Two Big Lessons About Promoting Your Book in the Digital Age

Finishing my book was a truly rewarding experience. The edits and re-writes seemed time consuming, but they were worth every second I put into it. As the book's promotional phase kicked into high gear, I began to feel quite enthusiastic about every aspect of the operation.

My publisher, Saba Tekle, made sure my book was a best-seller in pre-sale a month before its release. But if I wanted it to have long-term staying power, I knew the promotion had to be multi-dimensional. My book has chapters on how world leaders use social media, the evolution of customer service, and the importance of mobile technology, so I had no problem envisioning how to creatively pitch content to different groups.

As I continue to cultivate my literary approach, I can confidently say than an awareness of two significant things has greatly aided me with promotion:

(1) Social and Email Are An Effective Combination - In December 2011, I
participated in a great philanthropic effort called "12 Days of Giving", which involved 12 people raising money for the charity of their choice. The initiative was a massive success, but I raised the lowest amount of money among all of the participants - by far. I fund-raised for the nonprofit Charity: Water, but was only able to get $140. It was my biggest, and most embarrassing social media blunder, ever.

So, what went wrong, you ask?

I used Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus every day, as one would expect. However, I did not complement my efforts with an email campaign.That was a huge mistake, one I promised to never make again. As McKinsey and Forbes reported last year, email is still much more effective than social media. But the two together can definitely work in extraordinary ways.

When people visit an author's account to favorite, +1, like or share something, authors should reach out to see if they can get in touch via email - not to spam, but to inform people about their activities, and, ultimately, to be helpful. Being resourceful and charitable in social can only take your email effort to the next level. So use both.

(2) Support Can Come From Anywhere - No matter who you are, your social media audience is likely bigger than you think. The number of people who monitor you in the shadows on platforms can be just as big, or bigger, than the people who follow you publicly. This means you are surrounded by book buyers, and they know who you are. You just have to give them a good reason to purchase.

It is pretty gratifying when authors gets positive postings from someone they know as well as from someone they don't. Recently, I received a tweet from a supporter named Carrie Ann Taylor:

The very next tweet was from a gentleman named Rasmus Hallgren. I didn't know him, and we never tweeted each other in the past. But he engaged Carrie Ann about my book.

This was a first time I saw someone chime in on a Twitter conversation to voice further support for my book. But Rasmus went further in a second tweet.

This was huge! He promised to recommend my book for an upcoming college course on social media. He offered to do something not because of any expectation of reward, but simply because he liked my work. As a way of saying thanks, I promptly retweeted him. You never know where your support is going to fully come from. This Twitter exchange above is an example of that.

There are tons of ways to promote your book and gain supporters, but if you use social media to do it, always be the best version of yourself online. Are you occasionally engaging people with a "hello", "thank you" or "I appreciate that"? Do you support other people in your network, or are your accounts just about you? Your answers to these questions could provide an unbeatable blueprint, or, give you a sense of what you may need to tweak.

Everything you do has an impact, and forms an impression. It is not just about trying to sell, but about building and sustaining relationships, too. Believe it or not, that's how you thrive, and how your book can come to know consistent and enduring success.

Here is some of my recent work on LinkedIn, Huffington Post, and Smedio:

• How To Write a Book
• 20 Beautiful Women
• Politics, Diplomacy and Social Media
• Success and Social Media: Heather Geronemus

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Sean Gardner is a global best-selling author, keynote speaker, digital consultant and business creative who splits his time between Washington D.C. and Seattle, WA. He currently conducts workshops and social media training for small business, nonprofits, celebrities and multinational corporations. You can Tweet, Friend, Pin, or Instagram him, and/or circle him on Google Plus.

Also...you can purchase Sean's international best-seller, The Road to Social Media Success. It has some of his observations on digital strategy, social media law, Giving Tuesday's impact on philanthropy, how to network at conferences, and a host of other topics.

So if you're trying to understand social, some its major players, its impact, its history, and where its going, this is the book for you.

Inspire, inform and elevate social media. Always!