Posts Tagged ‘branding’

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Life Books For Finding Your..Self

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

So focused in our day to day work we often overlook the big picture that surrounds our lives. When it hits though, the realization of our existence conjures difficult questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What am I doing all of this for? This week we’re shining a light on four books that awaken sleeping souls to worlds both within and around the self in their own unique ways.

Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life by Abigail Brenner

Abigail Brenner, M.D., author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life, is a board certified psychiatrist currently in private practices as well as an ordained interfaith minister who helps people design, create, and perform personally meaningful rituals. She is also author of  SHIFT: How to Deal When Life Changes, and the co-author of The Essential Guide To Baby’s First Year, to be released April 2011. Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life from CreateSpace is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

From Brunonia Barry, the New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader, comes an emotionally compelling novel about finding your true place in the world.

A respected Boston psychotherapist, Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats. But the actions of a patient throw Zee into emotional chaos and take her back to places she thought she’d left behind.

The Map of True Places from HarperCollins is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Blessed: Living A Grateful Life by Ellen Michaud

Sometimes we just need to stop for a moment and absorb the quiet moments in the world around us–to take a deep breath and appreciate the things in life that make us thankful and bring us joy. Blessed: Living a Grateful Life is a call to do just that. In this heartfelt collection of her online columns from Diane, the flagship magazine of the Curves women’s fitness center organization, author Ellen Michaud reminds us of the everyday blessings that surround us, but we all tend to overlook.

Blessed: Living A Grateful Life from Reader’s Digest is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Into My Father’s Wake by Eric Best

From Eric Best, a solo sailing odyssey and journey of personal discovery in which the author, a former journalist and Wall street strategist, comes to terms with his dead father and learns the meaning of forgiveness.

Into My Father’s Wake from CreateSpace is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Developing Your Digital Marketing Blueprint

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

by Fauzia Burke

Here are seven steps to developing a digital marketing blueprint. Many people skip the first four, but these first few steps are the crucial difference between success and failure. I have also uploaded slide presentations to help you along.

  1. Assess Your Situation – This first step is perhaps the most important. Before you can commit to doing more digital marketing, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Take a snapshot of where you stand. Think of the following questions: how well is my website working for my goals? Do I have email addresses of my customers? How many fans or followers do I have on Facebook or Twitter?When you are assessing your website, look over the traffic numbers. How many people come to your site, which pages do they visit, how do they find you, and how long to they stay? These answers should give you an idea about the effectiveness of your site. If nobody is staying on your website for more than a few seconds, then something needs to be changed.Another element of assessing your situation requires an honest assessment of your resources. How much time, knowledge, technology or money do you have to devote to digital marketing? If you don’t have a lot of time you might need to hire somebody. If you don’t have a lot of money you might have to set aside some extra time to do this work on your on.
  2. Know Your Customers – Understanding your target audience will help you devise the best digital marketing strategy for you. Digital marketing is customized and personalized so it is essential for you to know your customers so you can serve them best. Learn about their age group, their gender, their industries. It’s also important to know the tech savviness of your customers.
  3. Designate a Storyteller – For any digital marketing strategy to be effective you need a designated storyteller, marketer, brand evangelist. If you skip this step, your digital marketing strategy will not be sustainable.
  4. Set Goals and Timelines – Without setting realistic goals and timelines you will not know when you are achieving success and when you are missing the mark. Some realistic goals are: improve your website; build a mailing list; start a fan page on Facebook or get more fans on Facebook; start making videos and getting them distributed; start writing a blog, or syndicate your blog; look into twitter or grow your followers.
  5. Implementing Digital Marketing – Once you’ve taken the first 4 steps you digital marketing strategy will become much more obvious to you. Then you can start implementation a plan. I find a lot of people jumping from new thing to new thing without really setting goals or having assessed their situations. In my opinion, the six essential elements of digital marketing are: website, enewsletter, blog, Facebook, video and Twitter. For more details on these elements you can read my blog on 6 Elements for Digital Marketing.
  6. Monitor Your Progress – Although a lot has changed in marketing in the last few years, the most exciting change is the availability of free monitoring tools. You can set up email alerts for your name on either Google or Bing, and use Google Analytics for analyzing your website traffic. If you set up a fan page on Facebook, you can use Insights to gain valuable information. My favorite tool for monitoring Twitter is still TweetReach.
  7. Be Flexible – Digital marketing is new to everybody and we’re all trying things out. It’s important that you just keep an open mind and experiment. Experiment with your time, and experiment with your money. If you succeed learn from it and try it again. If you fail, just smile. Take a deep breath, and try something else.

