When Kimber Simpkins went out to shoot her book trailer, she hit the road with questions and an openness to what might occur as she interviewed “women on the street” about how they felt about their bodies. She didn’t exactly start with their bodies, however. Her opening question was, “Does this dress make me look fat?”
The resulting video about body image went viral on social media and was picked up by Self.com and the Huffington Post. Here, Kimber offers her experience and advice.
I had an idea for a funny and provocative video percolating in the back of my head for several years. When my publisher asked me to make a book trailer for Full, I realized it was time to bring the idea to life.
I’d never done anything like this, so it was a big deal for me… I had to write up a script, lasso a few friends to help out, hire a camera person and an editor, and get everyone to show up on the same day in the same place.
We had no idea what would happen, because the ‘script’ was just a series of questions to ask ‘women on the street’ about body image.
We’d scheduled four hours to shoot and hoped we’d get some good answers that we could edit into a 3 minute video. We probably asked about ten women to be interviewed for each one who was willing to appear on camera, so it involved a lot of leg work: approaching total strangers with a smile and shrugging off rejections with, ‘Have a great day!’
The publisher New Harbinger contacted the author directly after she self published.
By the end of the day I was amazed at how thoughtful and wise the women we talked to were. We had a ton of great footage, and luckily our editor did a fantastic job putting it all together and adding music to create an ‘I laughed/I cried’ video.
A couple of things that happened behind the scenes, were that I had an eating disorders therapist friend there to debrief everyone who was interviewed, and passed out educational information about eating disorders and negative body talk. I knew we were going to trigger people and wanted folks to have a chance to talk about it if they needed to.
I think a lot of what made the video footage work on the first try was that we chose a great location, with lots of women walking around on the weekend in a busy beautiful area of Oakland, a city where people are known for speaking their minds.
We posted it on Facebook and on my YouTube channel and my publisher’s publicist sent it out to places she thought would be interested. It was picked up by both Self.com and Huffington Post. We also paid a bit to promote it on YouTube.
I shared it on Facebook and asked folks to tell their friends about it. Sharing it on social media, it’s good to keep posting repeatedly for a week or so, so it keeps showing up in people’s feeds. I also shared it via my email list. Body image is a hot topic right now and that—combined with the emotional content of the video—made it compelling for people to watch and share.”
2. Quiz ’em
Rusty Shelton
People love to take quizzes! Rusty Shelton, Digital Media Strategist and co-author of the forthcoming book Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset, has encouraged several of his clients to offer a free quiz as a way to attract new visitors to a website and immediately engage them. It’s also a great way to build your mailing list. You can offer the quiz on your website and mention it on social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as in your blog posts.
Says Rusty, “The name of the game right now for authors and thought leaders is growing your email list so that you own the connection to your audience. Creating a magnet on your website gives people a reason to visit—and engage.”
Dr. Craig Malkin
Quizzes seem to be a particularly effective “magnet”: More than 50,000 people have taken Dr. Craig Malkin‘s Narcissism Test. And more than 150,000 people have taken The Confidence Code Quiz. Check them out and think about what you can do for your own.
3. Subscribe to Relevant Blogs/Bloggers and Comment Immediately on Hot Posts.
Dr. Victoria Dunckley
When I saw a post on banning handheld devices for children under 12 on the Huffington Post, I had a feeling it could go viral. I emailed Dr. Victoria Dunckley, author of Reset Your Child’s Brain and encouraged her to respond immediately so that her comment would be an early one—a comment that added relevant information and linked to her latest Psychology Today article within the comment. She received nearly 20,000 hits to the article due to viral Facebook activity and her single comment had nearly 100 replies just to that one comment.
