Posted: 29 May 2010 01:30 AM PDT

Here’s a freebie: if I were an author looking to get the most out of the social web (and I am), I’d do something along the lines of what I’m about to share. Your mileage may vary, but here’s a decent approximation of the things I’d do. Please feel free to share liberally. Just link back to An Author’s Plan for Social Media Efforts, please.

An Author’s Plan for Social Media

Set up a URL for the book, and/or maybe one for your name. Need help finding a URL? I use Ajaxwhois.com for simple effort in searching.
Set up a blog. If you want it free and super fast, WordPress or Tumblr. I’d recommend getting hosting like Bloghost.me.
On the blog, write about interesting things that pertain to the book, but don’t just promote the book over and over again. In fact, blow people away by promoting their blogs and their books, if they’re related a bit.
Start an email newsletter. It’s amazing how much MORE responsive email lists are than any other online medium.
Have a blog post that’s a list of all the places one might buy your book. I did this for both Trust Agents and building blocks.)
Consider recording a video trailer for your book. Here’s one from Scott Sigler (YouTube), for his horror thriller, Contagious.
Build a Facebook fan page for the book or for bonus points, build one around the topic the book covers, and only lightly promote the book via the page.
Join Twitter under your name, not your book’s name, and use Twitter Search to find people who talk about the subjects your book covers.
When people talk about your book, good or bad, thank them with a reply. Connect to people frequently. It’s amazing how many authors I rave about on Twitter and how few actually respond. Mind you, the BIGGEST authors always respond (paradox?)
Use Google Blogsearch and Alltop to find the people who’d likely write about the subject matter your book covers. Get commenting on their blog posts but NOT mentioning your book. Get to know them. Leave USEFUL comments, with no blatant URL back to your book.
Work with your publisher for a blogger outreach project. See if you can do a giveaway project with a few bloggers (here’s a book giveaway project I did for Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years book).
Offer to write guest posts on blogs that make sense as places where potential buyers might be. Do everything you can to make the post match the content of the person’s site and not your goals. But do link to your book.
Ask around for radio or TV contacts via the social web and LinkedIn. You never know.
Come up with interesting reasons to get people to buy bulk orders. If you’re a speaker, waive your fee (or part of it) in exchange for sales of hundreds of books. (And spread those purchases around to more than one bookselling company.) In those giveaways, do something to promote links back to your site and/or your post. Giveaways are one time: Google Juice is much longer lasting.
Whenever someone writes a review on their blog, thank them with a comment, and maybe 1 tweet, but don’t drown them in tweets pointing people to the review. It just never comes off as useful.
Ask gently for Amazon and other distribution site reviews. They certainly do help the buying process. And don’t ask often.
Do everything you can to be gracious and thankful to your readers. Your audience is so much more important than you in this equation, as there are more of them than there are of you.
Start showing up at face to face events, where it makes sense, including tweetups. If there’s not a local tweetup, start one.
And with all things, treat people like you’d want them to treat your parents (provided you had a great relationship with at least one of them).

This sounds like a lot of steps. It is. But this is how people are finding success. Should this be the publicist’s job? Not even a little bit. The publicist has his or her own methodology. The author will always be the best advocate for his or her own work. Never put your marketing success in the hands of someone else. Always bring your best efforts into the mix and you’ll find your best reward on your time and effort.

You might have found other ways to be successful with various online and social media tools. By all means, please share with us here. What’s your experience been with promoting your work using the social web?

Chris Brogan is the New York Times bestselling author of the NEW book, Social Media 101. He is president of New Marketing Labs, LLC, and blogs at [chrisbrogan.com].

What I Do

Posted: 28 May 2010 02:21 PM PDT

Interestingly, a lot of people said this about their displeasure at my new logo: “it doesn’t explain what you do.” I really appreciate that mindset, but then again, Starbucks doesn’t sell mermaid princesses. In 50 stunning examples of great redesigns, there are some logos that absolutely explain everything, and several that don’t. So, that’s a choice.

But the question of “what I do” really stopped me, because I think that if I asked you to answer in 1 line what I do, you’d answer differently. There’d be some consensus eventually, but here’s the thing: there’s what I know I do, and what the masses might think I do, and there’s whatever’s in the middle.

What do I do?

What I Do

Let’s start with the easy part. What I do is split into a few buckets right now:

Marketing consulting – New Marketing Labs
Media – [chrisbrogan.com] (for now)
Education – new site (not yet completed)

In my marketing consulting, I work with big companies.
In my media work, I tell stories about human business on [chrisbrogan.com] and other stuff elsewhere, like Third Tribe.
In my education work, I’m going to help people achieve escape velocity.

I’m a business consultant, a writer, an educator, a professional speaker, a marketer.

I’m here to help people build human business, both at the individual and at the super-huge-company scale.

What I Am Not

I am not a social media guru. I am not a Twitter star. I am not here to help people build better websites.

The Letter B

B is the letter after A. It’s not a Type-A personality. It’s Type-B. It’s B-sides. It’s B-line. Whatever. It’s the letter B. That’s also the first letter of my last name. But hey, it can be abstracted.

And Then?

We’ll all see. But what I learned, and what I like, is that this whole thing, throwing up a new logo, is a reminder that people see you as you have been, as they understand you to be, and as you’ve let them remember you.

Ah, branding. Ah, marketing. I learn every day.

Welcoming Rob Hatch

Posted: 28 May 2010 01:40 PM PDT

I’ve been talking about a new business for a while. I’m just waiting on a website to show you before I really unleash what we’re going to do over there, but in the interim, I wanted to announce that Rob Hatch has agreed to join me as my Executive Director at my new organization. He’s essentially responsible for building structure and meaning and value out of all the crazy that is me.

Diane is still my Executive Assistant. Steve is still answering contacts. I still also have responsibilities at New Marketing Labs.

This is for the new stuff.

So, if you want, follow @robhatch on Twitter, and get to know him, that’s the deal. He’s going to help me build out my media and education company.

The rest? Well, you’ll get that as soon as we’re ready to roll things out. This is just introducing Rob.

Say hi. : )

New Logo

Posted: 28 May 2010 04:39 AM PDT

I’ve got a new logo. The incredible design team at STRESSLIMITDESIGN created it for me. They were also the people who created this logo:

I’ve rocked that for a few years now. It definitely expressed what I was getting at here at [chrisbrogan.com], so I’m grateful for it.

New Logo

With my new logo, I wanted something very understated. I wanted something iconic, that could be useful in a variety of ways. My inspiration for what the guys at STRESSLIMIT did for me actually came from a bus sign in San Francisco (or some kind of route sign). I liked how it just was. It’s very functional-minded.

So, here’s the new logo (and you can see it on the header at [chrisbrogan.com] as well):

chrisbrogan.com logo

I love the heck out of it. I wanted something very simple, and very understated, and Justin Evans at STRESSLIMITDESIGN executed it perfectly.

But that’s my take. You?

The Complaints

So far, when people are disagreeing, they’re saying that the old logo was more evocative of what I do. So, what do I do? I talk a lot? I chat a lot? I invite conversations?

That’s just it. What I do has evolved a bit. I’m the last guy in the world telling people to “join the conversation.” I think talk is great. I’m looking for more. But my logo’s not about conversation any longer.

Instead, I think of it as a route, a destination, a signpost, guidance. I think of it as a way to “tab” an experience, and then move on.

But that’s just me. It’s TOTALLY okay not to like the new logo. It’s mine. : )