Your brand deserves a great story, and these video SEO tips will help you to make your message matter.

While YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world, if you want your story to be heard, you’ve got to master video SEO tricks. But you may be surprised to know that YouTube may not be the best place for your video. Or, perhaps a better way to say it, there’s more than just YouTube, if you’re interested in the best video SEO.

Once you’ve crafted your great video content, you still have to ensure it gets found! So, here are the next steps to follow.

1. For Great Video SEO, put your message on Vimeo.com – It may seem counter-intuitive since Google owns YouTube, but videos on Vimeo.com are actually ranked higher in searches, in terms of video SEO. While the audience for Vimeo is smaller than YouTube, the SEO rankings are based on the relevance of the content. Google will often rank Vimeo.com above YouTube, even with similar keyword content. So, what’s the takeaway from this tip? Get yourself a Vimeo channel and post your content on Vimeo! And, if you don’t believe in the power of video SEO juice from Vimeo, make sure you include a link to your YouTube channel and post your content in multiple locations. While many will disparage duplicate content from an SEO perspective, video SEO is multiplied when your content is posted on multiple sites. Make sure Vimeo.com is part of your marketing mix for great video SEO.
2. Get smart about your keywords and title, if you want great video SEO – Do you use Google’s keyword search tool to determine the name of your video? How about for the keywords you include in the video’s description? Using the keyword search tool from Google adwords will give you great insight into your video SEO. It’s counter-intuitive, but you want to be general (not specific) in order to be found. If you want your video to attract eyeballs, use the Google search tool to identify where the eyeballs are. In other words, use terms that are highly searched and include those words in both the title and the description for your video.
3. Great video SEO starts with great links – Make sure that your description field includes at least one link. It’s a great idea to include a link to your website, your blog, or other content that’s meaningful (for example, if you have a Brand Yourself page for your personal brand, or an About.me page, or even a LinkedIn profile, you can include these links and improve your video SEO. Want to get really fancy? Then include a link to your vimeo.com page, and do the same from inside Vimeo.

Video SEO is What Your Brand Deserves

With these three ideas, you can create greater backlinks, identify additional resources for your viewers, and generate the kind of traffic that gets your message noticed. If you’ve taken the time to create some good video content, you deserve to have that content viewed. Use tools like YouTube and Vimeo to make sure your message gets out there.

And remember, there’s no substitute for great content. Video SEO is about understanding how optimization works, but great content is an even bigger boost to your brand.

About the Author:

Chris Westfall is the national elevator pitch champion, and the author of The NEW Elevator Pitch. His YouTube channel has nearly 700,000 video views and over 550 subscribers. His website is westfallonline.com and his YouTube channel is /westfallonline. His video production business is Your Online Video, Inc. and he regularly consults with high-growth businesses on effective video production.

Multiply your client base by social reciprocation

If you thought Pinterest was a leisure site used primarily for pinning cute decorating photos or images of crafts and hobbies, think again. Pinterest can be a powerful site to get exposure for your brand or to gain new clients.

Not sure how to employ this new online promotion strategy? Read further to discover creative ways to use this unique site to revolutionize how you promote your business online.

Keep It Visual

When using Pinterest, keep in mind you are aiming to interact with others on a visual level. While you’ll still need to use text to include product descriptions and prices, be sure to mix things up by using your boards for company-related videos, charts, graphics, and product photographs.

Remember, pins don’t always have to be static, boring photographs. Upload dynamic videos that show your personal brand in an innovative light, using everything from demonstrations of your latest products to a series of micro-interviews with your CEO. If you use case studies as part of your business’s sales strategy, present those case studies as video presentations to demonstrate how using your services can be beneficial and necessary.

Be Creative

Check out how other businesspeople are using Pinterest, and employ some of their successful strategies. Offer snapshots of your personal brand’s culture, mission statement, and philosophy. Create stunning infographs that not only provide integral information about your products and/or services to customers, but do it in a way that pops with color, style, and creativity.

The key is to get your potential customers excited about the merchandise you bring to the global marketplace. The attention span of the average consumer on the internet is mere seconds, so you’ll need to grab would-be clients and hook them quickly if you plan to capture them for future sales.

Get Social

Not only is Pinterest a visual site, it is a social venue as well. Most pins on Pinterest—an estimated 80 percent—are repins of others’ content, so be sure to produce a variety of visual content from which others can choose. If someone repins content from one of your boards, make sure to extend your appreciation to them.

