One of the topics I'll want to
address in the second edition of "The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese"
has to do with getting to understand your audience. Not everyone will be
interested in your book, no matter how good it is, and you can waste a lot of
time pitching to people who simply aren't interested. Social Media sites have a wide
variety of devotees, and it's wise to be selective about which followers to
accept. Here's an example that happened to me recently. I received
an announcement about a new follower on Twitter. The username was "The
Love of Sex," and the description announced that the site has 4 followers.
Yes, that's right -- four! Does anything about that sound suspicious to you? All right. Maybe it's a brand new
user. But if you were opening a Twitter account to appeal to those who love
sex, would you choose as one of your very first followers a old retired and
widowed professor who lives with four cats? If "the Love of Sex"
wants to read about my books, I can't easily forbid it, but I'm certainly not
going to reciprocate and follow her back. I certainly will not add her to the mailing list for my newsletter. I doubt we have anything in common.
I'm willing to bet this was a variation on an old phishing technique, and that
a day or so from now, "The Love of Sex" will no longer appear on my
followers list, because she was not really looking for a good historical novel
to fill her lonely hours. Lesson to be
learned: Not everyone who follows you is looking for what you have to offer. |
