Frugal and focused Tweeting for Retailers: Tweaking Your Tweets and Other Tips for Integrating Your Social Media
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Publisher:HowToDoItFrugally Publishing,
Paperback. 130 pages.
ISBN: 9781451546149
Order at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451546149?ie=UTF8&tag=howtodoitfrug-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1451546149
What I liked: Howard – Johnson as a a lot useful and valuable information as to how to use Twitter for those of us trying to make it out here as writers, sellers, etc. She provides all the easy set up and goes through sample processes as to how to use Twitter to our advantage. This is a must read for those of us who write or are in the industry in general where we have to market out goods. From the setup to the other tips and tricks – as to how to integrate your other social media as well as all those different Twitter apps and which ones are better. These are all valuable tools that everyone can benefit from. Howard-Johnson is a talented person and she grants us these Twitter gifts and more. Go ahead and pick up this book, you won’t be disappointed!
Book Blurb:
· How to Get Twitter–The Simple Way
· How to Set Up Twitter as a Selling Machine
· What to Say: Sample Tweets and Critiques
· What All Those Links Mean–And Which You Need, Which You Can Safely Avoid
· How to Drive Traffic: Integrating Twitter with Your Other Social Media
· Sample Media Release
· Sample Blog Post
· List of Tried and True Applications for Twitter
· Making Online Life Easy: A Glossary of Important Twitter and Tech Terms
Don’t be fooled by the word Retailers in this title. The book is not exclusive. Retailers also include any author trying to promote their book. This information, as is true of all Howard-Johnson’s acclaimed books for authors, is invaluable to your promotion arsenal. And Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers is all about beating the recession one tweet at a time.
Twitter has become the Web phenomenon of the decade even though many say they “don’t get it,” and even those who think they do “get it” appear to be missing something. Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers will help those with businesses—large or small, online of off, or individual author—use Twitter in ways they never imagined by “doing it right” and integrating their efforts with all the other marketing they do.
This book gives authors and retailers the benefit of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s nearly three decades experience in publishing and as founder and manager of her own chain of stores, a stint as a New York publicist, retail consultant and journalist and a veteran Tweeter (If there can be such a thing as a veteran of such a new concept!). It is the second in the Survive and Thrive series for retailers in her USA Book News award-winning HowToDoItFrugally.com books.
What the professional say about Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers:
“Experts say that when business is slow, the last budget one should trim is advertising. Frugal and Focused Tweets lets a retailer have their promotions online and do it very nearly free.” ~ Robert Ricciardi, President of About Face
“In thirty-five years in the industry, there are only a handful of retailers I have observed reach the success level of Carolyn Howard-Johnson. There is only one thing you need to learn from her to succeed . . . everything she says!” ~ Randy H. Eller, industry speaker, business consultant, and President Eller Enterprises, LLC
“As a columnist for Home Décor Buyer, Carolyn’s no-nonsense approach to retailing and her easy-to-read writing style made her a coach to thousands of retailers.” ~ Jim Carper, founding editor of Home Décor Buyer
“The use of social media by retailers is tricky business. Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers details practical strategies for retailers to connect with their target audience in a way that delights them, builds relationships, and creates a sense of community with people of like interest. It will help you not only drive new traffic to your site, but it will also help you create a loyal following of repeat clients . . . It’s a treasure trove of information.” ~ MaAnna Stephenson, Web site training and designs and author of Just the FAQs series of books on tech .
Retailing Bio:
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, has nearly three decades of retail experience plus oodles more in the fields of journalism, public relations, publishing, and marketing into this Survive and Thrive series of books. She consults in the three Ps: publishing, promotion and publicity and is the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and award-winning books of fiction and poetry.
