“I am clueless about digital media strategies. For perspective, I don’t even have a Facebook page.”
That was what an author recently wrote to me.
This author is a very successful business person, who likely spends her free time growing her knowledge base and making decisions to grow her already successful company, as well as serve her clients with excellence.
She was starting with an assumption that a “digital marketing strategy” had largely to do with social media — specifically Facebook.
I get this all the time.
Using social media is not your digital marketing strategy
It’s much more than that, and should be more thought out than just having a “social presence”.
So often, the sediment at the bottom of the digital marketing slurry seems to be “use social media to market”. But that’s not always accurate. In fact, I’m extremely suspicious of social media and have not seen breakthrough results with it. Even as I write this, I think in the back of my mind, “Maybe I haven’t left every stone unturned. Maybe there’s something I’m missing here.”
But let’s back up a little bit and talk about the above comment from this author.
The idea that if you don’t have a Facebook page, you’re not in a position to market your book starts from an assumption that could very well be erroneous, yet is extremely common among authors I speak with. As a thought experiment, let’s take the above example of this extremely successful person, who is writing a book that she hopes will help others become successful…like her. In fact, her book’s target market are people who are likely driven in the same way she is. They would likely not waste time on Facebook. Instead, they spend their extra time increasing their body of knowledge, consuming new ideas, growing their skill base and obsessing over the things that would advance their careers.
These folks probably won’t be found on Facebook. So even if you have the best Facebook presence you could muster, it doesn’t matter.
That’s not where her audience is.
Where are your readers?
This begs the question which should be at the core of your marketing efforts. Where are your readers?
If your readers are not on Facebook, don’t waste your time there. If, in asking that question, you’ve uncovered some of the answer, start pursuing that route. Don’t look at passive social media channels, instead, look at the active channels where readers go for more information, look to the people that influence their decisions. Now you’re headed in a better direction to start developing your strategy.
Where are your readers?
How are you planning to reach them?