The original Huffpo article received more than 1 million views, and over 300k likes on Facebook. While Dr. Dunckley’s book wasn’t out yet, many of the people who responded become followers of her blog and joined her mailing list, supporting book sales later. The single comment also resulted in three media interviews: Scholastic News, a publication that goes out to over 3 million children ages 10-12 about screen-time effects on the brain, A PBS Magazine publication in New Mexico on Electronic Screen Syndrome, and The Carlat Report, a child psychiatry newsletter on childhood obesity–which Dr. Dunckley tied into screen-time reduction.
The Huffpost comment also put Dr. Dunckley in contact with experts in her field throughout the nation who are now helping spread the word about her book. Some have even invited her for high profile speaking gigs. This one comment was the gift that kept on giving.
[bctt tweet=”Some keys to successful social media commenting are…”]
Be relevant (don’t spam).
Add value—say something that builds on what the author says, if you can.
Link to a post of your own only when it’s truly appropriate and, again, adds value.
Share the post on social media.
4. Use the latest research to work smarter, not harder.
Frances Caballo
Frances Caballo, author of Social Media Just for Writers and Avoid Social Media Time Suck, points to the latest Pew Research Study as a great source of data about your readers and their demographics. When you understand where your readers hang out on line, times of day, and what they do there, you can better reach them and interact optimally.
Says Frances, “I spend time on the social media networks that bring me comments, shares, engagements and sales” and she suggests you do the same! Frances also studies her Google Analytics and Facebook analytics. She encourages authors to, “Go to your Facebook author page and check Insights, Facebook’s free analytics program, once you reach 35 page Likes. There, you’ll find gender and age demographics that will help you to apply the new Pew Center’s results to your social media marketing.”
5. Show Your Gratitude!
Cathy Turney
If you look at Cathy Turney‘s LinkedIn or Facebook Posts or her Tweets, you’ll notice one thing that stands out above all else—she’s forever thanking and praising colleagues.
I love receiving Cathy’s handwritten thank you notes, too, of course. There’s something special about choosing a special card, taking the time to write a note by hand and dropping it in the mailbox. But Cathy doesn’t stop there.
When she gets media attention, wins an award or reaches a goal, she’s religious about publicly thanking—on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter—all the people who helped her get there. And she’s specific about the ways people have helped her and the skills they possess.
By tagging and thanking her colleagues, we’re continually reminded that we are part of her team. We get to bask in her glories, acknowledge the roles we played and celebrate along with her. And we continue to share her successes and spread the word about her Stevie Award-winning book, Laugh Your Way to Real Estate Sales Success.
Who’s on your team?
Are you thanking them publicly and specifically?
I encourage you to pick one thing from this list and try it. Or be creative about using these ideas as a starting point for your own creative social media strategies.
Comment below to share what you’re doing or to ask questions.
Diane Radford, MD with Julie Silver, MD at the Harvard Medical School CME leadership and publishing course this year.
In April 2015 I was delighted to talk at the Harvard Medical School course Achieving Healthcare Leadership and Impact Through Writing Publishing and Social Media. I have attended this course (directed by Dr. Julie Silver) previously, and it was there that I met some of my talented mentors, including Lisa Tener and Rusty Shelton.
My topic was Social Media Tips from a Busy Surgeon. I joined social media in late 2011. Twitter is my favorite social medium — it is robust, global, and interactive. Lisa invited me to share the highlights from my lecture, which can be applied to many fields and interests. I use my experience and specialty (breast cancer surgery) as an example.
In 2013 Pauline Chen MD wrote an article for the New York Times on Doctors and Their Online Reputation. Her piece featured the recently published book by Kevin Pho MD and Susan Gay. The authors conclude, “The biggest risk of social media in health care is not using it at all.” How then, can the novice to social media gain some traction and direction in the dizzying barrage of information and opinion in cyberspace?
Tip 1: Participate in Tweetchats
Tweetchats are virtual meetings usually held on a repeating basis organized around a specific topic and hashtag. The chat I join most often is #bcsm — breast cancer social media — which was founded by Dr. Deanna Attai @DrAttai, a breast surgeon, and two breast cancer advocates Alicia C. Staley @stales and Jody Schoger @jodyms. It takes place every Monday night at 9pm Eastern Time and has grown in participation and breadth of interaction since its inception in 2011.
