[Guest Expert] Bruce Brown: My Book Award and Social Media

When I submitted my book, 31 Days to Greeting Card Marketing Mastery to for the Small Business Trends Book Awards 2010 the contest had already been running for two weeks and had one week to go. When the voting was finished at midnight December 15, 2010 my book finished in 8th place overall (of 110 entries) and in 3rd place in the Marketing category, which resulted in two awards, Contest Winner (for the overall top 10) and Top Book in Marketing (for the top three in that category).

During the week that my book was in the voting I was extremely active soliciting votes. This post focuses on how I used social media to promote the book and the contest.

* Posted to Facebook and Twitter often and LinkedIn some.
* Blogged about it and updated the post every couple of days.
* Whenever someone voted and emailed Tweeted, or Facebooked me about it, I tried to thank them promptly.
* Made a YouTube video asking for votes and put it on Facebook and in Blog.
* I belong to two large NING groups, I asked them for support.
* Wrote to the social media editor of our local newspaper.
* The final day of voting was on my birthday so every one of the 100s of people who sent me birthday greetings via email or Facebook I thanked them right off and asked them to vote with an easy link.
* Blogging and social med and video follow up pieces

31 Days to Greeting Card Marketing Mastery by Bruce Brown Small Business Book Awards 2010 Winners