Social Media Tips

How to Grow Your Followers on Instagram

Instagram-Tips

 

There’s no step-by-step guide for organic Instagram growth. But you can use these best practices that will help you reach a wider audience and win over new followers:
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Optimize Your Bio

Make the most of those 150 characters. Your Instagram bio tells potential followers who you are, what you’re about, and what action you hope people will take after visiting your profile.

Your Instagram bio should include:

  • A clear description of what you do
  • Touches of your personality
  • A call to action (shop, read more, contact us, etc.)
  • A link.

Find Your Best Time to Post on Instagram

There is no universal answer for when to post on Instagram to reach the highest number of people. But there are ways to figure out the ideal times for your followers.  Use Instagram Insights to figure out when your audience is online.  Tap the “Insights” button from your Instagram business profile, scroll to “Your Audience,” then tap “See All.”  From there, scroll to the bottom to find your audience’s most active times.

 

Post Consistently

A 2021 study of 14 industries shows that businesses share four Instagram posts per week, on average. But it is recommended to post at least once a day.   According to a Tailwind study, profiles that post daily gain Instagram followers faster than those that post less frequently.

With Instagram’s algorithmic timeline, consistency is a key element to getting your posts seen. If your posts are shared on a regular basis and picking up good engagement, Instagram’s algorithm will likely show your posts near the top of your followers’ feeds.

However, quality is always more important than quantity.  Posting more often doesn’t necessarily translate to higher engagement rates.  Focus on creating content that will resonate with your target audience.

Instagram scheduling tools allow you to post consistently without having to worry about posting directly from the app every day. 

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Learn How the Instagram Algorithm Works

Many Instagram users initially panicked about the switch from a chronological feed to the ranked timeline. However, since the change, the average post is seen by 50% more followers than before.  So, forget about learning how to beat the Instagram algorithm. Instead, focus on learning how to use the system to your advantage.

Find more detailed tips in this Buffer article:

https://buffer.com/library/instagram-growth/

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Books by Doris-Maria Heilmann:

To the TOP

Smart Free Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Self-Employed

ebook: https://books2read.com/u/mqv8Z1

print: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664381

ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08957T6XN/


Audiobooks for Success

Valuable guide book for authors, audiobook publishers, narrators, voice-over artists, and audiobook listeners. Learn how to create, produce, publish, and market your audiobooks.

https://books2read.com/u/bPRRyJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W81MN2Z

 

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos
How to Plan, Create, Upload, and Market Videos
https://www.books2read.com/u/3GYnpa

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

 

111 Tips To Make Money With Writing
The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing –
An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer
https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664187

 

111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free
Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success
https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY

 

111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews
Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews
plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018RA72LY/

 

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer
How to Create, Where to Upload, and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CHWX6X2/

 

Book Marketing on a Shoestring
How Authors Can Promote their Books

Without Spending a Lot of Money
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1988664225


Hello Friends, visit my Author Page here too:

https://books2read.com/ap/n4EYY8/Doris-Maria-Heilmann

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Which Social Media Sites are Perfect for Writers?

Social-Media

 

Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook aren’t going away.  And in today’s connected world, customers research their purchases online.  It’s where your customers are, so meet them!

So many times I have heard writers say that social media just isn’t for them. It takes too much time. They are not sure where to start or how to keep it going. And besides, they should be focusing on running their company – not just posting pictures online – right?  Totally Wrong!

“When using social media, take advantage of something major
that those big publishers can’t match you on – Personality.”

Many writers view social media as a ‘free’ way to advertise.  It isn’t ‘free’ and it’s certainly not advisable to be used solely as an advertising platform.  A cardinal rule is to never ask people to buy goods or services.  I might add: never pressure people to like/follow you on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.  Rather, establish an authentic online personality, offer valuable information, analysis, opinion, and inspiring entertainment. Engage!

Here is an oversight of social media platforms where authors should engage:

Twitter
With more than 340 million visitors every month, Twitter offers an excellent opportunity to build a large base of followers.  To get more follows, use hashtags, retweet other tweets, and follow others.  Building a base of followers takes time, but once you reach 10,000 followers, it tends to take off on its own.

