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Authors and publishers: Stay relevant with PR and multimedia

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Responding to changes in the publishing industry, insider Barbara Cave Henricks explored how authors and publishers can set themselves up to succeed in this new environment.
As the publishing industry evolves to a faster, more consumer-centered marketplace, there is much to be learned from professionals like Barbara Cave Henricks, who gave a talk called “Discoverability and the New World of Book PR” at South by Southwest Interactive 2012.
She is the President and CEO of Cave Henricks Communications, a media relations firm, and  represents brands such as IBM, Amazon, and Gallup, and publishing companies including Random House, Penguin, HarperCollins, Jossey-Bass, and Harvard Business Review Press. Detailed below are some of her insights on how authors can get ahead in this rapidly changing environment.
Multimedia marketing boosts book sales
  • Video hugely effective in book marketing. Book trailer can showcase author’s charisma and  gain media attention
    • Video can be very effective to build a rapport with readers
    • Video is good for PR purposes, but keep your videos fewer than 3 minutes long
  • Pinterest is an opportunity to engage with important audiences
  • Evaluate the pin-ability of website images
  • Google+ is  all about personal branding and boosting search results
    • Be sure add articles to your Google+ profile

Million dollar question: What is a book going to look like in 3 to 5 years?

  • Books of the future will be like a magazine subscription, gets updated on your device
  • What is the bookstore of the future? A coffee shop with an espresso-book machine
  • Curation of PR lists is much more crucial for books today. Don’t just be a part of the noise, differentiate
  • Give readers a reason to use their smartphones when marketing books, photosharing, take action

It’s the author’s job to extend the conversation past the book

  • Marketing is the ability to produce interesting content that gives an audience something to talk about
  • Find ways to be heard, provide meaning, authors are expected to participate fully
  • Provide value to an audience and keep building that, need to have a league of fans to help boost your book
  • Best book campaigns requires full and early cooperation between authors and publishers
  • Extend the book with quotes, action items, help make it memorable, and include interesting typography

Thanks for the insight, @RustyShelton, @laurakelso, @barbarahenricks, @shelbysledge, @ambermcginty, @KeithArsenault !

Community Developer Tips From South by Southwest Interactive

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There’s no magic recipe to making an online community succeed, but there are plenty of ways to kick-start, fix, or grow your city’s startup technology scene no matter what the geography. How do culture, philosophy, mentorship, education, government, universities, and events play a role in which communities thrive and which fail?

At the 2012 South by Southwest Interactive Festival, “How to Build Entrepreneurship Communities” helped shed light on the key ingredients needed to establish a successful community. Thanks to insight from folks like President and CEO of Venture for America Andrew Yang and Managing Director of Foundry Group Brad Feld key parts of the talk are available here!

How do you build a community? Give more than you take!

  • There is a big difference between one who can be successful and someone who can help others be a success
  • Communities scale via content and community
    • People are either sharing knowledge or bringing people together
  • Creating entrepreneurship communities is not about the “I” and “me” of the leaders

Entrepreneurship is about ideas, energy, hustle, and passion

  • Make sure your ecosystem has a platform to get the word out
  • Great entrepreneurship communities usually start with entrepreneurs trying to solve their own problems
  • Most community leaders didn’t dream about becoming organizers: They wanted to make things happen
  • You’ve succeeded when you start having people come to events who don’t know who you are
  • Don’t let entrepreneurship community leaders start building walls to preserve self interest & exclude others
  • Call out the haters, then call a meeting and demand they get involved

When change comes, find the right person to fill your shoes

  • Sustainability is a big part and challenge in keeping the community strong
  • It’s a lot of work to run a community so it’s important to take your time and be thorough
  • To find your successor: Look for the person who keeps coming back when you say you don’t need help
  • Embrace the help of volunteers if you can
  • Make sure to keep the community sustainable: Limit responsibilities for the leaders and make events repeatable

Special thanks for the content contributions from @MaxGdj, @mpd, @girlmobile, @timjeby, @marcnager, @paigecraig, @nickseguin, @alenarg, and @markpeterdavis !