In addition, build connections and open dialogue with possible customers by following their boards, repinning their pins, commenting on their posts, and liking their content as well. To personalize your interactions, employ hashtags as well. Whenever possible, also incorporate SEO keywords.

Stay Connected

If your business is already on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn (and if it’s not, it should be), your next step is to connect all of those social media platforms back to your new Pinterest account. Integration is key; you want to be sure you have connection and a seamless, organic flow between all your promotional resources.

Link your other social media to Pinterest and install the “Pin” button and “Follow Me” buttons to all your other profiles. Add the “Pin” button to your company’s website and blog, also. If you have an online product catalog, make it easy for shoppers to use the “Pin” button to snag images and information about individual products or collections. The rule of thumb should be this: If you want to promote it, make sure visitors can easily Pin it.

To keep abreast of the latest developments on how to effectively use Pinterest for your business, bookmark the Pinterest for Business page and visit it often. Once you get familiar with Pinterest and how you can use it as a resource for your personal brand, you will never look at online marketing and sales promotion the same way again.

How are you using Pinterest for your brand?

Many people think that if you’re in business, LinkedIn is the only place to be, and while LinkedIn has its many benefits and is a strong contender in my social media platform, my answer may be surprising to you.

My favorite social media platform, hands down, is Twitter.

I know. I know. I hear it all the time. You’re thinking “What? Twitter? I just don’t get all that tweeting stuff. All it is is stuff about what everyone had for breakfast!”

That’s where I’d jump up and down, pointing my finger at you and shouting “Wrong!” Well, maybe not so much jumping up and down… And probably not shouting. (It’s not my style.) I have no idea why I’d point a finger either…

But you’re definitely wrong. Sorry!

As simple as the site is, Twitter is the most powerful tool in my social media arsenal.

The Best Social Media Platform for Business

Source

When I found out in 2009 that I was soon to be unemployed, Twitter was where my job search took root. It was where I was first exposed to the power of hashtags to find and sort content being shared on the internet.

I was a bit nervous at first about using Twitter. Was everyone a scam artist?

Then, I came across Steve Keating (@LeadToday) on Twitter. For some reason, his simple reassurance in his bio that he wasn’t selling anything on Twitter, only giving back, set my heart at ease. I started engaging with him a bit, and enjoying his nonsensical animal trivia on Saturday mornings. It reminded me of a book my kids and I enjoyed called 365 Days of Nature and Discovery: Things to Do and Learn for the Whole Family.

Our shared interest in leadership topics led me to discover the Lead Change Group (@leadchange and #leadchange) shortly after their Leader UnPalooza in early 2010, which sounded like a lot of fun. I struck up a friendship with Mike Henry Sr. (@mikehenrysr), the founder of the group, which led me to discover and make connections with many of the founding members of the Lead Change Group.

I participated in the first Lead Change Round Table Mastermind group, which exposed me to other business owners who were crucial in helping me through the early hurdles of getting Aleweb Social Marketing established. Their support, encouragement, accountability, and love carried me through many bouts of fear, uncertainty and second-guessing.

Within my first year of using Twitter, I’d used it as a resource for:

• My job hunt
• Overcoming the isolation of unemployment
• Engaging with others around a shared passion (leadership)
• Establishing my business

Soon after, it became a means of establishing myself as a thought leader and speaker.

Then, I started to discover third-party tools that helped me even further. I’d already been a big fan of Hootsuite for a long time at that point. However, I started regularly using Bottlenose to find out what topics my extended network was currently discussing, and contributing there as appropriate. It’s “sonar-like” conversation mapping cut down my “listening” time immensely, allowing me to quickly and easily pinpoint the conversations I wanted to join. This was great for everyday conversation with the network or people I already knew and loved.

When I combined that with using InboxQ to find people asking questions in my areas of expertise, I was able to extend my network to individuals I didn’t know, but whom I could help.

Continuing conversations and participating in discussions that interested me “grew” my world, and helped me develop both personally and professionally.

One of my favorite talks that I give is called “To Tweet or Not to Tweet.” It explores whether Twitter is a useful business tool or a devious distraction. Believe it or not, the answer has as much to do with your personality as it does with how well you know how to use the site.

