In this episode, Ellen Violette, interviews tech expert, Ken Course, on how to use a free tool to build community, and one tool to repurpose your videos to multiple platforms, which video platforms and types of content are hot right now, and how to use the content in your book to create video content and more!
Resources Mentioned:
Contact and follow Ken:
Website: Now Presenting You and On Course Marketing.
Ken@LinkedIn
Chat with Ellen
If you want to go deeper or get started with your book project
Summary
You’ve published a fascinating book, so your work is done, right? Wrong! This episode of The Books Open Doors® Podcast is about the many ways to repurpose your content as a vehicle for growing your brand. Marketing and social media guru Ken Course, the owner of Now Presenting You, is sharing with Host Ellen Violette some of the latest, completely FREE tools to grow your community, what’s hot and what’s not in video, and how to repurpose your book content for more visibility and more followers.
He explains how and why he favors certain membership and content creation platforms as well as which social media channels offer the best chances for organic growth. You’ll be amazed by the many ways in which to dice and splice every chapter of your book into evergreen social media-ready content – from training programs to one-to-one coaching access to special offers that build your community.
In his 15 years of riding the waves of digital content and marketing, Ken has seen many trends come and go – which is why he knows intuitively how to guide you towards the platforms that drive maximum exposure with a minimum of muss and fuss. You’ll come away with a clear understanding of why short-format reels have taken off and how to use your books and other digital content to enhance your reach – and sell products, services or both!
Because he knows social media can feel overwhelming, Ken is offering a free workshop to help you figure out your signature first-step offer. Click here to get started connecting with your audience with engaging, effective messaging. And don’t forget to let him know Ellen sent you!
Ready to boost credibility, heighten exposure and open doors? Then you’re ready for The Books Open Doors® treatment. You can book a free consultation with Ellen here.
Key Quotes
“Developing a membership can be very difficult if you don’t have any experience with it.”
“The great part about Patreon as compared with any other sites is that it links to Zapier. So theoretically all of your members – regardless of what level they’re in at your Patreon site – can go back into any of your other systems.”
“The best way to think of Patreon for author or people who are not techie is as your own personal, paid social network where you can do anything from posting videos, images, documents, even direct livestreams.”
“I love to schedule out in advance – especially with training programs – so that I can focus on the hard work of getting people into that process.”
“Organic reach is the ability to reach people without paying and that number gets lower and lower and lower every day. TikTok is really the only way these days to get content out in front of people who are not following or don’t know you.”
“If you have a following, like Ellen, then obviously you need to continue nurturing that following where you built it, so you’re active.”
“Everybody is looking for that short-form content right now. Everybody is trying to copy TikTok is what’s happening and short-form content is really catching on with audiences.”
“I’ve been in this industry for 15 years and have seen a lot of trends come and go. Twitter
is actually the social network I would recommend the least for people to try to get traction on, unless your niche is being news- or media-worthy.”
“When you’re working on your book, it’s an all-consuming project so you’ve got to prioritize building your audience where you can get the most traction the easiest.”
“Books can be repurposed again and again and again. You should be creating videos based off of almost every section and chapter of your book … Your book is like your course online!”
“You’ve done the hard work of building the book. Get that moving forward and that’s the outline for everything else.”
“Don’t put your book on a shelf and say, ‘Well, I’m done with that thing.’ Go back to your book and think about how you can use it as the basis for your next program or what you’re doing to grow your business overall.”
Key Takeaways
- Ellen and Ken share a common thread as “multi-passionistas,” who love and create music in addition to content and coaching.
- About Ken’s foray into the world of livestream and how it ultimately led to learning about the suite of free tools he uses for developing online content.
- Free Tool #1: Patreon, a membership platform that provides various applications for content creators to run a subscription service as well as earn monthly income through rewards, perks and donation tiers. Other features:
- No web design experience necessary. Very user-friendly!
- As simple as posting to Facebook, Twitter or a similar site.
- Separate tiers for various levels of membership are available.
- With Zapier, data is easily moved onto and off the platform.
- The content creator can be used to create a huge range of marketing material corresponding to any phase in the launch and sale of your book.
- Is it labor-intensive to create memberships? Not necessarily! The Patreon platform is highly flexible in the types and levels available to post your content.
- Free Tool #2: Zapier, a product that allows end users to integrate web applications and to automate workflows, including more than 4,000 apps with free and paid plans.
- Ken’s Top Tip for Just Starting Out: You can do it live or schedule it out into the future, easing pressure to have everything fully baked before being able to launch.
- With all the social media channels, where does a newbie focus? Ken’s short answer is: short-form content posted to TikTok, then repurposing for Instagram and YouTube
- What exactly is a short-form video? Maximum 15 to 30-second videos that don’t require large quantities of content. And can easily be done right on your phone!
- Free Tool (Trial) #3: Repurpose, a simple tool that optimizes digital content:
- Automatically converts and publishes to your choice of social media channels.
- Can take longer-form content and carve out smaller, bite-sized clips for posting.
- Viral Potential: Ken underscores the importance of having a posting strategy that ensures the greatest number of eyeballs will be on your content. And if that content is well-liked? It will be put in front of yet more people!
- With multiple, consistent small bursts of content, it’s very possible to build viewership even if you have very few followers.
- Have Long-Form Content Already In the Can? Ken suggests looking for ways of slicing and dicing to make available as a short-form alternative.
- Free Tool #4: LinkedIn Live Events, a streaming feature that allows users to livestream unlimited content directly from LinkedIn profile pages.
- Side Note on TikTok: You must have at least 1,000 followers in order to stream live (and Ken has techniques for helping reach that minimum milestone).
- Ken shares his thoughts on Twitter 101: What the platform demands and why it’s hard to get traction and – when you do – it can be short-lived.
- Ken ranks the media channels where you’re most likely to get traction:
#2 LinkedIn LinkedIn (for business orientation).
#3 Instagram or Facebook (for general interest).
#4 Twitter (a distant last, unless yours is a media or new niche audience).
- Top Tips for Authors Who Want to Leverage Membership Platforms:
- Repurpose your book, which is a core piece of your brand!
- Every section and chapter can be leveraged to market services at different levels of membership, including:
- Creating a training course.
- Group coaching.
- One-to-one coaching.
- Online webinars and other resources.
- Ken’s Parting Thought: Books Open Doors! Don’t miss the myriad opportunities!
About Ellen
Ellen is a multiple #1 bestselling author, 3X award-winning book and business coach, including being named one of the Top 20 Book Coaches of 2022 by Coach Foundation, host of The Books Open Doors® Podcast, CEO of Create a Splash/Books Open Doors® Author Services and Grammy-nominated songwriter.
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