Psyching Out Where to Connect Online With Prospective Fans

All of us, whether we are business owners, service professionals, book authors, etc., who are online to connect with prospective fans (translated: prospective buyers of our products and services) have only a finite amount of time to make these connections.

Of course, we all want to get the most bang for our buck — the most connections for the time we spend online. And we also want to make these connections authentically rather than, for example, "buying" followers on Twitter who may not give two hoots for what we have on offer.

Some people may have access to a full-time marketing research department focused solely on finding the best places for our particular products and services. Most of us, though, have to figure this out for ourselves in that finite amount of time we can devote to this research.

Every day I make decisions about which online places maximize my opportunities and which places are simply a time drain. Now I have to admit that I have not always chosen the best places.

It took me several years to narrow down the parameters for my business interests. And of course places make major changes over time and new opportunities come along at the speed of light.

Here is what I am exploring at the moment:

The introduction by Facebook of "timelines"for profiles is a major change. But timelines have a much more far-reaching effect on Pages (formerly fan pages). For example, it appears any photo (in good taste — obviously no nudity, swear words, etc.) can be used as the big photo (called "cover" by Facebook) at the top of a profile's timeline.

Yet there are very strict rules for the cover photo for a business Page. For example, you cannot even have "Like This Page" as part of the cover.

It is rather obvious that many of these Page changes will encourage more spending on Facebook ads. And, of course, Facebook really wants those expenditures to increase to showcase to potential investors what a lucrative revenue model Facebook has assembled.

Meanwhile those of us using Facebook Pages for our businesses or books will have a lot of strategizing and revising to undertake.

At the same time I have joined Monkeybars.net from which to sell the ebooks of my novels MRS. LIEUTENANT and LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. I have had a long phone conversation with two of the top people at the site and I am impressed with the concepts behind this new site.

I did recommend they create videos to explain the site's uniqueness, and I hope to see these soon. In the meantime, go on over to Monkeybars.net and learn how recommending digital products to others can earn you money.

In fact, I am working with Monkeybars.net to put our new digital program — Understand French Like a Native (see introductory price offer) — on the site. As we discussed during the phone conversation, people who buy the program and then appreciate how good it is can recommend the program to friends and benefit financial from this recommendation.

I have been exploring Pinterest — and I am now regularly "pinning" the pictures of my blog posts to my boards. (See my account at http://pinterest.com/zimblermiller)

Then I have just joined a year-old site I learned about from blog posts by Kindle author Rachel Abbott, whose first ebook has done amazing well. The site is triberr.com and I will be writing more about this site as I become more familiar with it. (Meanwhile, you can read the first of Rachel Abbott's blog posts about her Kindle success.)

To return to the theme of this blog post — we cannot always know which social media sites are the best for connecting with our target markets. We do have to keep abreast of major changes, try things for ourselves, and then make decisions where we want to spend our social media marketing efforts.

Note: This week Smashwords organized an ebook event for the authors on its site. We got to choose if we wanted to offer our ebooks during this event for a lower price or for free. I decided to offer MRS. LIEUTENANT for FREE (note the coupon code RE100 for this) and LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS was automatically included in the event because the ebook was already offered for FREE (no coupon code needed for this).

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter and @ZimblerMiller on Pinterest) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which is now WBENC certified and helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies. Check out Phyllis' books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com