LinkedIn
Popular among professionals, with more than 320 million monthly users. LinkedIn is a great way to connect to others looking for consulting and coaching.  It’s also an excellent way to develop a relationship.  The platform is less effective for selling books than it is for selling services related to your book.  Which in turn might lead to book sales!

Instagram
The most popular of the photo-sharing platforms with over one billion monthly visitors, it is a great platform for posting photos of you or your books/services at any events.  Unlike other platforms, where hashtags either are not used (LinkedIn) or frowned upon if more than three are given, most Instagram posts contain often dozens of metadata tags.

Pinterest
The photo-sharing site is excellent for posting pictures of your book covers and other products.  Make sure to include links to the pages where they are sold. Because tagged items in Pinterest can go viral rapidly and show up high on search engines, it can significantly boost your sales.  Pinterest boasts 340 million monthly visitors.

YouTube
YouTube receives one billion monthly visitors and is the second-largest search engine in the world.  An incredible number of people go right to YouTube to see if there is a video on the topic they want to know about.  Because of this, on other search engines, such as Google, YouTube videos usually appear high in the search results.

Facebook
Facebook allows for excellent targeting of prospective customers if you are willing to pay for ads.  It’s not so great for just making posts unless you can develop a solid base of followers who regularly check your page.

Conclusion: Social media engagement is an area where authors can compete.  The barriers to entry are low and the costs of conducting posts and campaigns are minimal.

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GET A FREE eBOOK FOR A REVIEW
Request it by email: 111Publishing at gmail.com
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111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos:

How to Plan, Create, Upload and Market Videos

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

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111 Tips To Make Money With Writing:

The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing

An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer

https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

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111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free:

Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success

https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

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111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews:

Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews

plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links

https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5 

.

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer:

How to Create, Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos

https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

.

Book Marketing on a Shoestring:

How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money

https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

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Statistics On How You Can Better Use Social Media

Social-Media

When I started out on social media ten years ago – seems like a lifetime – there were no books, articles, stats or any data available.  Spending many hours a day on all kind of sites (sometimes that are long gone) and still sticking with Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn I had to learn mostly through trial and error.  Nowadays it’s much easier:

“Data and statistics might give you a good starting point for testing out your own strategies. Start with these statistics, test them for yourself, and find the best system that works for you”, explains social media guru Kevan Lee.

First Things First: Maximize Your Profile Data
Help more awesome people find you. Hava complete bio and links to your blog, web and social media presence. You need to help people find you and make it easy for them to follow you.

Your Biggest Advocates Might Have the Fewest Followers
Social monitoring website Mention analyzed over 1 billion social mentions from the past two years, and in their analysis, they found that 91 percent of mentions come from people with fewer than 500 followers. Less than 10% of mentions will come from a power user. You can prioritize these power users if you want, but it’s also important to give a quick and delightful response to those with few followers—the vast majority of those talking about you.

Less Than an Hour to Respond on Twitter
Consumers expect a lot from you on Twitter, as recent research by Lithium Technologies confirms. According to Lithium, 53 percent of users who tweet at a brand expect a response within the hour. The percentage increases to 72 percent for those with a complaint. As a business owner either invest in a monitoring service to manage your timeline or get really good at checking your Twitter email alerts.

Late Night = Best Time For Retweets
TrackMaven analyzed over 1.7 million tweets to come up with data behind the best practices for earning a retweet. The best time of the day to tweet for a retweet? After-hours, between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. ET. is the best time of day for a retweet. Track Maven also found that Sundays are the best day of the week to get retweets and that tweeting with the word “Retweet” or with all caps or exclamation points leads to more retweets.

The Social Intelligence Report from Adobe analyzed over 225 billion Facebook posts. Their research on the best day to post pointed to a clear winner: Fridays, with more comments, likes, and shares than any other day of the week.

Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook Drive the Most Traffic
In terms of quantity, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are the top three referrers of traffic. Social sharing site Shareaholic revealed an interesting split in the way that social media

YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn Are the TOP Three Sources!
Get involved in social media accordingly.  If you’re after a big reach and spreading brand awareness, go with Facebook and Twitter, and think long and hard about joining Pinterest, too.  If you’re interested in more qualified traffic, then be sure to invest time in Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

There’s a “Best Day” for Everything on Pinterest
The Pinterest blog recently revealed which categories get the most engagement on each day of the week:
Monday: Fitness
Tuesday: Technology
Wednesday: Inspirational quotes
Thursday: Fashion
Friday: Humor
Saturday: Travel
Sunday: Food and crafts
If possible, create a Pinterest board that touches on each of these seven topics, and build this sort of specific sharing into your Pinterest schedule.

Written Content Trumps Visuals
Social Media Examiner’s annual survey of nearly 3,000 marketers leads to a ton of insights into how marketers think about social media and sharing.  Surprisingly, 58 percent claim written content is their most important form of social content.  Visual content came in second (19 percent.)  Original written content can be a great opportunity for thought leadership, authority, and brand awareness. When you’re creating new content to share, keep in mind the power of storytelling.

When Thinking of Social Media, Think of a Big Party!
Imagine you are invited to a big party.  You are entering the room, you say hello to everyone, you small-talk a bit, you participate in a discussion, you listen what others say, you make some compliments or praise someone, you have fun and you show yourself from your best side.

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/which-social-network-is-best-for-authors/
Are You a Good Party Guest?
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/acting-like-a-professional-author-on-social-media/

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Books by Doris-Maria Heilmann:

111 Tips to Create Impressive Videos:
How to Plan, Create, Upload and Market Videos
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYDH41S/

111 Tips To Make Money With Writing
The Art of Making a Living Full-time Writing
An Essential Guide for More Income as Freelancer
https://books2read.com/u/bWZMjz

111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free:
Detailed Plans and Smart Strategies for Your Book’s Success
https://books2read.com/u/bMre1a

111 Tips to Get Free Book Reviews:
Best Strategies for Getting Lots of Great Reviews
plus 1,200+ reviewer contact links
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5nx5

111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer
How to Create, Where to Upload and How to Market Your Videos
https://books2read.com/u/mVZkjr

Book Marketing on a Shoestring:
How Authors Can Promote their Books Without Spending a Lot of Money 
https://books2read.com/u/mZ5gdp

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Most Successful Images on Social Media

 

SocialMedia-Images

No matter if we are writers who want to market our books, e-book-PR or self-employed, trying to sell services, or a famous brand trying to market their products: we all need to learn how we can market without words.

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Readers, consumers, and even casual visitors of social media are all flocking to visual platforms, such as: Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram or GooglePlus.

Since the new DIY design tool Canva came on the scene, more and more people are recognizing the benefits of creating their own images.If we can learn how to use images, photos, video, and other visual media in our online marketing, then we have a greater chance of reaching more people with our message.

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A Picture Paints a 1000 Words…
But which types of image characteristics will drive more likes? Curalate, a visual-mastering platform, looked at a range of image features across 8,000,000 Instagram photos — including lightness, color, texture and background ratio — and found interesting results.  Their data said “what” but not necessarily “why”, but they have a strong hypothesis on the reasoning behind some of the results.  Here are some of their findings:
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  • 80% of Pins are Re-pins on Pinterest.
    Which means that 80% of information is “shared” and only 20% of content posted up is original. Be the 20% that gets re-pinned by 80% of users, create your own original content!
  • People like colorful images, but moderation matters.
    The most re-pinned images have multiple colors: Images with multiple dominant colors have 3.25 times more re-pins per image than images with a single dominant color.
  • Very light and very dark images are not re-pinned as often.
    The re-pinning rate for images of medium lightness is 20 times higher than for images that are mostly black, and eight times higher than images that are mostly white.
  • Red images get more re-pins than blue images.
    Images that are red, orange and brown receive roughly twice as many re-pins than images that are blue.
  • Get close and personal – people pay attention to details.
    Images that contain less than 30 percent background (e.g. white space) are re-pinned the most.
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Don’t Tell if You Can Show:
Wherever possible, use visuals, such as photos, book trailers / videos, or slideshows / powerpoint presentations.  Creativity will still trump the science and there is no formula for a “perfect” Pinterest or Instagram photo.

