Social networking ROI: A testimonial more valuable than an ad

Many Publicity Hounds say they don’t understand social networking’s return on investment. How can spending 15 minutes a day, or several hours, bring more leads or more sales, they wonder.  

Here’s one way.

I discovered it yesterday morning, shortly after answering a question on LinkedIn. Answering questions is one of the very best ways to flaunt your expertise on the world’s largest business networking site, says Scott Allen, a LinkedIn expert who was my guest during two teleseminars last year on How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller asked this question:

“Do you use Twitter as part of your book marketing campaign? If so, how do you use it?”

I responded, not because I recognized her as one of my ezine subscribers, but because I had a long list of tips that might help other authors. Here’s how I answered:

• Start tweeting about the book as soon as you decide to write it.
      
• Ask questions that lead to information you can include in the book.
      
• Did you just find a publisher? Discover a great book coach? Work with a terrific proofreader? Let your followers know.
      
• Use Twitter to link to your fan pages on Facebook.
      
• Tweet about problems, challenges and other issues you’ve encountered while writing the book.
       
• Tweet about tips, advice and excerpts from the book several times BEFORE promoting it.
        
• Encourage people who read the book to use a hashtag when discussing it on Twitter so they can search under the hashtag keyword and find other comments.
      
• Include a link in your tweets to your book at Amazon and encourage people to review it there.
        
• Upload photos related to your book to Photobucket, Flickr and other photo-sharing sites.  Link from Twitter.
      
• Tweet about book signings and any other events related to your book.
    
• Offer a link to the press room at your website that includes all info about your book as soon as the press room has been created.  Mention it’s “for media only” to create interest and encourage people to eavesdrop.
     
• Create a contest that ties into your book and tweet.  Direct-message your followers and ask them to retweet.
     
• Be sure to reply to every person who tweets about your book.  This makes you more visible to their followers.
    
• If you’re an affiliate who earns a commission for selling somebody else’s book, discuss it on Twitter and use your affiliate link.  The link will be cloaked with a Tiny URL.

“I’m eager to see all the other suggestions here, Phyllis,” I wrote.

A few hours later, I checked back to see if anyone else had responded. Instead of more answers to the question, I found a glowing testimonial that Phyllis had written about my tips:

Investment: 15 minutes of my time, at most, to write the tips.

Return on investment:  A recommendation for my Twitter special report that anybody can find if they’re searching for “how to use Twitter for book marketing,” along with a link to Phyllis’ site where they can see this big, free ad for my products:

That’s a small investment, and I’m willing to wait to see if that translates into dollars and cents. In the meantime, it adds a third-party endorsement that’s more valuable than any ad I could buy. 

If you’re not answering questions on LinkedIn, you’re missing a powerful opportunity to promote your expertise. The person asking the question  can also flag one of the answers “best answer.” Your LinkedIn profile shows the the total number of “best answers” you have acculated, further enhancing your expertise. Also see Use LinkedIn to Promote These 7 Ways.