I can trace specific instances where interactions on Twitter have led to:

• Support in times of need
• Great conversations
• Lending assistance where others requested it
• New business
• Speaking, writing and collaboration opportunities
• Participating in, and being the featured guest for, TweetChats
• Interviews with influential people
• Guest posting on other blogs
• Opportunities to review books that interest me
• Connections that have become deep and lasting friendships
• New employees
• The ability to help a friend when an accident resulted in astronomical medical bills

Of course, all of those opportunities could come from real world connections and other social networks as well, but the convenience and ready accessibility of Twitter made it a natural place for me to grow. As relationships developed on Twitter, I selectively extended them into the real world via phone calls, Skype sessions and email exchanges.

Twitter has always been my best news source as well, especially during emergencies. While there can be a lot of misleading early information, the facts start to take shape fairly quickly from eyewitness accounts. Living near the Sandy Hook community and having both of my children’s schools “locked down” that day, I wanted to know everything that was happening, as distressing as it was. Yet, the media really didn’t seem to know much. People talking on Twitter, sharing information they’d gotten from people at the scene or en route to the scene, provided a much clearer understanding of the impact and significance of the events that day than the media was able to do at the time.

So, if you’re wondering whether Twitter is a useful tool or not, let me share one last example with you. The Lead Change Group mentioned above started out as a conversation on Twitter. A few people engaged in a conversation about what could be done to improve leadership today.

That conversation led to the formation of the community that centered around the idea that we needed more character-based leaders; people encouraged to lead from who they are, rather than their position in an organization or community. Together, those early adopters created a LinkedIn group, a vibrant hashtag, a mastermind group, a membership website, an influential leadership blog, a regular guest spot on SmartBrief on Leadership, a non-profit organization, and then to top it all off, we wrote a book together!

There’s no doubt that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the three legs of the stool that supports my business and career. However, Twitter has yielded more friendships, business contacts and opportunities for me than the other sites combined, which makes it both personally and professionally satisfying to me.

If you’re interested in ideas on how you can use Twitter, or other social networks, similarly, check out my book The Plan that Launched a Thousand Books. It will help you get started!

There will always be naysayers when any significant change comes along that impacts the way we do business. But can you imagine your life today without computers? The Internet? E-mail? (I know some of us would like to imagine life without e-mail, but I know very few people who have managed to do away with it in their lives completely!)

The same is true of social media. It’s not just a fad. It’s not going away. And ignoring it won’t help!

How and Why Social Media Won’t Go Away

Social media is all about relationships. As with any relationship, it can have a different context for each connection. There are some people I’m friendly with, others I buy from, I have best friends, a support network, people I ask advice of and collaborate with, and others I learn from. That’s “in the real world,” but it’s true also on social media.

One of my books, The Character-Based Leader, was written with people I met on Twitter. I share ideas with other authors and entrepreneurs, and talk about social media with clients and prospects on Facebook. I have been hired multiple times for speaking engagements and project work by people who found me on LinkedIn and on my blog. Slideshare helps establish my expertise as hundreds of people have viewed my content, and hundreds more follow my Pinterest boards.

Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing there is, and much of it takes place on the Internet these days.

My sister recently broke a storm window in her home, the same week it was being put on the market. After calling many different shops to get it fixed (all of whom said it would take 2 to 6 weeks to do), one place fixed it for her while she waited. No sooner had she left the shop than she’d posted a review on Yelp, and shared her story on Facebook. If I lived in St. Cloud, I know who I’d work with if I needed a window repaired!

Of course, when I commented on her post, saying how happy I was that she’d found a great business to help her, all of my friends saw the comment as well. Oh, and the same is true of the friends of everyone else who happened to comment on and like that post.

The same is true when someone posts a review of your book online, likes your Amazon listing, or shares that they just purchased a copy of your book. Social sharing is important marketing capital, and you always want to make it as easy as possible for someone to talk about what you’ve written.

That said, you also want to participate in the conversation! Respond, build relationships, ask for reader feedback, etc. The usefulness of social media is only limited by your imagination.

Want to select the best cover for your new book? Poll your social network! Let your fans choose it.

Have a few different story ideas, and wondering which one’s most likely to sell? Get reader feedback, quickly and easily.

Heading to a speaking engagement or book signing in an unfamiliar town? Find out who is in the area, and what hotel, restaurant and local attractions they recommend. And invite them to the event!

People buy from individuals they know, like and trust. Social media makes you approachable, establishes your expertise, and allows you greater interaction with your readers than ever before.