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Read More:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-create-the-best-pinterest-images-2013-5

https://www.internetretailer.com/2013/05/31/more-colors-attract-more-attention-pinterest-users

https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2272742/new-pinterest-research-shows-which-images-get-the-most-engagement

https://www.wired.com/2013/06/this-is-the-perfect-pinterest-picture/

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How to Increase Readership via Sharing Buttons

Sharing-buttons

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Originally I wanted to start this blog post, mentioning hundreds of websites I visited just last week, which did not have any sharing buttons.  And how difficult it makes it for the reader to share information about news and events in publishing, such as publishing conferences, writing contest deadlines, freelance offers etc., or book reviewer pages.  Even major international book fairs were missing out on these valuable tools. But it gets worse:

Browsing the Internet for the latest social sharing button offers, I discovered an article at Solostream.com: “Social Sharing Buttons For Your WordPress blog”.  This article did NOT contain a single sharing button on their own blog, despite the introduction sentence for this post: “Social sharing buttons are a must for a blog nowadays. There are multiple plugins for …”
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Benefits of Social Sharing Buttons.
In order to generate free advertising, social sharing buttons are one of the best ways to spread the word via a variety of social media channels.  Social shares are important for driving traffic to your website or blog.  The impact of getting shares from influencers on social media networks will have positive effects on a website.
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More is Not Always Better.
Each social sharing button uses a piece of JavaScript code to connect forth and back between the social network’s servers and your site – which can slow site load-times of your site. The only real way to test their impact is to A/B test pages with and without social media sharing buttons, and make a decision based on the evidence. A/B testing is a way to compare two versions of a single variable typically by testing a subject’s response to variable A against variable B, and determining which of the two variables is more effective.
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Select the Right Social Networks.
There are two ways you can be sure to select the social networks that matter most to your site. First, you can check out where your readers are already sharing your content and then on which social media site you have the most followers.
Limit the number of social media buttons. Three, maximal four social sharing buttons (Google+, Twitter and Facebook) are enough. Make them small, maybe even grey/blue to not distract readers from your content or your message.
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Where to Place the Sharing Buttons?
It’s not enough that your buttons look good, or that they are just present somewhere on your pages. They need to be placed where they’re going to catch your reader’s attention and make it easy for them to share your content with their followers.
Placing social buttons to the left of the blog post makes sense, as readers follow text left to right. A growing trend is to place shareable content inline with the rest of your content, for example these “click-to-tweet” plug-ins.
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No matter where you place the buttons: they should be in close proximity to the content being shared. According to a Nielson eyetracking visualizations study, online visitors in the Western world are mostly reading Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.  The top left portion is the most-viewed part of the web page, which supports the idea that left and top are best choices for social share buttons (beside an image of your latest book, I might add).
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Remember: “Design is not just about how it looks. It goes much deeper than that. It’s how it works
~ Steve Jobs

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Some Facts About Social Media Sharing Sites.
While Facebook has the most users, it is not the best site for SEO, which is GooglePlus, which feeds posts automatically into their search engines.  They don’t need to be “found” by web crawlers, as they are immediately pinged to Google.  A Google sharing button is a must-have component of your social media button set.
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A Twitter button is also a must-have, as the nature of  Twitter itself is content sharing. Including this button on your blog, in combination with participating in the conversation, will drive more traffic to your posts.
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If your blog or website has an image to each article, or videos, place a Pinterest button.  The site is popular among readers who consume lifestyle content.  Think entertainment, books (especially romance, as the majority of Pinterest users are women), recipes, interior design, fashion etc.
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Reading and Sharing.
Hopefully you have already linked your own Twitter page(s) with Google+ and LinkedIn. In order to save time, share the content you found on the internet and let other users and followers know about it with LinkedIn and Google+.  No need to tweet it, it will appear on Twitter automatically – if your Twitter account is connected with those sites!
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Find Links, Images, Descriptions and even Reviews of Sharing Buttons in these web articles:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3817-Top-10-Social-Sharing-Buttons-for-Your-Website

http://www.solostream.com/blog/social-sharing-buttons-for-your-wordpress-blog/

 

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33 Tips on How to Get More Followers on Social Media

Followers

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Did you know that only 1% of all your followers will see your tweet or post at any given time?
So, joining Goodreads, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Facebook is only the first step in creating an author platform.   Social media growth is more likely to happen when you are focusing on sharing amazing quality content that you know your audience loves.  To make these sites really work for you is only possible if you have lots of followers, friends or people in your Google+ circles.  

