This is the final part of a series on how I am marketing my book via content generation.
- Part 1: My Content Strategy for Selling a Book – I start with my belief that my book would help software developers, and since I want to help software developers, it would be ok to ask them to read my book.
- Part 2: Applying My Book Selling Content Strategy on Sites I Control – On loufranco.com and other sites that I pay to operate, I just talk about my work openly whenever I want. It’s kind of the point of these sites.
- Part 3: Applying My Book Selling Content Strategy in My Communities – In communities that I am a part of, I don’t bring up my work out of context. I only do it if asked or if we’re having a conversation about work. But, I do draw inspiration from conversations and put my thoughts in blog posts. This is market research, not advertising.
In this final part, I will talk about Social Media, which I treat as a mix of Part 2 and Part 3. I have a feed that I control, but it’s mixed into a communities with norms. Posts are conversation starters, and the comments replying to them should be on-topic. I treat each social media site differently, but a common thread is that I try not to link to my work, and I make each post or comment self-sufficient and useful in the reader’s feed.
Mastodon: I used to post to Mastodon rarely, but I have recently begun to understand it better. I only follow software developers and people I know in real life (who, on Mastodon, seem to skew towards being software devs). If I post something personal, I don’t use hashtags. But, for anything that I think would be interesting to software developers, I use hashtags to cast a wider net. Doing this has made Mastodon much more interactive to me. I also follow all of those hashtags and engage as I would like to be engaged (mostly by replying when replying is asked for and “yes, anding” anything else I can in a positive way). Posting on Mastodon is mostly a way for me to get ideas and practice writing.
LinkedIn: I have written about how I use LinkedIn before. Basically, it’s to keep in touch with people I know and like. So, in a way, it’s more like what I do in communities, but since my posts are in my feed (and people can follow, unfollow, mute or block me), I feel more free to talk about my work unprompted. I still follow nearly a 0-link policy. Most posts are a trial draft of something I intend to write, so there’s nothing to link to yet anyway.
Reddit: And on Reddit, in the software developer subreddits that I participate in, I just try to answer the questions as asked. These questions are often great writing prompts. I try a draft in Reddit, and then expand on it in this blog later. I do this a little on Hacker News as well. It’s not often thought of as social media, but my StackOverflow contributions are similar.
In all of these places, I am not anonymous, and my bio links to this site. If someone were interested in what I had to say, they could easily find this place, add it to their RSS reader, podcast player, or subscribe to my email list.
I don’t know if this is the most effective way to market my book. I suspect it’s not if the goal is the number of subscribers or sales. But, it’s what I would appreciate in others.