Digital marketing is a very innovative field right now and everybody is trying different things in different combinations. You just have to find the right combination for you and your customers.

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Author Spotlight: Lewis Richmond

Sunday, March 20th, 2011
From the constant push and pull in our personal and work lives, it’s a disappointing fact that many people find well-being and happiness far from reach.  Through Buddhism and Zen meditation, Lewis Richmond aims to educate people and encourage sufferers of daily life to discover what healthy awakenings await those who take bold steps and traverse new spiritual terrain.
Lewis Richmond is a Buddhist teacher, Aging and Elderhood author, and Blogger. Lewis leads a Zen meditation group, Vimala Sangha, and teaches at workshops and retreats throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.  He has published three books, including the national bestseller Work as a Spiritual Practice.  Lewis also leads a discussion on aging as a spiritual practice at  Tricycle magazine’s online community site and is the author of the blog,  Aging As A Spiritual Practice, where he regularly writes on topics such as aging, fear, beauty, spiritual practice, gratitude, and kinds of Buddhism to name a few.
Work as a Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond manages to complete the task of incorporating spiritual practice within the workplace.  As a veteran corporate executive and former Zen Buddhist priest, Lewis is in an authoritative position to claim that not only is work and meditation a partnership made possible in the office, but through recognizing four characteristics of human thought and emotion, an opportunity for inner growth is completely within grasp. Work as a Spiritual Practice from Broadway is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and IndieBound.

  • “leaving the house without one or the other of Lewis’s practices in mind is like venturing into the wilderness without my boots.”

–Peter Coyote, movie actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall

  • “This book on utilizing the workplace as a place for spiritual growth comes straight from the workshop of the heart”

–Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within

  • “An exquisite guide to finding happiness and health in one’s work.”

–NAPRA ReView

  • “an accessible, personal, witty, and poetic book that will be helpful, even transformative, for anyone who works for a living.”

–Sylvia Boorstein, author of It’s Easier Than  You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

Read Lewis Richmond:

Lewis Richmond:

  • was the Executive Vice President of Smith & Hawken, Ltd.
  • the founder and owner of Forerunner Systems, Inc., the leading provider of inventory management software to the catalog industry.
  • is a musician and composer with a solo piano album, Lake of No Shore, released by Artifex Records.
  • is an ordained disciple of Buddhist master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.

Connect with Lewis Richmond:


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Social Networking Importance

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

By Fauzia Burke

We recently posted a Twitter basics blog post that covered the fundamental parts of tweeting that many beginners find confusing. Well, the response has been quite positive and a few of our clients have expressed an interest in knowing whether or not social networking was really worth the extra effort for authors. The overall answer is yes. We’re getting to a point today where authors are thought to be behind the curve if social media tools are not being equipped. Does that mean it’s too late for those who haven’t taken their campaigns online? To that we say no. And to help those who have not adopted social media skills yet, we have decided to share why an online outreach is so important.

The Importance of Social Networking

Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, the constant availability of learning opportunities and more ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were not available just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting your personal brand and help spread word-of-mouth about our books.

Here is also an inspiring video about the importance of social networking.

Developing a personal brand takes time, but the good news is that the tools are free and you already have the expertise in your field. Social media now allows you to share your knowledge and build a following. Once you “know” your readers you’ll have a lot more control over your career and will be able to promote not just your books but also your apps, conferences, videos, webinars, websites and more. Your personal brand will make you more valuable to your publisher and agent as well.

Some Resources

How to Create Your Social Media Presence
How To Make Your Personal Brand Visible With Social Media
5 Easy Ways to Build Your Digital Reputation
10 Golden Rules of Social Media

FSB also provides clients with regular updates on social media. We recommend that you sign up for our newsletter, visit our blog and follow the tweets on two handles that provide resources and tips for digital marketing.