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One of the first questions of every literary agent or publisher will be: What is your platform?”  In other words: do you have a popular, well visited website or blog, and lots of followers with whom you interact on social media.

  1. Place social media sharing buttons (Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook etc.) on your website and blog that will appear on each page.  Make sure you include these social media share buttons on each blog post, not just in your landing page sidebar.  All these sharing button links should also show up on “About Us” pages.
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  2. Put Follow buttons on your website and blog, that are appearing on each page.  Give your readers a way to connect with you. Don’t use only Twitter and Facebook, but also icons for all other social media site you are on: Google+ (the most important), LinkedIn, Pinterest, Goodreads etc.
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  3. Check out Twitter suggestions: “Who to Follow” on your left bar of your Twitter page.  Click the “refresh” button for more suggestions.
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  4. See who other Tweeps are following or who is following them. Do the same on Google+, click on “About” at one’s site and you will find the window “People” where you click on “in her / his circles”.  Then follow those who have the most interesting introduction.
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  5. Connect all your social media sites with each other.  When you post on Google+ or Pinterest your content should automatically appear on Twitter, and from there to all Twitter timelines you have on Goodreads, Amazon, your website etc.
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  6. “Bundle” all your social media accounts, your websites, blogs etc. in one single link, using http://about.me/
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  7. Have an appealing and professional portrait and an attractive background on all your social media sites. No one will follow a cat or a dog or an egg…
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  8. Use Twitter’s hidden gem: the “Pinned Tweet”, a master tweet that always shows up on top of your other tweets. Decide which tweet is most important.  How to place it is explained in Discover Twitter’s Secret Feature.
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  9. Encourage your email newsletter subscribers three or four times a year to follow you on your social media accounts.  List links to all your sites that readers can click to follow.
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  10. Link to your social media accounts from your email signature. The easiest way to let your readers know about ALL your social media sites is to use “About.me”.  See this example: http://about.me/ebookPR
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  11. Link your Google+ page / follower listing to your own website (see on the right site of this post).  Get more recommendations for your site in Google search and grow your audience on Google+.
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  12. In my ebook: 111 Tips on How to Market Your Book for Free, I am explaining in detail how to import your LinkedIn contacts to your Google+ site.
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  13. Goodreads allows you to import (max.) 800 of your followers each from Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Gmail, and Goodreads Friends of Friends.
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  14. Post tweets from your Bit.ly (link shortener site, e.g. for blog or book titles) to your Twitter account(s).
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  15. Regularly contribute guest posts to popular influencer sites and link to your social media accounts in your bio, using “About.me”.
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  16. Actively find new followers in your niche and engage with them. Use the search function on top of each social media’s timeline and type in search words for ideal followers, for example: readers, bookworms, avid readers, book bloggers, book reviewers etc. if you are a writer or publisher.
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  17. Choose up to 25 (maximum on most sites, Google+ allows up to 50) new followers per day. If you do this daily on 4 social media sites, several hundred people might follow you back per week.
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  18. Share, retweet, +plus and like your followers content, tag or mention them, or comment on their blogs. Build relationships, spread the good karma, they will return you the favor eventually.
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  19. Find out who are the influencers in your niche using for example Tapinfluence. They explain: “One of the fastest-growing areas of content marketing is influencer marketing, the idea of working with social influencers.
    Your content connects best when it comes from the people your readers are trusting.”   Their influencer marketplace connects you to thousands of content creators on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, Vine, and blogs. To learn more they offer a free ebook to potential customers.
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  20. Other professional tools can be found on Buzzsumo (free and paid versions).
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  21. Find the most influential and award-winning book bloggers recommended by Digital Publishing and follow them not only on your blog but also on social media.
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  22. Accumulating new followers and readers often comes down to how often your content gets shared.  Use Hootsuite.com, or Futuretweets.com to schedule your main posts throughout the day, freeing you time to engage with your followers in person, responding to questions and comments.
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  23. Tell stories in your posts and blogs: They are far more likely to be shared than promotional content.
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  24. Get beautiful images on free photo sites, such as Morguefile.com, Wikipedia.com or Flickr.com.  They will greatly improve your posts and entice followers to like, repost or retweet your content.
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  25. Evoking positive emotions through your posts is great for increased sharing.  Posting funny or happy content will give you more shadings.
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  26. Blog about interesting conversations taking place on your social media accounts.  Discuss social media conversations on your blog: Entice your blog readers to follow you on social media by crossing the blog/social network divide.
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  27. Join LinkedIn groups and post articles on LinkedIn: As you provide valuable insights, group members will be more likely to want to hear more from you on social media.
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  28. Include lots of quotes in your posts and tweets.  They are very popular and will be re-tweeted and liked a lot.
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  29. Become a source of trending content and breaking news: Follow leading newspapers and other sources on Twitter and Google+, and then share breaking news with your followers.
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  30. Once a week promote your other social media accounts to your readers and followers.  For example, tweet about your Google+ or Pinterest site, or let your Facebook followers know you are on LinkedIn and Goodreads as well.
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  31. Don’t forget to include a social media call to action on your business card or on your bookmarks (for print versions), such as “follow me on my social media sites” – or “go to my “About.me” page to find all my social media sites”.  Hand them out at book signings, networking events, and writer conferences.
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  32. Use “click-to-tweet” (in your books and blog articles) to encourage your readers and followers to spread the word to their followers and to let them know about your twitter account / website / book.
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  33. Never buy followers. These artificial followers won’t ever re-tweet you or buy your book, mostly they are not even real people, but robots.
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To have more followers also means people assume you are someone interesting or an expert.  It extends your popularity, influence and more book sales.  However, equally important than impressive numbers of followers is how engaged you are with them – and vice versa.  Once you have reached 2,000 followers, there is no further limit and you will see an increase in high-volume and more quality follower offers.