As Jody Hedlund points out in Social Media for Writers: A Kool-Aid Drinking Cult?:

“I’ve found the barriers that once separated people seem to fall away on social media.”

I’m not loyal to my favorite restaurant as much as I’m loyal to the experience that makes me feel welcomed and cared for when I go there. The same is true in reaching out to people on social media. You can reach out to journalists, teachers, consultants, politicians, institutions, corporations, and many other formerly unapproachable contacts, and have genuine and authentic conversations now.

If you question whether relationships are important, let me share from our own experience.

In recent weeks, here at Aleweb, we’ve been hired to create multiple Facebook pages and WordPress websites, edit a book, format eBooks, and create a series of mobile apps, all from word of mouth. Some came as referrals from existing clients, others from social media, blogging and web searches.

Yet it’s our relationship-building skills that make the difference here. The barriers to knowing your service provider as more than just a brand have fallen away. So, what have you got to lose?

Want to learn more about using social media to build these kinds of relationships and promote your book online? Check out The Plan that Launched a Thousand Books.

LinkedIn for Authors

Here are a few reasons why you want to be on LinkedIn:

• Links: Links from LinkedIn to your online content count in the Google search algorithm, whereas Facebook links don’t.
• Credibility: Since LinkedIn is a site for business professionals, there is an air of credibility that having a well-ranking profile within LinkedIn grants you.
• Research: LinkedIn’s search functions enable you to identify agents, publishers and editors in the areas you want to get into. In addition, though, it also shows you who your mutual connections are, shared interests, and other commonalities between you that enable you to craft an introductory message that breaks the ice, instead of being just another nameless face in the crowd.
• Connections: The opposite is also true. People who are looking for what you do can find you via LinkedIn’s search functionality, but only when you have a great profile (otherwise, all of the other better profiles outrank you in LinkedIn’s search result – don’t neglect building a strong profile). I have had a number of clients and booking agents find and subsequently hire me due to LinkedIn.

It all comes down to how you use the site, and how strong a profile you have.

So, how do you create a strong LinkedIn profile?

Follow these simple steps to create and use an All-Star author’s LinkedIn profile. [Tweet]

1. Make sure that your profile is “complete.” This means adding, at a minimum, your industry, location, at least 5 skills, education, photo, at least 50 connections, a summary, and two past positions. Once it’s complete, LinkedIn will invite you to share your profile on Twitter and Facebook so that your friends can see it.
2. I can’t say this strongly enough, make sure that your headshot is a good one of you! Don’t just crop a picture out of a recent family photo. And don’t use something so old or grainy that no one meeting you in person would ever recognize you. Make it friendly, appealing, close range (filling the frame), and professional.
3. Add “Author” and the name of your book to your work experience. Be sure to include a description of the book, and a link to purchase in the work history. Personally, I enter the publication date as the “Start Date” and do not specify an end date. (I’ll always be the author of my books. That will never change. So an end date would just be silly!) You also have the ability to attach a video or photo to each position you hold. Be sure to upload your book cover image and if you have a book trailer, add that as well. If you have a sample chapter you offer, you can link it here as well (or if you want to capture e-mail addresses, to an opt-in page to download it), so that people can get the excerpt directly from your LinkedIn profile.
4. Update your profile URL to have a vanity URL. People won’t remember the system-generated URL, but they may remember your name. So, update your URL to reflect that. For example, mine is http://www.linkedin.com/in/taraalemany.
5. LinkedIn allows you to connect up to three websites to your profile, in addition to connecting to your Twitter profile. Point one to your website, another to your Amazon listing and the third to a particularly glowing review, your Facebook page, or something like an About.me page, where visitors can easily access links to all of your other online roosts.
6. Write your background summary in a conversational style. I use first person. Making your summary conversational demonstrates that you’re accessible and easy to communicate with. I also use this space to note any other names I’ve used during my career (maiden/married name, pen name, etc.). This makes it easier for people who connect with you from various points in your career to be sure they have the right person.
7. Make sure that the summary includes keywords related to your topic of expertise. Keywords for LinkedIn profiles can be sprinkled throughout the profile (in the headline, job descriptions, summary, etc.), and should be done without naturally. The point here is to attract people, not computers.
8. Add your book titles to the Publications section, as well as any guest posts you’ve written. Consider this an opportunity to showcase your work beyond what they can find on your website.
9. Rearrange the sections of your profile in the order that makes the most sense.

