8 ways to get people to discuss your new product in social media

On November 14, 2011 I introduced my new book Newsjacking to the market.

One of the challenges of my work is that I write and speak about strategic marketing. I have to admit something right here: I obsess over the use of my own marketing strategies to market my work. Heck, if I can’t launch my own book, how good are the ideas, right? I was under pressure.

In order to generate the most excitement around Newsjacking, I chose to do some particular things that I hoped would help to launch the book with excitement. These are the ones that worked well for me and that I would do again in the future.

I'd suggest that these techniques should be used at launch to get people to discuss any new product in social media. It is not just for books.

1. Don't talk too early.

I chose not to talk about the book ahead of time. In fact I never used the word "newsjacking" anywhere on the web prior to November 14, which was launch day. I find that people have short attention spans. If I say "a book is coming" but people cannot actually read it, few will act. So I chose to keep quiet.

2. Choose a memorable name.

The title I used - "Newsjacking" – had been used before by people like Urgent Genius but it was not very popular a term, especially outside the UK. Most people were hearing the word for the first time and it was memorable to them.

3. Inject some controversy.

The concept of newsjacking feels like a black hat technique to many people and some wondered if it was ethical. (Newsjacking is perfectly legitimate, as I do explain in the book). But that sense of perceived negativity is a powerful tool to get people talking. John Jantsch wrote Is Newsjacking a Legitimate Tactic? And Erica Glasier wrote Ethical question: Is newsjacking black hat? These blog posts were tweeted hundreds of time, spreading the ideas in the book.

4. Seed the market.

I gave an early heads up (about 24 hours notice) to a few friends so they could prepare blog posts that ran on my launch day.

5. Have a news hook and newsjack.

I chose to launch Newsjacking, which is in e-book only format, on the same day that the new Kindle Fire launched. My goal was to newsjack the Kindle Fire announcement and that tactic actually worked because writers for publications such as the Vancouver Sun, Forbes, and MediaBistro talked about my book in context of the new Kindle Fire.

6. Respond to people in real-time.

I did my best to comment on each of the dozens of blog posts about Newsjacking in real-time, I also tried to react to as many of the thousands of tweets as I could without cluttering my stream too much. It was exciting to participate in the launch this way.

7. Don't forget international markets.

I woke up very early to interact with people in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. And I checked in again in the evenings to connect with Australia and New Zealand. I was psyched that people wrote about the book in many markets and found blog posts in multiple languages including Japanese, German, and Dutch.

8. Measure, report, and improve.

I measured via TweetDeck, TweetReach, and Google to see how the Newsjacking meme was spreading. I reported the progress to my publisher so they could help push things along and when possible, I tweaked what I was doing to improve. Note the takeup of the meme "newsjacking" in just the 48 hours after my launch as measured by TweetReach (below).

Comments

[Tony Faustino]

David, I'm looking forward to purchasing my Kindle copy of Newsjacking as an early Christmas present.

Speaking of seeding the market (Technique #4), I noticed in my Google Reader how several influencers wrote Newsjacking reviews around its November 14th release: Ann Handley, Mitch Joel, Jason Falls, Lee Oden, Joe Chernov, and Debbie Weil (just to name a few).

Well Played Sir! And, Congratulations on the successful release of your latest book.

[Rgielecki]

Great post on my favourite blog again- I will be helping someone to promote a specialized book for local government decision maker. It's very useful for them, answers their needs and...it's free due to EU subsidies, so it might not be considered "serious". I am figuring out the strategy for the book to pass through decision makers secretaries and make them aware, so the publication can change their mindset on governing education. Only few thousand people to reach, so your blog becomes something like a brainstorm partner to me ;).

[Tony Faustino]

David, I also meant to compliment you on the great use of Techniques #3 & #6 in Ann Handley's blog post: Newsjacking - A New Approach to PR.

Not only did you effectively stir the pot with the commenters on Ann's blog post, but you also responded to each of these folks in real-time (especially if they voiced dissenting views).

My apologies for not confining my response to one reply. I'm blaming it on the lingering effects of Thanksgiving Tryptophan.

[David Meerman Scott]

Thank you Tony! Because the book is so short (only an hour to read) many people were able to read it and get reviews done first day. No early copies were distributed at all.

Rgielecki - for free ebooks, a great design is essential. Here are some of mine (designed by @eymer http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/products_ebooks.htm

[OpEdMarketing]

Hi David

The New Rules of Marketing and PR was one of the very first marketing books I ever read, and have been a fan ever since :)

This is great advice for any marketer. However, some might say that the "don't talk too early" rule might limit the amount of momentum and thus attention a product could receive, considering how Apple manages to build up anticipation and have people line up around the block for their new products. I'm not necessarily agreeing with what I'm saying, but just playing devil's advocate.

Looking forward to getting a copy, you'll need to recommend an eReader :)

[Gonnie]

Hi David,

Respect! It is so easy to tell others what to do, and, especially, what not to do. Great to see that you master the strategies yourself. Thanks for the helpful post and also many thanks for (subtly) mentioning my blogpost.

Enjoy the success of your book!
Gonnie

[David Meerman Scott]

OpEd - Apple does the same thing that I do. They do not talk up products until they are ready (or very close to ready) to ship. Many other tech companies announce products months ahead. The new iPhone 4S announcement for example, nobody knew till announcement day what the features were.

Gonnie - my pleasure. Thank you!

[Lori Stammer]

Good list of suggestions. As new media marketing coordinator for University Press of New England I use many of the same tactics. The trick is to keep interest stimulated for a period of time. One added strategy would be to create a QR code for your social link or to your blog, or it could send people to your sign up for emails. OR Codes are easy to generate I use http://goqr.me/ to make mine. Good blog and Thanks.

Lori

[Namipatel]

Good job! Congratulations. I wish you success.