Inbound Marketing for Writers

I changed my phone at the weekend; from a small cyber shoot, which made phone calls and took photos, to an Andriod which, apart from having a little R2D2 emblem, can apparently solve all my marketing problems.

And so can this blog - apparently.

As a writer I now don't have to depend on others to sell my books, or to sell me. I can do it myself. Most writers already know this but they probably don't know the extent of the power at their keyboards 

We live in a world where we update our social media pages about everything from rant to rave.  What I failed to realize was the spiderweb effect you can create if you use these tools effectively.  Used correctly, every time you blog, tweet, or use any other type of social media, the tendrils of the webs can be far reaching and unlike conventional marketing, are permanent.

How do I know this?  I have been reading a book called Inbound Marketing by Brain Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  In the book these new-style management gurus use Google, social media and blogs to get found.  They share with their readers case studies of phenomenal successes and easy to understand advice on how to apply their principles to our own business.   

Their buzz phrase is 'remarkable content'.  Create 'remarkable content' and every time someone remarks on-line about you or your product, it creates a chain reaction.  Tools are available to check how many time your pages are viewed and how many links are made to your site.  And for busy people the Andriod phone can check in on what's happening and can use social media management systems like Hootsuite.com to help you track mentions and allow you to respond before fickle brains fry.

The downside is that all this goods stuff takes awhile to set up and use and the addiction to these sites can mean that more time is spent on the marketing that on the productions. But at least I have a little friend to help me now.