I love it when the people speak up.

Log in to Twitter and search on the hashtag @40dollars and you’ll see personal stories and political opinions galore as people sound off on the latest stalemate in Washington.

$40 a paycheck is the average amount ending the payroll tax cut will cost an American family. The House GOP rejected a Senate bill on Monday that would extend the cut for 2 months, giving both houses time to pass a bill extending the cuts for the rest of the year.

To get the public on their side, the White House turned to social media, inviting the public to post how losing $40/paycheck will affect their families. The response was immediate. According to the CNN blog:

You responded in force on Twitter using the hashtag #40dollars.  Early Wednesday morning there had been 1,000 tweets generated 723,638 impressions, reaching an audience of 585,405 followers using the hashtag within the past 24 hours, according to the website HashTracking.com. The website Topsy.com, which tracks similiar metrics showed that the hashtag had over 14,000 mentions. Needless to say, President Obama and the White House’s campaign drew the attention of Americans online.

Will it help to break the stalemate? Stay tuned.

You’ve won this great award for your book. Now that the ceremony is over and the initial glow has lessened, how do you get some well-deserved publicity from it?

1. Tell everybody you know and celebrate! Then, write a press release that includes what the award is, and why you won it.

2. Send the press release out to your local newspapers, alumni association, and any other organizations you belong to in your area of expertise.

3. Post your good news on your blog and Facebook and any other social media you belong to. Announce it in your ezine, if you have one. Link to any publicity from the organization that gave you the award. Be sure to include your photo of you posing with the award if you have one. (Facebook is the largest photo sharing site on the net.)

4. Update your publicity information for you and your book to include your award. Add the award to your email signature.

5. Add your award to your media page on your website. Don’t have a media page? Create one now! (Make it easy for the media to get more information about you.)

What methods have you used to get publicity? Send me your ideas to add to this post!

Authors looking to stay home and avoid the intimacies of airport security will love virtual book tours.

Aside from the obvious advantages – no shoes or makeup required, no worries about being the only person at your book signing, and no travel costs – virtual tours can deliver a hefty audience for your book and your blog. Here’s how they work:

1. You and/or your trusty assistant will compile a list of suitable blogs who might like to be a stop on your “tour.”

• Each blog should be suitable for your topic or a book review blog.
• If it’s a book review blog, do make sure they review books in your genre. Most reviewers will have a page giving their requirements for book submissions.
• Some bloggers will state on their site whether or not they will participate in blog tours and give details on how to contact them and submit a book. Follow their instructions. It sounds silly to remind you, but many people will ignore the requirements and needlessly annoy the blogger they are trying to recruit for their tour.

2. Give some thought about what results you would like to have. If hoards of new visitors come to your blog/website as the result of your tour, what would you like to have them do? Sign up for your blog or ezine? Download a free ebook? Buy your book?

A contest – usually with a prize of a free copy of your book – could be held for the best comment posted on each guest post or review. (This is also a terrific way to build your mailing list.)

3. Create a spreadsheet of your targeted blogs to track your requests and results. Include info like their URL, contact info, and submission requirements for your future reference. (This list could come in handy again if you write another book or if you build an ongoing relationship with the blogger.)

4. Contact the blogs on your list following each blogger’s stated preference on how they want to be contacted. Personalize the emails. (It would help to actually read some of their blogs so you can do this.) Tell them a bit about your book and reasons why they would want to review it. Have an excerpt of your book on your website to direct them to.

5. If they agree to review your book, mail them a copy. Most book reviewers review for free, except for receiving a copy of the book. (This is another good reason to respectfully follow their directions, don’t you think?)

Topic blogs that you’d like to “tour” are a bit different. When you approach them, make sure you’ve read enough of their blog to personalize the approach. Suggest either an interview or a guest post that you will provide. Suggest a topic that fits in well with their blog.

6. Once you and your blog hosts are in agreement, provide a guest post in the time frame you agreed to. It is REALLY IMPORTANT that your post be original, not an old post from your blog or a guest post you already submitted to someone else’s blog.

