Reach Your Audience … 6 Quick Twitter Tips for You:

1. GET the Most Bang

Know when to Tweet and where the audiences are. According to RadiumOne, there are two peak times during the day to Tweet:

10AM to 12PM and 8PM through 10PM

That’s it, at least for now. If you want to see the most shares, with the highest click-through, you should be Tweeting from 12 noon to 2PM. Remember, Tweets are global, which means global times zones. These cover the basics and a broad span to optimize your visibility.

Of course, this content regulation changes based on where your audience is. Key point: Connect with your audience when they are online.

Authors need feedback, reality checks and plain old-fashion butt-kicking. And they need a little kindness. Few think about putting together an “official” type of board to serve in the feedback/reality check/butt-kicking honors. An Author Inner Circle … a type of Advisory Board.

Who Belongs in Your Inner Circle?

It’s time to create yours. The Author Inner Circle … trusted colleagues, pals, and always someone who has “been there, done that.” Most likely, it’s not going to be your sibling, mom or dad. Not unless they’ve authored or work with authors, publishing, books. You want someone who has got an inkling of what is going on in the publishing business; someone who is connected with others; someone who has a sense of humor; someone who has a kaleidoscope of business experience; someone who will say it as it is and not side-step the elephant in the room (which could be you); someone who loves to brainstorming and bounce off-the-wall ideas around; someone who will move you to action; someone who gets what social media marketing is about; someone who gets your Vision for your book and where you want to go with it.

Author Headlines: Be Smart … or Be Square

How many times have you noodled your lead or headline to trash it, over and over? It could be for a blog, an article, a speech … and gulp, your book. Don’t you wish the headline gods would drop in, give you your zinger, so you can write or finish what you are working on?

Or, have you gone blank and you just can’t get the promo piece together? Or, how about trying to come up with something that can tie into an event, happening, or even newsy type of item that you think would be a hook for your community?

For the annual Author U Extravaganza, One of Author U’s Premier Partners Dave Raymond and Thomson Shore created an email that was sent to his lists:

          This week celebrates National Library Week. For authors, libraries can be your best friend. With over 100,000 throughout the country, their budgets still purchase approximately $2,000,000,000 in books each year—two billion dollars! That’s what the American Library Association and the Book Industry Study Group report.

So … the question is … are you getting your share?

•  Say hello to your local library and librarian. Let them know about your book.
• Offer to do a program—especially if you are a children’s author. Many libraries have author programs and are enthusiastic in working and featuring authors—stick your neck out. And if you get invited, make sure you encourage others to come. Bodies count!
• Ask for testimonials and endorsements.
• Make sure you share reviews and any media clippings with your librarian … the one you befriended!
• Donate a book to the library—it just may be the thing that generates a purchase order.

Social media keeps shifting.  That’s an understatement. It used to be that AMs were the best time to blast out Tweets to your Peeps and get on Facebook. Google+ is now roaring into place and timing is unknown, yet my gut tells me AMs will dominate with revisits later in the day for it.

Social media posts get lost quickly; they have a limited shelf life. Very limited. If you have something that is timely and important—your post time becomes critical.

Who Is Using What When?

What’s your time zone? Almost half the U.S. population is in the Eastern time zone … it’s critical to post within. If you are regionally based and do events/activities with one zone—focus on it.

Twitter users are spending more time between the hours of noon and 6 PM. On Twitter, most of the United States posts and reads tweets between Noon and 6:00 PM with the best time to Tweet being 5 PM and a range of one to four tweets within the hour.

  Guy Kawasaki is the opening keynote on Friday am at the Extravaganza. All attendees will get a copy of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur,  his latest book. As the former Chief Evangelist for Apple computer and author of multiple NY Times bestsellers, he knows books, authoring and publishing. Be there. If you are an author who wants to be serious successful … you will be at the Extravaganza. No excuses allowed.

Here’s his Five Simple Ways to Improve your Ranking on Google a la Guy Kawasaki …

Sear In fact, Google is too smart for most “black hat” marketers. On average, Google changes their algorithms over 500 times a year. Why do they do this? Well, mostly to make sure that websites that are focused on content farming and other black hat SEO tactics don’t climb up the search engine ranking.