Newsletter: http://www.fsbassociates.com/company_newsletters.php

Blog: http://www.fsbassociates.com/blog/
HuffPo Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fauzia-burke

Twitter: http://twitter.com/FSBAssociates / http://twitter.com/websnapshot

Facebook

Do I need to be on Facebook? Quick answer is yes. Facebook has 500 million users worldwide. Together they are creating a community of savvy consumers, connecting with friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances to share advice, information and yes, recommendations. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

People on Facebook read books and tell their friends and colleagues about books. Engaging on Facebook also allows you to be closer to your fans and prospective readers.

Instructions are provided at the end of this post.

You may want to start by watching this video on Howcast to get oriented and get step-by-step instructions.

An excellent place to start is the Mashable Facebook Guide.

For general questions and step-by-step instruction, please visit Facebook’s help center.

Some Resources

5 Things That Don’t Work on Facebook Pages (and 5 That Do) by Aliza Sherman
Facebook 101 Business Guide on Social Media Examiner by Mari Smith

Everyone on the FSB staff is available on Facebook and you can find us all there. You can also “like” the FSB Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/FSBAssociates

Twitter

If you are hesitant to join Twitter, you are not alone. However, we want to encourage you to give it a shot. Set up an account, follow some people and learn some things. People on Twitter are very generous with their time and knowledge. Yes, you will spend time on Twitter that you already don’t have, but you will also learn things that will make you more valuable, smarter and “in the know.”

Even if you don’t plan to be very active, it is important to get a handle and follow others. It is also a good way for your publisher and friends to discuss your book by referencing you. You can use Twitter to provide links to your blog posts, media events and reviews. However, no one enjoys a 24/7 advertisement. A good rule of thumb is to have a 4 to 1 ratio for self promotion. One self-promotional tweet to 4 that will help others or engaging in the community through reply or retweet.

The best advice is to spend time just observing and seeing what others are doing before posting much yourself. There are people you already follow (favorite authors, must-read columnists, magazines, newspapers, influential friends) and now you can follow them on Twitter.

Some Resources

Best first step is to watch this video for starting with Twitter

Twitter Tweet Anatomy
Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started
Twitter for Business by Twitter
Learn the Lingo
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence by Problogger
A Personal Branding Checklist for Twitter by Social Media Today
Twitter Hashtags by Marketing at About.com
8 Ways To Find Relevant Followers On Twitter by Small Business Trends

Together we have 14 Twitter feeds here at FSB. You can find and follow us here:

http://twitter.com/list/Ishii_Ken/in-house

www.fsbassociates.com
Web Marketing . Social Publicity . Online Branding . Consulting

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Twitter Tweet Anatomy

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

For authors, Twitter is an incredible platform for promoting not only your book(s), but publicizing you – as an author, as an expert, as a person.  Twitter gets compared to Facebook and texting when, really, it’s a social networking platform unlike anything out there.

There are millions of people on Facebook and it’s the top social networking service for good reason.  Using Facebook is a great way to connect with friends, family, and people that have decided to “like” you.  But if you’re looking for new users to introduce your book to, it can take a great deal of time and effort to get outsiders to visit and interact on your page.

Using Facebook is arguably becoming one of the most time consuming activities in the US that many simply can’t afford.  Some would rather email or text each other.  A bit too direct for most marketing campaigns to be successful.

Twitter combines the economy of texting with the networking power of Facebook to create something too fast and far reaching to ignore.  Getting started is as easy as signing up on the Twitter website.  Enhancing your experience and finding marketing success, however, is a whole other game.  We collected several resources that will help you get engaged with the millions of people that are having just as many conversations every second of the day.  Fauzia Burke has an article, Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started, on The Huffington Post that will get you up and running so you don’t end up spending time wondering what retweets or hashtags are.  What the heck is a Bit.ly anyway?  You’ll find out soon enough.

One of the difficulties I notice people having even after reading a tutorial is getting used to the endless streams of confusing text racing back and forth between users.  To that, I say there’s nothing like hands-on experience.  But for now, I’ve put the brakes on a few tweets for you to examine at your own pace.  Bonus!  Click on the messages with links to go to the articles that are mentioned in the tweets below!

Twitter’s 140 character limit may be the very reason for its success.  It forces conversations to get straight to the point.  With this limitation, though, you’ll find users getting creative with their tweets using abbreviations and compressing text.  While an entire list is hardly practical, it is good to know some of the basics and we have them listed below to help decode the tweet-speak.

