Marketing True Magics 4: Cutting Through the Clutter or: Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick Two.

I spent 15 years as an actor before my daughter was born. Chances are you’ve never heard of me.  Most actors aren’t stars. But that’s all right. I’m not bitter at all. I don’t still pine for it like a Norwegian Blue pining for the Fjords.

…But enough of that.

I spent most of my career on stage, and there I was introduced to one of the most useful expressions ever:

“Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.”

Good and fast costs money. Good and cheap takes time. Fast and cheap may do in a pinch but will have no staying power.

Now, let’s apply that to social media marketing, because social media may be free, but that doesn’t mean it’s without cost.

Remember our graphic from last week?

Click here to see the full-size graphic at: http://forwallpapers.com/

We cannot be everywhere at once without a major outlay of time and money.  We can’t even be most places. Heck, even the limited amount of social media I do now is taking up more time that I want.

So how do we pick?

Defining Our Terms

Good social media grabs attention in a world where everyone is clamouring for it. And since you know you’re not going to get everyone’s attention, good social media will get the right people’s attention. (We’ll talk about target audiences next week). It is also going to keep their attention without harping on your book, because a social media plan that just advertises quickly becomes boring.  And boring social media is forgotten social media.

Fast social media keeps up with the trends. It makes your followers/fans/ listeners/viewers/whatever count skyrocket. It’s right there in people’s faces anytime day or night. The people who follow you know what’s happening, when it’s happening, and they look to you to tell them.

Cheap social media isn’t ineffective, just inexpensive. It means doing things yourself rather than having them done for you, and doing them the simplest way possible. You don’t need to spend a fortune to get what you want, but you are going to need to spend time.  And the more social media coverage you want, the more time you are going to have to spend.

So, pick two.

My Picks: Good and (fairly) Cheap.
I am not made of money (pauses to imagine, sighs, continues) so I can’t invest huge amounts of it into marketing my books. I’m not made of spare time, either, so I need to not be continuously on social media. I need to focus on creating good, short social media that will reach as many people as possible, for as little expense as possible.

What I don’t need to be is fast. (Timely, yes, but that’s a different post). I write books. I’m not a fashion critic, news outlet or gossip site. My work isn’t urgent tell everyone NOW!

Add that to a publishing date that’s not until next April and I’ve got plenty of time to get things built up, automated and ready to go.

What It Means for My Social Media Marketing
It means I’ll be doing a slow, multi-pronged social media campaign, organically building followers across all mediums to maximize coverage and exposure to my target markets. This will enable the maximization of conversions from followers to customers and result in monetization through product sales …

Sorry, fell into marketing speak. Trying again:

I’ll be using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads, and possibly YouTube (listed in order of use, not order of value) to reach out and tell people about my books and about me, and to get people to buy my books.

I am open to adding other sources, but only if I can prove they will be worth the time and effort.

I am automating my Social Media feeds using Hootsuite so I don’t have to be on it all the time. I’m also using a news aggregator (feed.ly) to find interesting content to post when I don’t personally have anything interesting to say, and to follow certain topics on my newsfeeds so I don’t have to scroll endlessly on my phone.

As for how well it’s going to work…  that’s what we’re all going to find out.

Next week: Target Audiences or Who ARE All These People?