How to find your fans with social media

If you remember from a previous post, the first step in our tribe building framework is to “Go where people already are”. Let’s look a little closer at this topic and how it applies to social media.

The goal of social media and all other online marketing is to go where communities already exist online and invite them to join your tribe. This is why being an author is so exciting! You can work with other authors and share communities and it helps each of you.

If you own an Apple iPod, the odds of you being interested in the Microsoft Zune is very low. You already own a media device and you only need one of them so you are likely to ignore other competing products. This is not the case with books. If someone has read another author’s book in a similar niche as yours, they are more likely to buy and read your book! So by becoming a part of other communities, you are actually adding to them.

When you begin looking at social media opportunities, think through where your community already exists and how you can engage with them. Here are a few examples:

  • There are several Facebook groups on the topics of Science Fiction and Fantasy books, some of them consisting of thousands of members. If your books are in this genre, engaging in discussion with these groups will enable you to talk directly to potential fans of your book.
  • One of my clients has his first book coming out next Spring. He reached out directly to other authors in his genre on Twitter. As a result, several of them now retweet every blog post that he publishes and will be on board to help launch his book.
  • An author that is coming out with a how-to book for acting has engaged the large audience already present at YouTube by releasing a series of how-to videos.

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