E-Marketing Strategy: 3 Ways to Engage 
Your Audiences 
Through Social Media

People find and follow companies on social media platforms to get a peek behind the curtain. They want the 
inside story—especially from industries with gatekeepers like in the publishing world. You'll often see the number of people following a company's Twitter account is dwarfed by the number of people following the personal account of that company's CEO. People would rather hear the mutterings of the head honcho than the polished pitches from the marketing team. People don't want polish. They want authenticity. Voice is important.

The Voice

Finding the right person to run your 
social media efforts is vital and shouldn't be taken lightly. Companies often toss this task to transient interns because they assume young folks know how to best navigate these waters. Nine times out of 10, this is a mistake.

The person (or people) tasked with running your blog, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts must be friendly, well-spoken, passionate about your topics, professional, diligent and not too busy to spend significant time talking to people online. That's a tall order and may seem impossible, but consider this: The person in this position is the most visible, most accessible, most influential customer service representative that your company will have. Filling this slot with talent is well worth the investment. He or she will be the "voice of your company."

The Strategies

Using social media tools to engage your company in niche-related conversations is important, but it is only the beginning. If your goal is to build a community that is passionate (and talkative) about your books and authors, you will need to do more than just talk. You will also need to have some fun.

In a few minutes of brainstorming, you and your team can probably come up with great games to play, contests to run or promotional giveaways to try. If your games and interactions are fun, people will forgive you for their marketing aspect and will likely even recommend you to their friends. Here are a few to get you started: