In our fascination with the world of online marketing it’s easy to forget that just about everything in marketing comes down to personality. We hear about Search Engine Optimization all the time, and who hasn’t thought about getting involved with Facebook and Google ads?! Then there’s  remarketing, blogging, social media and email marketing. The choice of where to put your book marketing dollars in the digital world is endless.

I’d like to introduce the idea that when it comes to marketing your book, we need to remember that personal marketing is also highly important. In fact, Paula Hope, the co-author of my most recent book, Your Personal Marketing Playbook would probably say that it is the most important part of the equation. But what is personal marketing? Here’s the definition we used in our book:

Personal marketing, on or offline, is about creating, managing and leveraging your social capital.

So, what is social capital? There are a lot of different definitions out there, but, again, drawing from our book, we defined it this way:

Social capital is the goodwill that you create with members of your network.

That goodwill starts with giving, helping, and developing trust with the members of your network. And the response to your message, on or offline, depends on the social capital you have created with the network members you are approaching. This is a key component of your personal marketing.

The Simple Truth of Social Capital

Social capital is created wherever positive relationships with others can be found: in the workplace, through networking organizations, while spending time with friends and family, or even while pursuing hobbies and recreational sporting activities. You might also generate social capital through your participation in a Linked In group or a private Facebook Page, or by consistently liking and sharing someone’s social media posts.

Social capital is the building block of all relationships. Personal marketing, meanwhile, is about creating, managing and leveraging your social capital, both on and offline.

Here’s an example of what that can look like:

Prior to the online launch of Your Personal Marketing Playbook, I developed a comprehensive online marketing strategy that involved a substantial amount of pre-launch promotion, both online and offline.  Given that we were in the thick of a Coronavirus-related lockdown at the time, Paula and I decided to move our launch online, and host an online panel discussion with online and offline experts, Victoria Trafton, and Husam Jandel.

We were also joined by our publisher, Michael Davie, CEO of traditional publishing company Manor House Publishing.

I was enormously grateful for the time these professionals devoted to our launch, and also appreciated the fact that Paula and I were able to reach into our networks and encourage such respected experts to join us!

Before, during and after the launch, I coordinated an Amazon best-seller campaign for us, which was somewhat challenging, given that the best-seller campaign works best with the control offered by self-publishing, and we are traditionally published. But, again, we do work with a highly collaborative independent Canadian publisher, and we were able to count on substantial support from our publisher in making the campaign work.

Over the course of the few days around the launch, our book kept climbing the rankings.

My team and I sent out more emails and leaned into our social media presence.

It was an incredible thrill later on the day after our launch to see that we made it to:

#1 in the  categories of Leadership, Advertising, and Multilevel Advertising and

#2 in Web Marketing

It was thrilling! Plus, as a book coach and editor, the value of a #1 best-selling book on Amazon is priceless to me  from a marketing perspective!

I couldn’t have gotten there without the social capital I have created in my online and offline network! This is personal marketing at work. What could it do for your book sales and your business?

In future blogs we will dig a little deeper into HOW you can do this, too.

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