Boost Rankings by Optimizing Your Website Speed | SEMNE

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A fast website makes users feel empowered; a slow website is simply agonizing. In a time-poor society, users and consumers want  to use fast, responsive sites. As website owners team up with developers to prioritize strategy, speed is consistently the most important factor. At a recent Search Engine Marketing New England event, Jonathan Hochman made the case for website speed optimization and how you can boost it for your site.

What every website owner should know about speed

  • If your site is penalized 100% of the time you will be notified in Google Webmaster tools.
  • Amazon reports that .1 of a second in load speed causes 1% loss in sales.
  • Browsers only run between 2 and 5 simultaneous requests (for images and data etc.)

Be selective when choosing hosting

  • It’s OK to complain if your site isn’t loading fast enough! The worst possible hosting is your own IT department.
  • Users recommend BostonComputing and TigerTech because they are good for WordPress and offer quality support.
  • Mediatemple and RackSpace also good hosting choices, but they are a bit more expensive.
  • Double your WordPress speed with W3 Total cache plugin. This tool allows you to turn on page caching and minification, which can double the page speed
  • Don’t self-host video, embed from Wistia for better quality and analytics. It’s not free, but can learn more and is compatible.

What affects website speed?

  • The number of lines of code (although this matters less than other factors)
  • Ad scripts being served from Google Adsense servers
  • Page size
  • Flash video player from YouTube
  • Images from Blogger Photos and other sites

 What is a CSS Sprite?

  • An image sprite is a collection of images put into a single image. A web page with many images can take a long time to load and generates multiple server requests. Using image sprites will reduce the number of server requests and save bandwidth
  • Those looking to hire a developer should hire those who know CSS Sprites. Experts say developers should absolutely know sprites – should be standard nowadays.

Quick fixes help and code tactics count

High-impact, easy-to-use tools

  • Use content delivery network Cloudflare (free) to speed up your website’s load time! Users says comment spam and site scraping will be reduced.
  • Linux servers are faster than Windows. There may be a correlation to self-hosting and Windows
  • Measure website speed with Pingdom tools (you want 1.5 seconds or less). Users say it has great data speed when tested correctly.
  • Yoast works especially well with WordPress. This tools helps users optimize speed with the help of a plugin developer.

Special thanks to insight from SEMNE friends @seangw and @fairminder!

Plan Your Blogger Outreach Program | Blog World

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Every aspiring blogger wants other bloggers to write about them, and there’s nothing worse than having your pitch emails sent to the spam folder. During the Building a Blogger Outreach Program, session at BlogWorld & New Media Expo session in New York City, multiple case studies revealed best practices for finding bloggers, pitching successfully, building online relationships, and effectively tracking and reporting. Here are the highlights:

Blog Worls Expo NYC 2012

 

Successful community management is all about planning

  • Don’t underestimate the power of an editorial calendar.
  • Schedule time for reaching out to those with whom you want to have a mutually beneficial relationship.
  • Build the community first, then schedule fundraising efforts. Blogging and asking for money won’t work unless the value comes first.

There are 4 pillars of community

  • Brand: know what you do, and what represents you. Eat and breathe and own your online brand, and others will follow suit.
  • Industry: stick to what you know. Followers are going to you for industry-specific content that binds their community.
  • Content: the best kind of outreach is generating content that makes followers want to come back for more and see you as a thought leader for the content you create.
  • Internal engagement: ask your followers, what are you getting from this blog?

Pay attention to your audience

  • Reaching an international audience takes inviting people to share what’s going on in their part of the world
  • The blog, social, and mobile messaging content mix includes: curated, expert and funny content. Your audience determines % of each.

How will you reach out to your followers?

Thanks for tweeting your insights @Mogreet, @fatherroderick, @LeAuraLuciano, @anne_hogan, @griner, @BrightGirl, and @vargasl

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