7. To get the maximum exposure for your guest posts or reviews, publicize them in your own blog and social media pages and profiles. When the post or interview appears, be sure and send a personal note of thanks to your hosts.

Your blog tour can take place over a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Keep a spreadsheet with your tour locations and dates, marking them off as you go.

8. Blog about your tour on your own blog, giving tour updates and encouraging your readers to visit your tour blogs.

9. Reciprocate! Offer your tour hosts a guest post on your blog. This could be the start of a great online relationship!

I’ve been presenting a talk for a few months now called “Social Media Marketing in 15 Minutes a Day.” It’s fun; I’d like to think it’s informative. People seem to like it.

But there’s an interesting phenomena that happens every time I’ve presented. I get emails and phone calls from people saying, “I can’t make it to your talk, but would you let me know when you’re doing it again?”

One or two people have done this twice.

To which I say, if not now, then when?

Now, I’m not the only person who teaches this stuff. You can Google “social media marketing” and easily get several million hits. There’s lots of good stuff out there that will teach you how to blog, tweet, and Facebook with the best of them.

But you gotta start in order to get good. So, to get you started, I present: 

The Procrastinator’s Guide to Social Media Marketing.

1. Decide why you’re going to use social media for your business. Do you want to promote your book? Get booked as a speaker? Set some objectives. If you don’t have a reason to do social media, maybe you shouldn’t bother.

2. If you do have a good reason, then Just start. Read a blog on social media marketing. (Hey, read this blog!) Watch some videos on YouTube. Go to a class. Come to my presentation when I give it again.

3. Then, pick one social media site and create a profile. Work on getting really good at that one site. I’d suggest starting with Twitter. It’s only 140 characters at a time. Very low pressure!

4. Spend 15 minutes a day tweeting. To really save time, use Hootsuite to schedule your tweets throughout the day.

5. Follow interesting people in your field. Respond to questions, ask questions, converse. Have fun.

There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Dictionary.com defines an individual’s “platform” as

So, yes, you do need one if you want to give people a reason to pay attention to you as you sell your book or your services. What makes you different from the other people who write and talk about in your field? Why should anybody care?

Try this exercise is creating your USP:

My fitness coach, Carol McAnally, always reminds me to be mindful as I’m trying to perform specific exercises. You don’t get good results if you just flop your way through a routine in order to just get through it. So, I try to remember to “drive my kidneys into the exercise ball” as I do crunches and pay attention to form. Slowly, I’m beginning to get it.

By the same token, it’s important to be mindful when you’re marketing online. Keep a list of your marketing objectives next to your monitor as you network on Facebook, load your advance Tweets into Hootsuite, or write your latest blog post. What do you want to accomplish?

If you want to succeed in marketing online you need to focus on your objectives.

That being said, I’m one of the biggest offenders of succumbing to BSO (Bright Shiny Objects) syndrome. I’m always chasing down rabbit holes, all in the name of research. I do learn a lot of good stuff, but it sometimes results in wasted time and missed deadlines. Not good.

So, here are some of my strategies for staying on track:

I allow myself some “play time” to catch up with friends and family members on Facebook, twitter and the like. Usually I combine this with watching tv or on my lunch hour. Last week  I had a long, fun chat with a high school friend and caught up with my cousin’s wife on Facebook.

During work hours I have a post-it of objectives next to my monitor that has a cryptic list of marketing objectives. As a consultant to self-published authors, my primary objective is to establish my expertise in online marketing and self publishing. So most of the comments I make are related to those topics. I automatically send a tweet to Twitter and post to my wall on Facebook when I update my blog. My blog is also on my LinkedIn profile. I comment on my friends’ status, and pass on articles that I find interesting. I also have Google Alerts relating to marketing and publishing that gives me plenty to comment on and write about.

Does this take hours every day? No, for the most part I spend about half an hour to an hour a day on social networking sites and checking the feeds for my alerts in Google Reader. Can it be done is less? Absolutely. I spend more time because I enjoy it! And, it’s my business to spend time doing this.