Going forward you’ll probably be interested in employing Twitter to help promote your book.  Twitter Power by Joel Comm will show you how to use Twitter for marketing purposes which will help build awareness for your book and strengthen your personal brand.  See the video below for more information.

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Balancing New Books

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

We’re nearing the end of the month, but there’s no slowing down for the crew here at FSB.  Our third week into the new year brings us four new projects that are spread across a range of topics including books in fiction thriller, health, adventure memoir, and business management.  Whether we’re getting wiser, healthier, laughing, crying, or gripping the edge of our seats, we’re sure to enjoy this busy balancing act.

From New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned environmental and consumer advocate Erin Brockovich, comes Rock Bottom, a debut thriller and first in a series of novels that introduces one of the most fascinating and memorable characters in suspense fiction. In Rock Bottom, Erin Brockovich combines passionate intensity, first-rate story-telling, and her real-life experiences in a novel that will leave you breathless. Rock Bottom from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

If you’re one of the 13 million Americans who have survived a heart attack or been diagnosed with heart disease, Dr. Janet Bond Brill offers a delicious and foolproof plan that can lower your risk of a second heart attack by up to 70 percent.  Inspired by the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet, the Prevent a Second Heart Attack Plan is based on satisfaction, rather than deprivation. Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 Foods, 8 Weeks to Reversing Heart Disease from Crown/Three Rivers Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For Conor Grennan, what began as a footloose adventure volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home in war-torn Nepal becomes a commitment to reunite children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. He would risk his life on a journey through the legendary mountains of Nepal, facing the dangers of a bloody civil war.

Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.  Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal from William Morrow is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

What Could Happen if You Do Nothing? offers managers clear, usable tools to enhance the way they listen and engage their people. Mini-dialogues, sample questions, listening tips, and suggestions use familiar situations to show how to transform business challenges into coaching opportunities. This is an essential resource for developing employees to their full potential and for fostering better working relationships for individuals, teams, and the business itself. What Could Happen If You Do Nothing? A Manager’s Handbook for Coaching Conversations from Giraffe Business Publishing is available on Amazon.

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Winter Hits

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Winter is here and the view out our windows is pristine as you can see from the picture of our office park.  Once we step into our office, though, things really start to heat up.  We’re just halfway through the first month of the new year and overjoyed with the traction our current campaigns are picking up.  Here’s a look at some of the big places around the web you’ll be able to see our recent projects.

Revealing the high-stakes drama behind the scenes of the hit television show American Idol comes a new book by veteran journalist Richard Rushfield, American Idol: The Untold Story.  On the heels of the book’s release, American Idol: The Untold Story has been creating quite a buzz in the media and we’re proud to have it featured on cnn.com, Can a reboot save ‘American Idol?’, villagevoice.com, American Idol Dish about Kara vs. Ellen, and collegecandy.com, The Top 10 American Idol Scandals.  American Idol: The Untold Story from Hyperion is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Simplicity isn’t about what you give up. It’s about what you gain.  That’s the focus behind Tsh Oxenreider’s book Organized Simplicity featuring simple outlines to organize your home and bring balance to your life.  Read her article, Learning value of stuff by moving overseas, on cnn.com for a lesson in cutting the clutter.  Organized Simplicity from Betterway Home is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Naked Fitness by Andrea Metcalf is not about working out in the nude.  It’s about stripping away all the clutter that stops you from getting your wonderful, beautiful body into the best shape possible.  And what better time to start building a new you than the new year?  We’re planning on seeing many start their plans after reading this article, Are You An Emotional Overeater? on mamapedia.com.  Naked Fitness from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

From the world’s leading authority on mind-body healing comes a revolutionary process for accessing the power of your true inner voice-the voice of wisdom, intuition, and the unconscious.  Dr. Brian Alman calls this voice TruSage in his book The Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom.  The author shares three steps on dealing with any physical or emotional challenge in an article, How to Find Your Inner Voice, on beliefnet.com.  The Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Drowning in Oil by Loren Steffy is the first in-depth examination of how a lack of corporate responsibility and government oversight led to the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion; the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.  An in-depth review on seattlepi.com of the Houston Chronicle business reporter’s book will help readers discern the important issues this book presents from those in the general media that float on the surface.  Drowning in Oil: BP and the Reckless Pursuit of Profit from Vanguard Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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2010 Social Media Stats and Insight

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Happy New Year to everyone out there. Hope you had an enjoyable, safe and sound holiday with all your loved ones.