The Healthcare Hashtag Project lists health-related tweetchats, conferences and diseases. The Project has made finding topics related to one’s field of interest much simpler. For example enter “writing” in the search field and you will find the hashtag for Julie Silver’s course #HarvardWriters2015.
A boon of Twitter is the presence of numerous writers, agents and editors on that medium. Numerous writing related tweetchats exist. Debbie Ridpath Ohi @inkyelbows lists writing chats on a page of her website — The Writer’s Guide to Twitter. Thanks to Jane Friedman@JaneFriedman for sharing that resource with me.
Tip 2: Live Tweet Conferences
As a breast surgeon my major conferences are the American Society of Breast Surgeons and the Society of Surgical Oncology. Live tweeting meetings is an excellent way to interact with peers, share the latest data, and disseminate information to the wider global community. The Healthcare Hashtag Project lists meetings by hashtag, will let you know what’s trending, and lists major influencers. Even if one cannot attend the meeting, following the hashtag is way to participate and stay up-to-date.
Tip 3: Promote your Specialty’s Journals
Your specialty’s journal no doubt has a presence on Twitter. Annals of Surgical Oncology @AnnSurgOncol is the journal for both @ASBrS and @SocSurgOnc. Because of my growing Twitter following, I was honored to be asked by @AnnSurgOncol to be a member of their editorial board, and co-write (with @NirajGusani and @sandrawong) a Twitter guide for fellow board members.
Tip 4: Don’t Buy Followers
As Guy Kawasaki says “. . . My theory – there are only 2 kinds of people in social media. One wants more followers and the other is a liar. . .”
We all want to be popular, to be influencers. However, buying Twitter followers is not the way to do it. Buying followers is cheating. Followers should be earned through honest engagement — by being both interested and interesting.
And one way to be more interesting is to……
Tip 5: Write Effective Tweets
In their article titled Who Gives a Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value, P. André et. al. describe their analysis of 43,000 tweets. They concluded that the most valued tweets were information sharing, links to personally created content, and questions to followers. Appropriate use of @mentions and using fewer hashtags in tweets was preferred. Above all…..don’t whine on Twitter. It’s not becoming.
Adding an image to a tweet will increase engagement five times.
Retro Shot: Rusty Shelton and me at the Harvard Course in 2011.
I spent a few days in Boston last week for Harvard Medical School’s CME leadership and publishing course. When I wasn’t teaching workshops, I spent most of my time meeting course participants and helping them clarify their book concepts and publishing strategies.
However, I managed to squeeze in a few of the panels and presentations where I learned how much even a publishing insider can learn in this rapidly changing arena. Here are a few social media tips that served as helpful reminders—as well as a new website tip I picked up from Rusty Shelton:
One of Rusty Shelton’s social media tips: Google your name and see what comes up. “Your brand is what Google says it is.” [Click to Tweet This] Rusty asks, “Are you leaving that first impression for others to make?” Imagine a New York Times columnist searching for your name. “Would they find you? Would they be able to contact you on deadline?”
Of course, the advanced version of this is not just being searchable by name but by the keywords a journalist may search under. Rusty shared that four of the five most recent instances of his authors being on national TV were from a producer calling after finding the author in a keyword search on Google.
Rusty’s talk made me rethink the idea of having a contact form, which I used to prevent spam. Rusty’s point is that you want to make it as easy as possible for journalists considering you as a news source. A contact form adds an extra step. A clearly visible e-mail and phone number work best. We certainly don’t want to turn away the media!
“I Can’t Get Published”: Oh, Yes, You Can. Here’s How to Get Published
I recently received an e-mail that began, “I have worked so tenaciously to find the right traditional book publisher to publish my memoir…”
The author was starting to give up, lamenting that if she were rich and famous her book would be published. “There is no support for first time authors.”
