If you are an entrepreneur (and authors totally count), then chances are you have wondered about balancing your self-promotion with providing value-add content to engage, motivate and inspire your followers (leading to sales).
I view self-promotion as commercials. If you really like a show, you’ll be okay with the occasional interruption. However, if the only content someone provides is commercial after commercial, then chances are you’re going to turn the channel.
Marketing Resources
If you’re unfamiliar with marketing, check out some of these resources and do some initial background research:
- SEO: Search Engine Optimization: Learn Search Engine Optimization: A Complete Guideby Kenneth Lewis
- Social Media Marketing: Step by Step Instructions For Advertising Your Business by Noah Gray and Michael Fox
- Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media by Brittany Hennessy
- Freakishly Effective Social Media for Network Marketing: How to Stop Wasting Your Time on Things That Don’t Work and Start Doing What Does! by Ray and Jessica Higdon
- Social Media: Social Media Marketing – How To Build And Execute Your Own Internet Marketing Strategy by M.J. Brown
- Social Media Marketing Toolbook for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram & Beyond by Jason McDonald, Ph.D.
Some brands do a fantastic job with their marketing strategy and others haven’t quite gotten the delicate balance right yet. I cringe when I see accounts on Instagram where every post is “buy my book!” and the author talking about how great their own work is.
If all you’re doing is blatantly trying to sell something, why on earth would I follow you? Also, providing an endorsement for yourself is not powerful. However, if you make balancing your self-promotion a priority, potential customers will feel engaged as they build a relationship with you and they’ll want to buy your book, product or service.
Balancing your self-promotion
Here are some tips to help you with balancing your self-promotion, which I intend to use when Sweet Redemption goes live in May/June:
Use the 80/20 rule. Only 20 percent of your content should be self-promotion and you should spend the rest of your time engaging with your followers.
Let others speak for you. It means nothing to me if you tell me how great your book is and, in fact, it actually makes me want to read your book less. Use your 20 percent promotional posts to share reviews, fan graphics, testimonials, snippets, etc. to build excitement and make me want to check out your book/product/service for myself.
Develop a content strategy. If you’ve checked out my Instagram lately, you’ll see that I’ve started to create a theme for my feed. Just posting at random only works if you’re Stephen King. For people trying to build a following, you need a plan, an aesthetically pleasing feed, and a purpose behind every post you make.
Be conversational, not salesy. Write your social media posts like you’re talking to a friend, not trying to sell something to a stranger. The point of social media is to engage and connect with your audience, so focus on building relationships and creating great content. Sales follow because people will trust you and want to buy what you’re selling.
What makes you want to follow (or unfollow) accounts on social media?
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Balance is so important. Excellent post.
Thank you my friend 🙂
You’re welcome!