Now that “2K10” is set tidily in our past, a collection of social media reports and statistics detailing top trends from last year have surfaced to help anyone lost at digital sea get back on route to where the online action is. Now that there are over 300 social media services vying for your time, it’s wise to know where the pack is heading. Hopefully you’ll find the information below helpful when planning your social branding or marketing strategies from here and into the rest of the year.

Facebook

As reported by AddThis, a social sharing service, Facebook continues to lead the race with 44 percent of the total social networking service volume in 2010. That’s a growth of 33 percent from 2009.

Twitter

After examining over a billion tweets, social media monitoring company Sysomos revealed some interesting information about the service nearly everyone has heard of but has taken time to embrace.

The number of Twitter users with over 100 friends has tripled since 2009 which could say the platform is good at forming tight communities. Still, 2010 could be seen as the year of experimenting as 80 percent of all users have made fewer than 500 tweets and that 90 percent of all Twitter activity came from less than a quarter of all users. The company also states that more and more people are disclosing location, bio, and web information to Twitter profiles. Looks like these users have found a service they find valuable and worthwhile.

MySpace

With Facebook now a household term, it’s hard to believe that MySpace was once the most popular social networking site. ComScore, a web measurement firm, reports MySpace worldwide total unique visitors to be less than 13 percent of Facebook’s visitors. At the same time, AddThis shows a backward growth for MySpace of 20 percent. For marketers, it seems pretty clear where time investments are going to be cut.

Services Growth

As important as it is to recognize which services are hot and cold now, it’s crucial to track how these services are growing. AddThis has put together a chart that shows the rate at which the most well-known services are moving. Note that while Facebook is leading the pack, other services still have their eyes on the prize.

Whether you’re posting updates on Facebook, experimenting on Twitter, or transitioning from other services, being active with social media is essential to any branding or marketing campaign. We were glad to see authors embracing social media with roughly 50-70 percent of our clients on Twitter in the summer.  By the end of the year, 100 percent of the clients we represented in December had Twitter profiles they used to market their expertise and books. For 2011, the question is no longer whether you should participate, but rather how you’re going to connect with your online audience.

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Study: Twitter Chatter Sells Books, Sometimes

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

By Fauzia Burke

Recently, two Hewlett Packard scientists developed an algorithm that projected movie sales with 97% accuracy based on Twitter chatter alone. Inspired by this and other recent social media studies, my staff and I decided to conduct some social media research of our own to see if Twitter chatter sells books.

As promised in my previous post, I would like to share the preliminary findings of our research based on the perceived correlation between Twitter chatter and Amazon rankings. First, we began exploring the types of social media search tools that are now available. We discovered some fantastic applications, such as Addictomatic and Topsy, but eventually chose TweetReach to conduct our research. TweetReach searches Twitter chatter, allowing you to see how many tweets have spread on Twitter and how many users received tweets about your topic.

During recent publicity campaigns, we started to notice a relationship between TweetReach numbers and Amazon rankings (most of the tracking was done on paper books, we are now tracking both paper and Kindle versions and I’ll give you an update on that in a couple of months). We were excited and began to do more research.

After tracking over 20 books during a 6 month period, we realized that the correlations are there but they are unpredictable. There were certainly times when high Tweet Reach numbers impacted Amazon rankings (Twitter chatter sold books), but unfortunately there were just as many times when they did not. Like any research with a wide range of variables (demographics, subject matter, relevance, quality, reputation, activity level of authors, etc.) it is too early to draw absolute conclusions. What we can say with confidence is that being active on social media sites has great benefits for branding as well as spreading word of mouth.

At FSB, we begin each publicity campaign with a detailed “web snapshot” of a client’s brand. With this preliminary research, we glean an overall, holistic understanding of where a particular author is in terms of their platform online. We note their blog, how many followers they have on Facebook and Twitter, and what links are listed on the first page of a Google search for their name.