Read also: How to Get More Followers on Your Social Media Sites and How to Be More Social and Less Media

 

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7 Online Marketing Trends for 2015

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Online-Outlook

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The year 2015 is just two weeks old, and you might have read a couple of predictions already in the last days and weeks.  Here are some in terms of digitally marketing books.  Knowing the new trends as an author will help you to change and succeed in presenting yourself and market your writing to an online audience.  These  are my seven predictions for 2015:

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#1 Content is King!
Great content will compensate for the “Facebook problems”. They tremendously decreased the number of news feeds from (business) users and the way businesses can be seen in users news feeds, which forced account owners to change their marketing strategy on Facebook. Businesses will need to find good writers and turn to content marketing in order to compensate the decline of Facebook organic reach.

What it means for author-publishers:
Write short, 300 word articles for your Facebook book pages (not your personal ones) instead of “book ads”.

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#2 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Will Depend on Content Marketing
No more SEO tactics and tricks anymore – which will also improve the search experience of Google users. One of the many contributors to a high ranking on Google is how many websites link back to your site.

What it means for author-publishers:
They can get SEO through blogging, e-books, and resource guides, in order to fully take on content marketing. Way more importantly: write more on Google+ up to 500 words.

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#3 Sharing / Follow Buttons are Imperative!
Get a higher chance of increasing the amount of visitors and also increase reader engagement. In an earlier blog (March 2012) we wrote about the necessity of sharing plug-ins and explained that these sharing buttons can mean up to seven times more visitors.
Blog-Share-Icons-Top-Side Features such as social sharing buttons and social login can do just that.