Once you’ve built your All-Star profile, meet people who represent your ideal audience, post a “call for reviewers” in applicable groups, and continue to add content and regular status updates. The most important thing of all, consider LinkedIn as a tool for building relationships and reconnecting with people. While you can market your book there as well, that should be a much lower priority. If your focus is purely on the marketing, you’ll lose the attention of the people you want to connect with the most! Give it time, the sales will come. Focus first on the people and the relationships.

Image Source

Do I really have to blog?

The answer to that is simple. NO! You don’t have to blog.

There is nothing in this world that compels you to blog, just like you don’t have to get up and brush your teeth in the morning, or put fresh clothes on, or take a bath once in a while.

However, you may not get the results you want though if you don’t.

The Importance of Blogging, and Blogging Some More

By Gabriel Weinberg

If your goal for your book, product, service or brand is to gain more visibility (the positive kind, mind you!), then blogging is a very powerful way to begin, for many reasons.

1. It’s fresh content, which the search engines like to see.
2. It’s easy for readers to share with their friends.
3. It brings traffic to your website, increasing its visibility to the search engines.
4. It’s more information on the internet that’s all about you and your favorite topic!
5. It gives prospective buyers a sense of who you are, what you care about, and how you present yourself.

So, how do you get started? Don’t you have to have your own website to blog? Well… The answer isn’t quite so simple.

When it comes to blogging, there are many options. You could maintain your own (and have it syndicated), seek out opportunities to guest blog on other people’s sites, and give people reasons to blog about you and whatever it is that you have to share.

Maintain Your Own Blog

If you don’t have your own website, I highly recommend making that a priority. (Aleweb offers website development and blog training services if you’re stuck with how to begin.)

The problem there is, it will take time to build its visibility and let people know it’s there. Once you get started though there are communities, like Triberr, who will partner with you to share your posts, and aggregator sites, like Business2Community and AllTop, that will share your latest posts on their well-trafficked sites.

Become a Guest Blogger

Once you’ve got your own website up and running, start building connections and relationships that will allow you to share your expertise on other sites. Personally, I’m a contributing author to the Lead Change Group’s blog, among others.

When I interviewed Jeff Goins, author of Wrecked, last year, he shared that guest posting was one of the top 3 things he did to grow his audience. And Josh Allan Dykstra, author of Igniting the Invisible Tribe, had similar things to say in his guest post on 4 Unconventional Ways to Market Your Book.

Give People Reasons to Blog About You

Unlike guest blogging, where you give someone your content to put on their website, when you give someone a reason to blog about you, they create the content.

So, how do you get them to do that? Offer interviews to blogging sites whose audiences are interested in what you have to share, or offer a review copy of your book, product or service to a prominent blogger for their review.

The most important thing to remember when approaching someone to feature you is to present “what’s in it for their readers.” This isn’t about you.

Every blogger I know who is passionate about blogging doesn’t do it because they love to write. They do it because they love their audience. So, make sure that you understand who that audience is, what they want to see, and what interests them. Avoid self-promotion by serving their audience, and you’ll still get the exposure you’re seeking. Everyone wins that way!

Spend some time on the blogger’s site, looking at past articles, reading comments to get to know the readers, etc. Then when you pitch your idea to the blog’s owner, it’s on-target and is about the reading audience’s interests.

These ideas and more are covered in my do-it-yourself guide to marketing your book online, The Plan that Launched a Thousand Books. For more suggestions on how to blog, pick up your copy today!

What’s your most effective strategy for using blogs to market your brand?

Don’t wait until the last minute to begin marketing.

A Beginners Guide to Self-promotion

The biggest mistake that many authors make is waiting until the last minute to think about how they are going to market a book. Oftentimes, it’s not until after it is already published that they even start to consider “what’s next?” However, marketing plans should be started early in the writing process so that you have sufficient time to build the connections, relationships and social media profiles necessary to get the word out about your new title.

If you’re like the vast majority of writers, a marketing plan may never have even made it onto your To Do list. Here you are, with your newly published book in hand, and no idea what to do next.

Your marketing strategy is going to be different than someone who started earlier, unless you have a large platform already (a platform is the online reach you have using e-mail, social profiles and other online connections to connect with an audience.). Building an audience takes time, especially if social marketing is going to be a part of your overall marketing strategy. The goal of any good marketing strategy though is going to include maximizing exposure to the right target audience for your book. And while self-promotion may feel awkward and uncomfortable to you, there is no one who knows your material better than you do! You can do this!