What we have noticed over and over again is that active authors have dynamic Google page results. Authors that are not engaged in online brand building have a static Google search page often populated by outdated content and database links. We also saw that social media “sharing” is key to driving traffic to guest blogs, reviews, interviews and even in-person events.

As a result of these findings and our ongoing research, the daily mantra at FSB has evolved into: “If it can’t be shared, it shouldn’t be done!” Essentially, we have adapted our decision-making and productivity to ensure that each publicity hit/placement will be shared to create a viral effect, which benefits our clients’ brand visibility and help us sell books. Many sites, such as Huffington Post and Oprah.com make it very easy for readers to share and spread information by utilizing one click sharing. With this application, hitting the re-tweet button or Facebook share or like button will immediately disperse that information to member’s social networks.

By now, we know that social media participation is a crucial aspect of any publicity strategy. Reviews, guest blogs, interviews all lend credibility to the topic and authors, but it is also necessary to develop different forms of content, such as videos, slideshows, and articles, to successfully promote books. Additionally, posting content daily is essential for gaining and maintain followers.

We are well aware of the fact that every voice adds to the chatter and, with each bit of shared information, the bigger picture begins to unfold. Because word of mouth on Twitter spreads very quickly, “you have to be in it to win it.” I urge authors, publishers and publicists to start the chatter! Make sure you have a variety of social outlets where you can share information, grow the visibility your features and share your successes.

Have you personally experienced the effects of viral media? How has it positively impacted your work, your brand, or sales?

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Social Networking Your Brand

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

by Ken Ishii

It’s not enough to rely on traditional marketing platforms today. There’s a shift in both habit and attitude that is making “push” sales a thing of the past. Our time is being stretched around a stack of new tools and technologies leaving us with less room for fast-fading television, newspapers, and magazines. To compensate for lost time, consumers and sellers alike are budgeting their minutes strategically. That means passing on activities that require physical interaction in favor of virtual interaction using devices like computers and mobile phones that are tethered to the modern lifestyle.

Understandably, people choose to “unplug” from time to time, falling back on activities away from the Internet, but these are moments when most can’t be bothered with ads. Devices that skip over television commercials and efforts to disguise ads in print are further indications of traditional media’s weakening effect on the public.

Brands in every industry across the globe now have robust websites that serve to meet the demands of societies everywhere that are migrating from a physical world to a more portable and palatable virtual space.  The subsequent rise of social media was almost inevitable. Of course people would need places to socialize and express themselves. Crossing the digital divide didn’t mean we would eliminate our need for interaction.

So social media is big. A transplanted global populous without border patrols or passports limiting our interactions. To give you an idea how much social media has taken off, let’s take a look at a recent Nielsen study. According to the definitive media research company, social networks make up the largest share of time Americans spend on the Internet. This beats time spent on e-mail which has, for long, held the top spot on the list. Considering one is a leisure and the other a work related activity makes this finding flat-out remarkable.

Social media gives sellers, in this case authors, an unprecedented opportunity to connect sympathetically with fans and newcomers alike. Networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr offer previously unavailable access to reader likes and dislikes and, most importantly, give rise to formations of meaningful relationships with like-minded communities.

If you’re new to social media, you might find the weight of information daunting at first. On or offline, balancing relationships with people is never an easy task. Like forging a friendship in the physical world, getting people to open up to you takes time and nurturing.  If you’re introduced to an established circle of acquaintances however, your road to success becomes a much smoother ride. Like in any relationship, the bottom line is trust. Your reputation is gold. Without it you’ll be in a virtual room talking to yourself and the four sides of your screen. FSB Associates President Fauzia Burke wrote an article for The Huffington Post that simplifies the difficulty of protecting your online identity into a list of five steps that will build and maintain your digital reputation.

At FSB a large audience of “real” communicators spread across specific areas of interest are here to welcome you. Together we’ll create your voice and build and maintain your online reputation through strong relationships grounded by meaningful interactions with the most influential social media communities around. There are an innumerable amount of impostors out there attempting to cash-in on this explosive marketing phenomenon.  Savvy consumers have little tolerance for spammers though. Don’t let a seemingly innocent pitch turn into an over-ambitious gaffe leaving a mark on your name. We have the experience, resources, and skills necessary to help manage your online reputation and build your personal brand.  There are new trends and challenges on the horizon for the new year and we look forward to conquering them with you in 2011.

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