What it means for author-publishers:
Make sure you have all the social media follow buttons (where you can be found), and the sharing buttons for all Social Media on the market. After all there are still people on MySpace…

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#4 Tweets Need to Be Optimized for Twitter’s Search Engine
Similar to GooglePlus, the inclusion of the right keywords in tweets will allow you be more visible in search queries. Using the right hashtags, links, and images will set you up to be more optimized for Twitter searches. With the recent Twitter search engine changes, Twitter achieves one of their long-standing goals of allowing people to search through every tweet, ever published.

What it means for author-publishers:
Make sure you have at least 2-3 hashtags on each tweet you post.

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#5 Target Audience Will Be More Important
Authors who do nothing but sell, sell, sell, will get ignored, dismissed and overlooked by followers and readers. Yes, the internet offers marketers the opportunity to have a very large audience. But you need to choose and pick your target audience: book lovers, readers, book reviewers etc.
and really interact with them. It also means dedicating more time to answer reader questions and provide more value online.

What it means for author-publishers:
Choose your following carefully and understand the meaning of Social Media – being SOCIAL and NOT constantly talking about your book!
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#6 Data Driven Marketing Will Be Essential
Trade Publishers and Online Retailers have the potential to capture massive amounts of data related to sales, personal customer information, purchase history, search activity and many more. Data that has proven to be very valuable for them. Authors on the other hand rarely know who their readers are when selling through online channels only.

What it means for author-publishers:
Diversify, diversify, diversify!  Don’t sell through online retailers only. Use your website or blog to sell your books and get your customers data.  There are dozens of ready-to-go online stores available, called “e-commerce” which can be installed in your existing website or blog – relatively easy and quick.  The benefit: Much higher revenues, faster payments and most important: you know who are your readers.
Get in touch with your readers: Install a sign-up form on your website and contact potential readers directly through email newsletters. Offer value and get your future (or present) readers to know. Don’t give your readers data to online retailers for free! Get the data yourself. There are many more tips for getting to know your readers, but this will be a different blog article. Stay tuned.

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#7 Blogs and Websites Must be Mobile Friendly
In 2015 visitors to online presences are growing to over 50% of all users worldwide. Think also about the growth of wearable tech, which is another reason why your website should be mobile friendly.  So, it’s a no-brainer that your blog or business’ website needs to be mobile-friendlyRead my former blog on this topic: 5 Tips How to Create Mobile-Friendly Blogs and Websites.

  • Provide Quick Access,
  • Provide Short Landing Pages
  • Provide a “No-Zoom Page”
  • Provide Value
  • Provide Simple Forms

What it means for author-publishers:
Make sure your blog or website is optimized for mobile. And if that sounds to “nerdy” get an affordable freelancer on Elance.com who can do it for you.

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Conclusion:
The need to stay on top of these growing trends will be a priority for all authors in order to make sure their efforts will help to establish their brand, using digital platforms. Valuable tips we provided here on this blog in the last two years will help you to become even stronger in 2015 and we will continue to inform you about everything that could boost the success of your books.

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,160 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? There is also the “SHARE” button for easy sharing at Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

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How to Import Your Linkedin Contacts to Google+

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Import
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Import From Ireland (LinkedIn) to California (Google+):

In a recent blog post on SavvyBookWriters.com/blog we explained the possibility to connect all your Social Media accounts.  The task was to post or tweet more – in case you need this for a campaign to go viral.  Saving time on Social Media, allows you to interact more with your followers and readers.  But it also shows them where else they can connect with you.  You can import for example your LinkedIn Followers to Google+.  How this works?  Read more on our new blog site:

Our WordPress blog http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/ has moved to our web domain at: https://www.savvybookwriters.com/blog.

As we cannot transfer thousands of subscribers we will re-blog for a while.   If you want to get these valuable tips in the future, please sign up when the pop-up window shows up after 10 seconds on the new site, to make sure you won’t miss any articles in the future.   THANKS

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Tagged: Circloscope.com, Google+, Import Your Linkedin Contacts to Google+, LinkedIn, PlusYourBusiness.com, Social Media Tips

How to Import Your Linkedin Contacts to Google+

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LinkedIn


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Google+.