I waited to respond to the author because the whole dis-empowered tone of it irritated me. I knew I shouldn’t answer an e-mail in that state. So, let’s look at this as an opportunity:
Here’s the truth. Publishers do publish first time authors–their memoirs, how-to books and even novels! They’re on the hunt for the next huge hit–and it’s likely not a celebrity memoir. So, that’s good news for her–and for you, whether you are writing a memoir or self-help book or other nonfiction: You can get published.
If your book is fresh, if the writing is outstanding and your book will likely speak to a large– or strong niche–audience, publishers are interested. But imagine yourself as an acquisitions editor for a moment. Perhaps ten or twenty years ago when you first started, you took several chances on authors who didn’t have a following. Maybe some really followed through with their marketing plans. Likely some did not.
In this market, publishers can’t afford to take such risks. They’re publishing fewer books. They need to know that there’s an audience out there already waiting to buy your book. That audience is your tribe and maybe they read your blog or come to your workshops or they follow you on twitter. They will buy your book. And if you don’t have a following like that, then why not start now? Otherwise, how will you reach people to buy your book anyway?
Now, if you were a publisher and someone came to you and said, “I have this great book; you should publish it, but I don’t have any following or platform,” don’t you think you might ask, “Why not?”
Interestingly, this author did not want to self-publish. Again, “Why not?” If she doesn’t believe enough in her book to publish it herself, why would a publishing company?
The internet offers zillions (count them) of ways to connect with the people you want to reach through your book and start to impact their lives now–before your book is ever published–maybe even before it’s fully written. If your writing resonates for these readers, they’ll likely recommend your book, review it, some will even give it as gifts–and you’ll reach more people, make more of an impact.
What this e-mail writer saw as a dead end was really a huge opportunity–to understand that no one is going to invest in her dream if she’s not invested–and part of that investment is developing a community, a tribe, connecting with people who resonate with her message.
So, how you can you get started? Here are 3 ideas to start developing your author platform and 3 ideas to educate yourself about your publishing options so you can get published:
1. Read this just posted interview on Social Media for Writers with Frances Caballo, author of Social Media Just for Writers and Avoid Social Media Time Suck. You’ll learn some ways to use social media to connect with your budding (or new) tribe of fans and colleagues.
2. Consider blogging to develop a fan base. For now, just start brainstorming what you might write about and a theme for your blog. How might it resonate with the subject of your book.
3. Can you teach a workshop, webinar or teleseminar on your subject? Begin to jot down ideas of how you might take material from your book and teach it to others.
4. If you really want to learn how the publishing industry works so you can get published, join me at the San Francisco Writers Conference mid-month where you can learn all about developing that following–or author platform–to empower you so you can become a published author and not an e-mail writer who laments that the cards are stacked against her! You can also meet acquisitions editors (publishers) and literary agents and ask them directly what they’re looking for in your book proposal and pitch. And if you have a blind spot about writing and publishing (as this writer did), you will have the opportunity to see the light!
5. If late March suits you better and you happen to be writing a health or well-being related book, consider joining me at Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course. March 31-April 2. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet and get feedback from acquisitions editors (publishers) and literary agents, as well as attend classes on how to write a book proposal, get published and other relevant subjects.
6. If you want to get the low-down on how to write a book proposal to get published, join me and Julia McCutchen, founder of the International Association of Conscious and Creative Writers (IACCW), when she interviews me on How to Write a Book Proposal –a topic that Julia also has much experience to contribute to. And this Friday, you can catch Julia interviewing Michelle Pilley, managing director and publisher of Hay House UK who will speak about the Inside Story of Independent Publishing (same link as above).
So, no excuses. The publishing industry is not conspiring against you–I promise. In fact, it’s offering you more paths to success than ever. All you need to do is explore, evaluate and take strategic, inspired action.
