Many authors these days are using Twitter as part of their marketing armoury, and rightly so. Social media is a useful weapon in the battle for book exposure. Unlike most other forms of marketing, Twitter has one serious drawback - 140 characters MAXIMUM. As authors we are always aware of only using the necessary number of words to deliver our message, and this should provide an advantage when using Twitter, compared to other Twitter users who may not be so disciplined. Even having said that, 140 characters are not many when we want to included hash tags, website links, user names etc., and that's before actually writing the all important message.
(With regard to weblinks, one very useful tool is bitly - www.bitly.com - which can reduce long URLs to much smaller, user-friendly, and Twitter friendly links. You can also track how often each link bitly creates is clicked.)
Nearly all marketing campaigns, adverts, commercials etc., adopt one very popular tactic, and that is the use of AIDA. Some of you may have heard of it before, but I'm guessing many, unless involved in marketing as part of your 'day job', perhaps haven't. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Most marketing gurus will rip an advert to pieces if AIDA hasn't been utilised.
ATTENTION - This is where your message/product must grab the immediate attention of your audience.
INTEREST - Once their attention has been grabbed, your message needs to be of interest to them. Why should they buy your product? Why your particular book? There is an old saying in marketing - 'Sell the sizzle, not the sausage.'
DESIRE - If steps one and two have done their respective jobs there should now be some desire to purchase your product/service/book etc.
ACTION - They now want your book! Where do they get it? If you can provide a time limited offer, that will generate even faster action.
Authors are very creative by nature. So if you want to share some creative ideas for fellow readers please leave a comment for others to read. Thanks.
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