She founded and operated stores ranging from home décor to gifts to antiques and other collectibles. She owned and operated the souvenir shop at the world renowned Santa Anita Race Track. During that time, she served on the boards of directors of the malls where her stores were located, of the boards of cooperative catalogs her stores utilized, and on the board of the California Gift Show. She speaks at retail industry conferences including The National Stationery Show, The California Gift Show, The California Mart and the LA Mart and has written articles for the LA Mart, Home Decor Magazine and others. She puts this world of experience in retailing to work for anyone trying to sell books in this economy with her series of Survive and Thrive books, or in private consultation sessions.
Howard-Johnson was named by members of the California Legislature Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment and American Women Business Association (ABWA) Impact Council’s Woman of the Year. Find more information on her speaking in the retailing industry and others here.
Visit her literary pages on this Web site as well as the published works almanac on this site. Her formal education includes a BA in English Literature from the University of Southern California (USC), a certificate of completion for instructors at UCLA and courses at these universities in writing and editing:
· University of Utah
· Utah State University
· UCLA
· Herzen University, St. Petersburg, RU
· Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
· Cambridge University, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK
· Glendale Community College
Author Bio
Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s first novel, This is the Place, won eight awards and her book of creative nonfiction, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, won three. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. A chapbook of poetry, Tracings,was named to the Compulsive Reader’s Ten Best Reads list and was given the Military Writers’ Society of America’s Silver Award of Excellence. She speaks on Utah’s culture, tolerance and book promotion and editing and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program and her how-to book, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t was named USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book 2004.” and the Irwin Award. Her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Successalso won a nod from USA Book News and won Readers’ Views Literary Award. Her marketing campaign for that book won the marketing award from New Generation Indie Book Awards.
Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, the Book Publicists of Southern California’s Irwin Award and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of 14 women of “San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen.”
The author loves to travel and has studied at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and journal with her wherever she goes. Her website is: http://carolynhoward-johnson.com andwww.howtodoitfrugally.com.
Interview:
Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself!
Oh, dear. I love writing. I love writers. I’m loving helping both retailers and writers with my HowToDoItFrugally books!
What inspires you to write?
I guess about everything. I never get writers’ block. There are always stories in my head, poems roiling around on scraps of paper waiting to be typed, and ideas for nonfiction books that will help others waiting to be published. Or edited. Or written.
Do you find that your muse takes over when writing?
Well, most times. Mostly the secret is to put bottom in chair. Push chair up to computer and make fingers push the keys.
Tell us a bit about your Frugal and Focused Tweeting?
Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers is part of my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for retailers. There is a series for writers, too, but in all practical matters, both series work for both groups. That’s because marketing is marketing is marketing. The principles are the same. And lots of the specifics can easily be adapted.
What inspired it?
I love Tweeting. And I love marketing–especially fruitful marketing. And I got tired of hearing people say “I don’t get tweeting,” or “Tweeting isn’t my audience,” or “Tweeting won’t work for me.” Especially when I saw how well it can work when it’s done right.
Do you have any have any other works in progress that you want to share?
Well, I just published Your Blog, Your Business (www.budurl.com/Blogging4Retailers) and A Retailer’s Guide to In-Store Promotion (www.budurl.com/RetailersGuide) . And a nifty little booklet that is a fun brush-up on some tricky word trippers waiting to humiliate anyone who writes–from business letters, to blogs, to full-blown manuscripts. It is Great Little Editing Tips for Writers (www.budurl.com/WordTrippersPB) and it’s only $6.95.
What would be your advice to aspiring writers out there?
Not to give up. Not to give up writing and not to give up promoting their writing. The only failures are those who give up.
What are your favorite books at the moment?
I just read FREE: The Future of a Radical Price which has influenced my thinking on some promotions I’m doing. It’s probably still on the Bestseller list. Creative work? I love Marrying George Clooney (by Amy Ferris), a memoir. And nothing will ever replace To Kill a Mockingbird as my all time modern (?) favorite.
What is your favorite word? Least favorite?
My least favorite are the ones I mistype. I type about 120 words a minute. I know because typing teachers used to measure those things. But I also mistype about 60 words a minute. (-: My favorite word. Mmmmm. Acceptance. I use the meaning behind that word in lots of my poetry and fiction.