I’ll be presenting a talk “Social Media Marketing in 15 Minutes a Day,” on March 25 at EduCyber in Wheat Ridge, CO (my day job.) You can sign up at EduCyber’s web site. I’ll also be presenting that talk at CIPA College in Denver on March 27. CIPA is the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. The college runs from March 26-27. It’s everything you want to know about self publishing. Check it out!

A lot of your success in marketing online depends on whether your prospects think there’s a real person behind the website, the blog, and the Facebook profile. They also have to like that person, but that’s another topic. Today I want to talk about being genuine in your online interactions.

I’ve seen several of my clients blank out once the new blog is set up and it’s time to add content. Adding to that question of what to write is the “What if I do it wrong?” fear. There is no way to do this wrong if you’re taking the time to think about what you want your blog to be about and give yourself space to find your voice.

Then there’s the “what if I offend someone?” fear. Well, shoot, you can do that anywhere. Why stop at offending online? Seriously, sooner or later we all offend someone. What’s worse is being afraid to say anything for fear of offending.

You’ve already given your business a personality that reflects you. You’ve chosen a name for your business, a logo, colors for your website, letterhead, and a mission statement. Your blog name and content are just an extension of what you’ve already done.

Do you need to have all of this figured out and carved in stone before you first post to your blog? Heck, no. If we had to do that, we’d never get anything written. Your business focus and interests within your field will change over time. So will the tone you take and how you express yourself.

If you’re writing in a way that doesn’t really express your personality, your shiny new blog is going to become a chore  very quickly. Write about what you care about and what your readers care about. Give your opinions and show your passions.  That’s how you’ll stand out from the Blogging by the Numbers crowd.

You can usually tell a newbie on Facebook or Twitter by how often every day they make a pitch about their book or their business. Something really heavy-handed like: “Looking for that special birthday gift? Buy my book!” That deafening silence you hear is everybody ignoring your pitch.

There’s a few things wrong with selling this way.

1. It’s old-style selling. Nobody on Facebook or any other social site wants to be sold on anything.

2. It’s really annoying when you tweet or post that 6 times a day.

3. It’s really easy for the rest of us to hide you on Facebook or unfollow you on Twitter because that’s all you post.

People buy to solve a problem they have. If you have a solution to their problem and they know and trust you, they will buy your book or service. No pain, no sale.

I was on vacation in Cabo a few years ago and went to a time share pitch to get a discount coupon book for my hotel. On the surface, a guaranteed vacation every year might be a great deal. Except I wanted to buy a house, not a time share. No pain, no sale.

Rather than pitch everyone you can, look for people who really need your book or service. Work on establishing your expertise. Then, surprise! There won’t be any selling involved. People will line up to buy.

It’s a fun way to sell.

It’s been estimated that over 93% of people lurk on social networking sites; not participating, just listening to the 7% who are actually taking part in the conversation. I confess to occasionally lurking myself.

I’m really a social person. But sometimes when I’m on Facebook or Twitter I just don’t feel like chatting.

So, I lurk. Now lurking can be defined as “to stay hidden, ready to attack” according to Webster’s New World Dictionary. (Am I the only person left who still has a dictionary on her desk?) Anyway, I do the hidden part mostly. I would only attack if somebody tried to steal my coffee.

You learn a lot when you lurk. You can follow up on tempting links and be the proverbial fly on the wall if there’s an interesting exchange. I tend to do a lot of research on internet marketing this way. And, sometimes I just eavesdrop. I suspect a lot of people do.

Chris Brogan wrote about “social listening” a couple of years ago. He took the process a step further by suggesting ways that information can come to you, by using tools like Google Alerts, Technorati, and Twitter’s search feature. I’m always surprised when I talk to authors who don’t continue to monitor what’s new in their field after their book comes out. Aside from tracking when you or your book is mentioned, it’s a good idea to keep tabs on what’s new in your field. Who knows? This sort of monitoring could lead to additional articles you can write or products to create to add to your book sales.

Some simple steps to try:

1. Google Alerts are easy to set up to get info on your topic delivered to your mailbox.

2. Follow gurus in your field on Twitter. Use the search feature to find them, then follow them.

3. As an added step, if you like their tweets, check out their blogs and subscribe.

Happy lurking!