ken's author's toolkit

Get more clients/money/speaking engagements by using social media to promote your contribution to The Everything Guide To Mobile Apps

MobileGroove’s Peggy Anne Salz brings you the world’s leading experts — including YOU — to make YOUR app succeed!

March 2013

#EVERYappKen’s Author’s Toolkit

WE have lift off!The Everything Guide To Mobile Apps is available for pre-order and will ship on March 18!

Thank you again for providing your insights. You are listed in the appendix as an expert contributor, and we have also designed a package of banners, boxes and badges customized with your name (and that of your company) to help you spread the word and reap the benefits. Of course, successful self-promotion requires much more. This is why MobileGroove has teamed up with Ken Herron, a leading social marketer, to produce this author’s toolkit. Follow Ken’s tips and advice to achieve fantastic results, and remember to share your links and tweets so we at MobileGroove can amplify your impact using our own social media channels. Together we can have great and lasting impact!

Ken’s Author’s Toolkit


The countdown starts!

L aunch activities: We kick off on March 8 with a 10-day countdown to the release date of March 18. To this end MobileGroove has partnered with media relations professionals (including Jeff Fishburn (@jefffishburn) at OnPR1 and Sophie Young (@PheeYoung) at éclat marketing2) to outreach to bloggers and industry influencers to report on the book and/or write a review. We are compiling a list that we are happy to share. We also welcome your input, so please feel free to email me ([email protected]) or Amanda Roulstone ([email protected]) the names and details of writers/bloggers/influencers you think we should contact, and we will take it from there. Of course, if you would like to reach out to your contacts directly, we can also provide you a review copy of the book (a collection of excerpts in PDF format). You can circulate this among your colleagues and community members, and copy us for follow up. MobileGroove will also launch a microsite to promote all expert contributors and I will be reaching out to each of you individually for guest columns, exclusive Q&As and video interviews over the next weeks and months.

The Everything Guide to Mobile Apps: A Practical Guide to Affordable Mobile App Development for Your Business3 brings together the diverse insights of mobile professionals, practitioners, and pundits to identify the market trends, best practices, and lessons learned in developing, distributing, and marketing mobile apps. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/WITAal4 and Barnes and Noble at: http://bit.ly/XmCayn5

Taking the plunge into the publishing waters

To make sure you make a splash with your colleagues and communities MobileGroove has provided you (attached to this email) a ‘starter pack’ of boxes, banners and badges personalized to your name and company. If you require a different size artwork or want to include a company name we missed, then just email us. We’re here to help. And so is Ken Herron. To help you promote your expert contribution to the book and grow your reputation, as an industry authority Ken has collected top tips from recent blogs and presentations. So let’s dive in!


Ken Herron is a frequent author and popular speaker on leveraging technology for marketing, and the leading practices to engage customers online. Follow Ken on Twitter at @KenHerron, and listen to him on Wednesdays from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET on the LinkedIn Lady Radio Show with Carol McManus. http://bit.ly/16d2yhl6


#1 Visualize, visualize, visualize

#2 Share. DON’T sell!

#3 Post FRESH content daily

#4 Directly target your key influencers

#5 Leverage your email sig line

You already know that people are social. Well, people are also visual. Read C.C. Chapman’s NMX presentation on visual content7. As C.C. says, “create an emotional response, look for ‘moments’, and share what no one else can.” Find ways to share your story visually (which is why MobileGroove has provided you with a ‘starter pack’ of impactful and personalized artwork). It has never been easier post [in real-time if you choose] photos and videos on every single social network, from your own blog to Instagram.

It’s only natural to want to promote your contribution to the book in every single social post. But you should also use your blog posts and socialmedia updates to provide valuable insights around the book. Don’t know what to write? Start off with short posts sharing the key takeaways in your section of the book. Build on this material to provide your readers with your “top do’s and don’ts”. Compelling content, combined with your own personal story as an expert contributor, will boost your profile, drive interest and increase your social currency.

How can you keep your content fresh and relevant and continue to promote your contribution to the book? Even if you’re time-crunched, social media enables you to both share new, original content AND to participate in the larger discussion in your industry, by showing how the content you contributed relates to current events and trending topics. Post often and participate in forums at every opportunity.

It used to be difficult to target reviewers, critics, the media, and industry influencers. Now you can engage all of them directly on social media. Remember, however, the definition of “targeting8”. This isn’t about “friending” everyone on the planet. Instead, use tools like Klout9, Kred10, and PeerIndex11 to identify the social influencers for your specific niche. Connect with these influencers, and use Twitter Lists to monitor their tweets so you can more easily engage with them.

And finally, the one place where you absolutely MUST promote your contribution to the book is your email signature line. Keep it simple. Share your excitement. Remember to use a URL shortener such at http://bit.ly12. You can even get fancy with a custom link with the book’s hashtag (#EVERYapp — http://bit.ly/HASHTAG13), so you can track the clicks!

Ken’s Cheat Sheet

Remember, YOU are the brand, your book contribution is one of your brand’s products. Therefore, all websites and social media accounts are in the brand’s name, YOUR name, and not that of the book (The Everything Guide To Mobile Apps). However, you should add the hashtag (#EVERYapp) to all your tweets so MobileGroove can track and amplify them. So many social networks, so little time (?) Don’t get caught in a spiral of diminishing return on the time you invest in social media. Instead, focus on the social networks whose demographics best match your target audience (i.e., Snapchat for tweens, Pinterest for women, LinkedIn for professionals, etc.)


