Marketing 101 - Publicity and Public Relations

PUBLICITY

Publicity is free and uncontrollable. It is just people talking about you. If you can manage to get your name trending on twitter – jackpot. Sometimes a sex scandal can help a celebrity but I’ve never heard of one helping a writer. Yet. But hey, there’s always that first time.

Viral Marketing

Now that I'm finished with the old school 4 Ps of Marketing, my next project is a series on viral marketing. Here's a taste of what's to come:

What is viral marketing?  It can be defined as "a marketing strategy that relies on individuals rather than traditional campains to pass along a message to others" (source: WiseGeek).

In other words, rather than force commericals down someone's throat, you convince them to seek out and share your content. Youtube and twitter are powerful tools but most people don't use them properly.

Here is a good introductory video to viral marketing:

Links related to this video:

David Meerman Scott

New Rules of Marketing by David Meerman Scott

Steve Rubel, worlds largest independent PR firm

PUBLIC RELATIONS

PR is something you control. Examples of public relations events include:

Press releases:

This involves doing interviews for local papers and other people’s blogs (e.g. "blog tours"). The more places someone can find your name the more likely they are to try your product.

It happened for me last year with Ed Sheeran. I heard the name so many times in so many places I finally said “Who the hell is this guy?” The technical name for this would be "push marketing".

Public events

Stop only talking to your friends and family.  They know who you are.  Get involved with your community, in your home town and the industry. For writers, get involved in chats and events on twitter. Live tweeting shows and events gets more people to know you exist. The Superbowl is coming up: plan to live tweet about the commercials AND the game

Also consider joining writers groups. However, joining is useless unless you are an active participant.  If you are on Goodreads (and if you're not, why are you not) there are ton of groups you can join. Their benefit is they have readers as well as writers.  Talk to them and start acting like the professional/expert you want people to think you are.

Investor relations

Who are your investors? The people who buy your books and the people who read your blogs. Interact with them. Stop just throwing "buy my book" comments at them. Get to know them.  Politicians have been doing this for years. Kiss some figurative babies.  Read THEIR blogs and comment on them.  Respond to their twitter and Facebook posts.

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