WritingSpirit Blog

How to Use Twitter to Quickly & Easily Be Seen As An Expert in Your Field

For years, I’ve been writing about creativity and the writing process to support other writers, but over the last few weeks I’ve been birthing a new writing direction focused on the Law of Attraction. While I’ve occasionally talked about my experience with the Law of Attraction (LOA), it’s not something I’m commonly associated with. So I started brainstorming ways I could build a Law of Attraction online platform to support my new writing direction.

While I’ve had a Law of Attraction blog ready to go for a month, I won’t launch it until I’m sure I have the time I need to post to it on a regular basis.  

Since Twitter’s been so important to growing my platform as a writing coach, I started looking at how I can use twitter to help me grow in this new direction, and address a new readership. These are the steps I took:

1. Search user names and bios for keywords

I searched for Law of Attraction and LOA based user names, and bios, to find out who the Law of Attraction leaders are on twitter. To do this I used the “Find People” button on the top right corner of my twitter home page, and TweepSearch.com. I  found some powerful Law of Attraction tweeps, including @LOA_Lover who has 73,000 followers. I also checked Twibes.com, but was disappointed with the results. While there’s a writers twibe with over 1,500 writers in it, the largest LOA twibe has only 34 members.

Now, I can not only follow the LOA thought leaders on twitter, I can start to build relationships with them.

2. Search hashtags and tweets for keywords

I searched for Law of Attraction based hashtags and tweets to see who’s talking, how many are talking, and what they’re talking about. What I learned is that there are a lot of people talking about the Law of Attraction on twitter. I discovered that the hashtag #LOA is used 10 times more often than #LawOfAttraction, which makes sense as it's much shorter. I also discovered that when people are tweeting LOA tips, some put “LOA Tip” in their tweet, most simply add #LOA at the end, and no-one uses the hashtag #LOAtip.  But the biggest and most important discovery I made was that no-one has started a weekly LOA twitter chat—until now.

Knowing what people tweet about the Law of Attraction means that I can immediately start using the most popular keywords and hashtags, as well as create and promote a few new ones of my own.

3. Claim topic and chat name based user names

I immediately snagged the twitter user name @LOAchat, as well as another LOA based user name, before announcing my new focus and chat. While I will continue to use @WritingSpirit as my main twitter account, since writing about spirituality fits the user name, I’ll use the topic & keyword based user names when appropriate, and will list @WritingSpirit in my bio, and use it as my web link for these new accounts.

Since people use keywords to find people to follow, having a couple Law of Attraction based user names will make me more visible, while also leading people back to my main user name @WritingSpirit.

4. Create a twitter chat

This is the most important step of all, because when you start a twitter chat it automatically positions you as a leader in the subject of the chat.  I am now the creator and host of twitter’s live weekly Law of Attraction chat (#LOAchat).

During last week’s #WriteChat I announced that I will be starting #LOAchat on Sunday, February 28^th. I scheduled the two chats back-to-back since I’m already committed to showing up every Sunday and chatting with my twitter friends.  I’m sending announcement tweets for the new chat from both @WritingSpirit and @LOAchat.

Recently, I was called “a leader in the writing community” by a twitter follower because of #WriteChat, and how much I do to support writers on twitter. As #LOAchat launches and grows, and as I promote it on twitter, my websites, and elsewhere, my name will start being linked with the Law of Attraction in the same way.

• Who are the thought leaders on twitter in your topic or market?
• What keywords and hashtags (#) are used by the people you want to connect with?
• Do you have some topic based user names to stake your twitter claim?
• Can you start a twitter chat about your topic or your market?

How to Write a Book: Offer Something New by Being Absolutely You

Is Your Platform Building or Book Promotion Providing All 4 of These Benefits?

With the avalanche of promotional opportunities that we have, today, you need to be able to identify and compare the potential benefits of each promotional activity so that you can choose to focus on the ones that will benefit you the most.

 
Thinking about my own promotional efforts, I realized that there are four primary benefits I receive from them, one or more of which are present in each promotion. They are:
 
1. Publicity
 
Name recognition is such a valuable asset that it can be helpful to do promotional activities solely for the purpose of getting your name out in front of people. Whether you attempt to get yourself, or your book, mentioned in a magazine or newspaper article, or you create a humorous or inspiring video that you hope will go viral, publicity give you either credibility, or recognizability, or both.

One way to get your name and writing circulating on the web is to give it away with no strings (or opt-in) attached. Article marketing is a good example of this. Of course, free content usually contains a short bio, contact information, some basics about your book or business, and an opt-in offer to entice the
reader to come to your website and learn more. Freebies definitely earn their keep.

In general, most promotion has a publicity element to it, as whatever you do has at least your name, book title, or product information on it.

 
2. Relationship Building
 
While you want to constantly be promoting yourself and your book, you don't want every tweet, or blog post, or video to be selling, selling, selling. You would quickly lose most of your potential readers that way.
 
Relationship building is a time honored form of promotion, and blogging is its leader online. The beauty of relationship building promotional activities is that what you're writing or talking about can be focused directly on your book, or its subject, so there can be a direct relationship between your book and the promotional activity, without there being any direct selling.   

Yet relationship building goes beyond talking about your book, and touches on the personal. It's a chance for people to get to "know, like and trust" you, not only as an author, and expert in your field, but as a person. Twitter is exceptional at blending the personal and professional, while allowing you to connect with your readers in real time.

 
3. Product Creation
 
With today's emphasis on content marketing, on creating and giving away valuable content in order to entice your audience to want more and buy your book, service, or product, your promotional efforts can actually be the basis of new information products. Promotional activities such as creating a content rich teleseminar, blogging, article marketing, and creating an informational video series, can all be repurposed into products of their own.

You may want to wait awhile after your current promotion ends before reusing your content, but how long you wait is up to you. If you're continually generating new traffic, there's no need to wait long at all.

While not all promotion can or should be turned into its own product, as you want to continue freely distributing promotional material that supports your book and other income generating activities, the potential for future product creation is certainly worth considering when you're mapping out your promotion plan, and deciding which promotional activities to invest your time in.
 
4. Sales
 
Last, and nowhere near least, is promotion directly tied to generating book sales, or other income. It's perfectly okay to say, "Buy my book!" But you don't want to be saying that all day every day, tweet after tweet, email after email. It will get old fast. Yet you also don't want that to scare you away from keeping your readers informed about the many stages of a particular offer. It's a balancing act, and like any other skill the more you practice it the better you'll get.

That's why it's important to mix-up your marketing, and do some things that are only about getting your name out there, or are only about building relationships, while doing some promotion that includes two, three, or all four of these  primary benefits.

 

The sales part of your promotion is where you're most likely to stir up any emotional issues you may have around asking for money, making money, or feeling worthy of receiving. Be aware that difficult feelings may arise, and be willing to address them if they do. I've found that content marketing (such as doing preview calls) helps to soften these issues, because you know you've given something of value before asking for the sale, and the person who's buying your book, service, or product has already had a taste of what you have to offer, and is purchasing because they want more. 

Putting it all together

Like writing, marketing is creative and very personal. So, experiment and play. Find out through experience what works for you. When you've got your promoting hat on, what comes easily? What do you struggle with? How do you feel after the promotion's done? What created the most income?

When you know the answers to these questions, and have evaluated the different promotional activities you're considering using the four primary benefits I've listed above, you'll make better choices, and be a more confident and fearLess promoter of your own gifts and talents, which is what your books, products, and services really are.