How to Make the Most of VIP Encounters (Hint: Social Media)
One of my Bring Your Book to Life students e-mailed me to say that she would be meeting a VIP in the medical world in a few short weeks at a networking luncheon through her husband’s business.
She asked how to best approach him. A foreword or even a blurb from him would be a real coup. And perhaps he might offer advice on the book publishing and promotion front.
In the old days, she’d probably have to wait until the event to introduce herself, but nowadays we can connect easily and become part of someone’s community at the click of a mouse through social media.
I suggested she read his books, then check out his blog and subscribe, asking relevant questions or making comments of substance on his posts that add value to the discussion. I also suggested she see if he has a facebook fan page, twitter id, etc. and connect in these social media arenas, as well. Here’s a place she can add value for him by retweeting his tweets or sharing his updates.
Whether he remembers her or not, she’ll now be part of his online community and can introduce herself accordingly. She’s no longer a random stranger, but part of his tribe.
And most bloggers are particularly grateful for those who add to the discourse on their blogs, so he’s likely to remember her unless his blog gets hundreds of comments. Authors appreciate their fans.
Is this disingenuous? I think not. It’s easier to meet people and become part of their circle through social media. To take advantages of the technology just makes sense–and it’s part of what successful authors do. If you can contribute to someone before you ever meet them, why wouldn’t you?
So, if you’re planning to attend an event or book signing with one of your “paper mentors” and you want to connect more deeply, become part of their online circle before you physically meet. And think about what you can do for them, too.
Twitter Success Story from Harvard: 2 Weeks Tweeting & 4 New Clients!
A bit over two weeks ago, I gave a presentation on blogging and social media for authors at Harvard Medical School’s CME Publishing Course. On Friday, I heard a fantastic story from a self-proclaimed “Twitter Resistant” aspiring author who had put my words into action immediately.
Last Friday, Red Sox nutritionist (who also has a private practice) Tara Mardigan shared that she felt overwhelmed at the idea of blogging and tweeting,
Tara Mardigan
“But if I need to do it to get a book deal, I will.”
On the way home from the Harvard course, she stopped by the Mac store and asked a tech to set up a blog and twitter profile.
In half an hour she had a new blog on Tumblr and a twitter profile. The Mac employee who helped her e-mailed a bunch of his Mac buddies across the country and 20 or so of them followed her on Twitter. She now has a modest 38 followers.
In the past two weeks, Tara has sent out a handful of updates, sometimes pointing to an article she finds interesting and a few pointing to the three blog posts she’s posted. In two weeks, her twitter updates have brought her FOUR NEW CLIENTS. That’s in just two weeks of tweeting.
Share your Twitter Successes and questions below.
PS Join me Wed. April 21 at 9pm Eastern when Betty Bell interviews me about transforming life and work by becoming a published author. Here’s the link to sign up (free):
Says Rusty, “The name of the game right now for authors and thought leaders is growing your email list so that you own the connection to your audience. Creating a magnet on your website gives people a reason to visit—and engage.”
The original Huffpo article received more than 1 million views, and over 300k likes on Facebook. While Dr. Dunckley’s book wasn’t out yet, many of the people who responded become followers of her blog and joined her mailing list, supporting book sales later. The single comment also resulted in three media interviews: Scholastic News, a publication that goes out to over 3 million children ages 10-12 about screen-time effects on the brain, A PBS Magazine publication in New Mexico on Electronic Screen Syndrome, and The Carlat Report, a child psychiatry newsletter on childhood obesity–which Dr. Dunckley tied into screen-time reduction.
Says Frances, “I spend time on the social media networks that bring me comments, shares, engagements and sales” and she suggests you do the same! Frances also studies her Google Analytics and Facebook analytics. She encourages authors to, “Go to your Facebook author page and check Insights, Facebook’s free analytics program, once you reach 35 page Likes. There, you’ll find gender and age demographics that will help you to apply the new Pew Center’s results to your social media marketing.”
4. If you really want to learn how the publishing industry works so you can get published, join me at the 