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Find people with the right audience for your book, and encourage them to blog about you and your book.

Getting other people to help you “build the buzz” is a surefire short-cut to gaining visibility and growing your own audience. So, give others the opportunity to interview you, review your book, or publish a guest post that you write. This still requires hard work, and the easier you make it on someone to write about you, the more likely it is that they will. So, put in the legwork to ensure that what you’re offering is suitable for their target audience. Bloggers have a duty to provide their readers with fresh, timely content, but most of all it needs to be relevant to the readers. Make sure when you reach out to someone else with the hope that they’ll promote you or your book that you clearly outline what your plan is, and how it’s relevant to their readership.

2. Know your keywords!

Understanding the words and phrases your target audience will use to find your book (and books like yours) is essential. You can have the greatest book in the world, but if people can’t find you or haven’t heard of your book before, it won’t matter. Search engines of all kinds (Google, YouTube, Bing, Facebook, Pinterest, and any other site that has a Search box) rely on properly coded “keywords” to identify your listing for their search results. However, it doesn’t have to be a guessing game! You can use Google AdWords to search for a general keyword related to your topic. For the purposes of one of my books, I used “book marketing.” The keyword tool then shows me exactly what search terms people are using to find sites related to book marketing. Selecting the “Exact” match type will ensure that the results are relevant to your search term. Sort the results on Global Monthly Searches to identify the search terms that are being used the most. Select the most commonly used search terms and ensure that they appear in titles, descriptions, etc. of your listing, website, blog posts, interviews, etc. The difference for you between using “marketing strategy” and “marketing strategies” may be minimal. However, there are 22,500 few people looking for “marketing strategies” last month than those seeking a “marketing strategy.” Knowing what you’re audience is looking for will help you to position your content where they will find it.

3. Optimize your presence on Amazon.com.

Making sure that your author page is set up, containing relevant information and resources, is a great start. But you also need to make sure that your book listing is set up properly, keyworded thoroughly, categorized correctly, and contains sufficient user-generated content to be trust-worthy. Encourage people who have read your book already to leave reviews, and then publish the reviews to your social profiles to promote what others are saying about your book. Encourage your following to give a “thumbs up” to helpful review comments by clicking the “Yes” button next to helpful reviews. And, don’t forget to comment on reviews as well, if only to thank the reviewer for taking the time to leave a comment! All of these different things play a part increasing your visibility within Amazon searches.

These three steps will help you to leverage existing audiences and people interested in what you have to offer while you turn your time and attention on building a social media platform that will allow you to broadcast your own message.

For further ideas about how to market your book online yourself, check out my do-it-yourself guide called The Plan that Launched a Thousand Books on Amazon today!

Doing the research to find all the right sizes was always a pain. Various sites had inconsistent (and even incorrect) information, making it difficult to know where to turn or who to trust.

Thankfully, LunaMetrics has stepped forward and volunteered to be the keeper of all such mundane information, providing social marketers with a single place to turn for all their sizing needs. Thank you, LunaMetrics!

If you want to guest post on this blog, contact us for our submission guidelines.

So, I hear you’re an author with a book on your hands. Or, perhaps, you have a book in production which will soon release to be your groundbreaking tome. First, congratulations! Please don’t take these compliments lightly — many, many (maybe even most) people would “like to write a book someday.” Simply by the act of actually completing the task, you have made yourself a scarce resource. You’ve put your thoughts into the world in a careful and meaningful way. This is something to celebrate!

That said, even though you now (or will soon) have a book that you’re incredibly proud of, what you probably don’t have are millions of eyeballs, poised and ready to consume your brilliant and innovative prose. Don’t let this get you down; it’s a problem most new authors face, honestly. Most of us aren’t radio hosts or TV stars. We don’t have 100,000+ followers on Twitter or celebrity status.

So how do us “normal folks” get the work we’ve slaved over for months (maybe even years) in front of the right readers? Here are four ways you may not have considered:

1. Strategically Join A Great Group

Of course, we’ve all heard ad nauseam about the benefits and importance of networking. This is true, of course, but in this example I’m not talking about rubbing shoulders with just anybody. Some groups provide specific benefits to authors and content creators, and these are the kind of groups you want to look for. For me, being part of the Young Entrepreneur Council has been amazing. The YEC has media partnerships in place that members can take advantage of, and it’s helped me get my writing featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, etc.