In a recent blog post on SavvyBookWriters.com/blog I explained the possibility to connect all your Social Media accounts.  The task was to post / tweet more – in case you need this for a campaign to go viral.  Saving time on Social Media, allows you to interact more with your followers and readers.  But it also show them where else they can connect with you.

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Martin Shervington from PlusYourBusiness explained in a video how to connect your LinkedIn followers with your Google+ account.
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This is How it Works Step for Step:

  1. Log in to your LinkedIn account and on the upper left go to your Connections page and click on “Keep in Touch”
  2. Once you are on the page, click in the upper right on the gear-icon
  3. When the Connection page appears, click on Export LinkedIn Connections in the “Advanced Settings” part in the right column
  4. A new page opens with a button: Microsoft Outlook (.csv file)
  5. Underneath you can see EXPORT, click this which prompts the download
  6. Open the .csv file and you will get an Excel Spreadsheet on your computer screen with all the names and email addresses of your LinkedIn connections
  7. Select all the email addresses in the E-mail Address column and copy them to your clipboard / notepad.

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Hundreds of LinkedIn Connections?
Circloscope.com is the only tool that allows you to find Google+ users from your long list of email addresses and to transfer them in bulk.
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Now you have to decide if you want to transfer your LinkedIn followers by hand into your Google+ circles or if you want to transfer them with one click (paid version of Circloscope.com = $47 for one year).  If you have hundreds of followers to transfer, you might choose this small one-time expense to save lots of time.

  1. 1. Go to the Dashboard function, scroll down to the function “Profiles”, and from there to Email or Google ID’s
  2. Paste the long list with all your LinkedIn email addresses into the field that opens up
  3. Click the OK button and after a moment or two you should see your LinkedIn followers
  4. Filter the ones you are already following on Google+ in the “Filter” menu item at the top of Circloscope.com
  5. On the resulting popup window click the “Circled?” and then click the “Apply Filters” button
  6. Add the remaining people to your new or existing Google+ circles: Click on “Select All” on top of the page
  7. Click on “Action” on top of the page and choose the function “Add profiles to circles” and OK
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Should your LinkedIn account be relatively new with only a dozen followers, you can implement them one by one.  Just copy every email address from your clipboard or notepad into the search function on top of your Google+ page, where it says: Search for people, pages or posts. Google+ will open up their profile pages, if they are a Google+ member, and you just need to click “add”

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If you want your LinkedIn connections to follow you back on Google+ too, you can send them a brief note (in one shot to the entire circle!) saying hello and letting them know you are now following them on Google+ because you are already connected on LinkedIn. To do this, use the function “Also send emails from you to Your circles” at the lower end of each post, next to the SEND button. Just mark it, before you send your note. No one will know that you just sent out hundreds of emails.

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Dear Readers:
Our WordPress blog http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/ has moved to our web domain here at https://www.savvybookwriters.com/blog.  As we cannot transfer thousands of subscribers we will re-blog for a while.   If you want to get these valuable tips in the future, please sign up when the pop-up window shows up after 10 seconds, to make sure you won’t miss any articles in the future.   THANKS

 

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5 Tips for Publishing on LinkedIn

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A great possibility to find new readers:  Blogging on LinkedIn.

1. Use this new, free feature to get more exposure for your writing and your books.  

This is how it works:  If you go to your LinkedIn homepage you will need to look for an “share an update” box in the upper part of your page and look for a pencil symbol next to the paper clip. If this is visible, you are ready to publish on Linkedin! Hover over the symbol and it will show “create a post“. If you click it, you will be taken to a page ready to put your title in, write a new post or paste an article from your blog, website or a previously created content.
It means you can start publishing articles, images and links to potentially 300 million users on LinkedIn.
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Find four more ideas how LinkedIn can help you in your writing / publishing career in this info-graphic.  Or read Jeff Bulla’s tips for using LinkedIn.

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Linkedin Infographic
Via: PowerFormula for Linkedin Success
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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,060 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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Tagged: 5 Tips for Publishing on LinkedIn, how LinkedIn can increase your readership, LinkedIn, publishing blogs with LinkedIn, Social Media Tips