social media. So if your content is getting shared frequently, the search engine ranking for relevant keywords catapults it to the top. Social share buttons make it so much easier for a reader to pass along your content to their network. Without sharing buttons you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
If I would be approached to sponsor any of these events, I would not commit before they would have a proper website including sharing buttons.
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Authors can Share More Professionally.
Authors have lots of events to share with their readers and followers, such as book launches, new print or audio-book versions, book signings, book price campaigns and so forth. Sharing buttons and Click-to-Tweet buttons are available for free, they just need to be added to your website (or to your ebook).
Readers and followers don’t have time to copy and paste text and links and then visit one by one their social media sites to post your event. Sharing content increases overall traffic. Instead of making it hard for people to share, make it easy by including sharing buttons to announce your event with one single mouse click!
Read more about free book and event marketing at: 111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free
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