2. Find Niche Bloggers

The idea here is fairly simple: connect with the people who run the blogs that already talk to the groups of people you want to connect with. The easiest way to identify these sites might be to think about the places you yourself go to find interesting content — if you like it, it’s likely the people who will read your work will, too. Send a note to the blog’s owner (usually easy to find on an About Us or Contact page) and offer to do a guest post, video chat, or email interview; whatever the blog owner thinks will connect most with their audience. If you can show that you’ll create value for their readers, many bloggers will jump at the chance to get great (and free!) external content.

3. Partner With University Professors

Do you know any professors who teach something related to your material? Offer to get them a free copy of your book and see what they think! If they find it helpful and you can get on the syllabus as required reading, classrooms can be a great source of recurring revenue — and, perhaps even more exciting, a perfect way to get your ideas into the heads of impressionable minds. I’ve found the best way in is through the professor directly; many times they have complete “creative control” over what they want their students to be exposed to. If you can get them excited about your work, they’ll be a great advocate.

4. Start and/or Lead A Tribe

This is the hardest, but probably best, way to grow your readership. Because of the ways the world is changing, particularly in regards to technology, it’s easier than ever to connect with the people who care about the same big, hairy problems you do. Stake your claim and purchase the URL. Start talking and writing about it everywhere. Obsess over how to create value for the members of your tribe, and make sure your book is a worthy conversation piece for tribe members. I won’t lie and say this is easy — it takes a tremendous investment of work and time — but once you are seen as a thought leader of a movement, you’ll find that book sales will come much more easily.

It’s an amazing privilege when people give us their most scarce resource of time to read our thoughts, isn’t it? I’m truly honored you gave a bit of your time to read my thoughts here. My sincere best wishes to you on your adventures as an author!

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Josh Allan Dykstra is a recognized thought leader on the future of work and company culture design. His articles and ideas have been featured by Fast Company, Business Insider, MSN.com, Under30CEO, and The Agency Post. He is a co-founder of Strengths Doctors, a consulting firm that helps leaders and entrepreneurs design energizing places to work. Josh’s eclectic background includes projects with organizations like Apple, Sony, Genentech, Starbucks, and Viacom/CBS as well as startups, nonprofits, and universities. He holds an MBA in Executive Leadership from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his new book, Igniting the Invisible Tribe: Designing An Organization That Doesn’t Suck, is available on Amazon.com. Connect with him online at http://joshallan.com.

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Often, major shifts in business occur when a confluence of factors combine to change the status quo. Think about the impact that affordable cars and trucks plus the interstate highway system had on the railroads. More recently, consider the impact that the Internet plus mobile devices are making on the newspaper industry. Old-fashioned selling techniques may soon begin to fade away, too, due to the influence of multiple Social Selling factors in 2013.

Consider these factors:

The Rising Awareness of Social Selling: The term Social Selling is yet another spin-off of the Social Media mother ship (i.e. Social Business, Social Enterprise,…). Individual consumers starting embraced social applications 7-8 years ago. As audiences grew, corporate Marketing Departments and Customer Service jumped in a few years ago. Now, corporate Sales Departments are realizing that they cannot manage the bottoms-up social activities of select salespeople. Instead, they are developing top-down social strategies so they can standardize and manage these activities.

Big Changes at LinkedIn: As the 800-lb gorilla of B2B Social Selling, LinkedIn experienced some significant milestones is 2012:

• 1-year anniversary of IPO (think “cash to innovate”)
• 185M members and counting
• Launch of Sales Navigator, a dedicated version for salespeople.
• Biggest redesign of the Profile format in company history

Taking Center Stage: Thought-leaders started using the term Social Selling about a year ago and a few conferences held break-out session on the topic.  Now dedicated Social Selling conferences and seminars are appearing on the 2013 calendar.  These events combine the proven principles of sales prospecting (rapport/trust/credibility) with new tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, and others. The fact that organizers can draw both attendees and exhibitors is evidence of the growing popularity of Social Selling.

So, as you plan your 2013 goals and strategies, consider how to take advantage of the growing power of Social Selling tools and techniques.

Want to learn the latest Social Selling techniques? Attend a free introductory webinar, “New Ways to Grow Sales with Social Selling,” this Wednesday, January 16, from noon- 1:00 PM ET, or jump right in and  join the Social Selling Boot Camp, a 30-day virtual training program beginning February 7. Save $200 with Coupon Code: 200BCA. See full program information here.