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Got a book you want to promote?
How about getting involved in
a social network first. I know of several people who are active in
online social networks (the most prominent is MySpace) as a means to
promote their books.
Sure, they do all the other things folks do
when promoting a book, but most of their activity comes from the social
community. It's called "buzz", and if you're not buzzing your book,
then you're missing out big time.
While MySpace is the biggie right now, it's been primarily for the younger crowd. The fuss is about the average person--that is,
his or her participation in what's known variously as "social media,"
"social networking," "user-generated content," the "live Web" or the
dreaded "Web 2.0." 
All
of that is changing because their is going to be a new kid on the
playground - one who is ready to take on the challenges of running a
business. Social networking, it seems, has gotten the attention of the
big boys of the business world.
Don't believe that social networking can make a difference? How about these facts:
On Monday, March 27, about 40,000 mainly Latino high
schoolers in Los Angeles played hooky to protest the Senate's proposed
bill to crack down on illegal immigration. It was believed to be the
largest such demonstration in L.A.'s history, double the size of the
historic Chicano walkouts of 1968. Through the week, thousands more
walked out in California, Texas, and Florida. Then, on Tuesday, April
4, 24-year-old Sandi Thom signed a £1 million, five-album deal with
RCA/Sony BMG out of her basement in London, live via Webcast. She had
just finished 21 straight nights of live performances--also Webcast
from her basement. By the end, Thom was pulling in a nightly audience
of 100,000 listeners. In both cases, the "audience," was drawn together by word of mouth on social-networking sites such as
MySpace.
By the way, Myspace has about 72 MILLION members worldwide.
It wasn't that long ago when these social networks were merely upstart discussion groups with "Avatars" and people who flamed each other when they felt a bit off. Now, people are using personal blogs on places like Myspace to meet others, promote their books and music, and even gather large crowds for protests.
Now, the field is getting wider and deeper.
One out of three South
Koreans already has a "minihompy" (mini homepage) on Cyworld, a
social-networking site coming to America later this year. And TagWorld, a startup based in Santa Monica, California, is what bloggers are calling the "MySpace killer" for its deep menu of
services, which integrates features from seemingly every successful
network out there: blogging, plus a multipage site; a
gigabyte of storage; a music player that serves up your own tunes (as
well as those pulled down via a Music Discovery Engine); classifieds;
and photo-, video-, and bookmark-sharing. As the name indicates, all of
these bits of data can be tagged with short, descriptive names for easy search and retrieval by other users.
Unfortunately for us it's still in beta (test mode), but will be out soon.
Hey, if I were you, I'd find out as much as I could about TagWorld and become one of the early adopters. If you've got a book or business you're promoting, you can't go wrong!
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