Here’s an overview of how you should approach each social network to drive real results.

Social Network What can you do to grow your audience?


Make sure your profile is complete/up-to-date (including the book’s hashtagged keywords)

Grow your friends

Comment on topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ posts

Make sure your profile is complete/up-to-date (including your book’s keywords)

Be sure to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ MobileGroove

Check in to all relevant events

Comment on topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ check ins

Ken’s Cheat Sheet



Grow your connections

Make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date (including your book’s keywords)


Create circles for:Target readers Brand fans Reviewers Media Booksellers Fellow authors/contributors Topic area leaders/social influencers

Grow your followers


Post the book’s front and back cover

Post the book’s photos, graphics, and illustrations (including the ‘starter pack’ badge and banner)

Comment on topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ photos




Grow your connections

Make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date

Add the relevant keywords for your book as “Skills” on your profile

Include a preferred purchase link in your post sig line for all group posts


Upload your badge to your Professional Gallery

Ask reviewers to co-publish their reviews as recommendations of the book (or your contribution) under a new Current Job of “Book Title Contributor”

Make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date (including the book’s keywords)Grow your followers

Pin the book’s front and back cover

Pin the book’s photos, graphics, and illustrations (including your ‘starter kit’)

Pin all book reviews

Comment on topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ pinsPin photos from all live book events



Make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date (including the book’s keywords)

Grow your followers

Post infographics/visuals of the book’s content (including the ‘starter kit’)

Comment on topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ presentations

Make sure your profile is complete and up-to-date (including the book’s keywords)

Grow your followers

Post disposable “flash sale” book discounts [off of retail price] to accelerate book sales at live events




Grow your followers

Tweet [links to] all book reviews (MobileGroove will also circulate links for you to retweet etc.)

Proactively engage topic subject matter experts/social influencers

Respond to topic subject matter experts/social influencers’ tweets

You can upload three images to Twitter. Your badge makes an excellent background photo, so try it for a few weeks :)

Create Twitter lists of:Brand Fans Reviewers Media Booksellers Fellow Authors Topic subject matter experts/social influencers

Note: MobileGroove will also create and share lists so you don’t have to start from scratch



Grow your subscribers

Create videos of your events, including book signings and readings, focusing on your audiences’ reactions

Record readers’ oral book reviews

Actively monitor comments

<a href=”[your profile URL]?rel=author”>Google</a>

Google authorship allows you to connect content that you create to your Google+ profile. By making this connection, you allow searchers to get a number of pieces of information about you right there on the search results.

It will allow you to tie the content you create to your online identity and provide a snippet full of details about you as an author. But the real benefit is visibility. Including an author detail snippet in organic search results will make your content stand out from the rest of the search results and encourage searchers to click on the link. Links with verified authors often appear higher in search results and will include the profile picture from your Google+ profile.

Google Authorship can be set up in two simple steps.

First, visit the Profile section of your Google Plus account and click the Edit Profile button. Tell Google that you are an author for the sites that are posting your content by adding their URLs to the Contributor to section.

Why Google authorship is a BIG deal, and what to do

How to Set Up Google Authorship


It is now time to create a link from your content to your Google Plus page. This can be easily accomplished if you have email addresses on the same domains as the sites you added to the Contributor to section; visit the Google Plus Authorship14 page and enter these email addresses there. Otherwise, you will need to add the following HTML code to the text of every article you write:

Note that the key piece of code in this link is the “?rel=author” snippet. Authorship will not function if this snippet is not included in the link.

Test your content to verify that Authorship has been successfully set up by entering one of your article URLs into Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool15. Your Google Plus profile picture, byline, and “More by [your profile name]” will appear in the mockup search engine result if it has.

And finally,

B ooks are coming to life on platforms like Kindle, and emerging as THE final step in an effective self-promotion strategy to cement your reputation as an authority, influencer and subject matter expert. Forget the business cards in 2013! Make a lasting impression by telling your prospective client or employer about your contribution to The Everything Guide To Mobile Apps. Even better if you use Ken’s Author’s Toolkit to generate buzz around your personal brand. Whether you’re looking for new customers, more clients, or just more public speaking engagements in the year ahead, there is no better ‘sales and marketing strategy’ than one that showcases your expertise and proves your ability to successfully take a great idea from concept to execution. Your contribution to The Everything Guide To Mobile Apps does both. Any way you look at it, self-publishing and self-marketing are colliding to create new opportunities for YOU to drive your brand. We hope we have equipped you with the tips you need to go out there and leave your mark — and we are always here to help you every step of the way.


All links can be found at: http://bit.ly/KensAuthorsToolkit

http://onpr.com/ http://www.eclat.co.uk/ http://www.mobilegroove.com/the-everything-guide-to-mobile-apps-for-developers-businesses- brands-13851 http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Guide-Mobile-Apps/dp/1440555338 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-everything-guide-to-mobile-apps-peggy-anne-salz/1111936115 http://toginet.com/shows/thelinkedinladyshow http://www.slideshare.net/cc_chapman/how-to-add-photography-into-your-marketing-mix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_advertising http://klout.com/home http://kred.com/ http://www.peerindex.com/ https://bitly.com/ http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/twitter-hashtags/ https://plus.google.com/authorship http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.


ken's author's toolkit

Self Improvement

social mediato

social currency

book andor

single social post

social media channels

kens authors toolkitken

leading social marketer

everyappkens authors