Levy Rivers's List: Consulting Project

Here are a few ways that readers can use online social networking tools to spread the word about your book.




I’ll be asking readers of Coffeehouse Theology to do at least one of these:



• Write a Review…
• Write a brief review at amazon.com, buy.com, borders.com, and barnesandnoble.com. These aren’t exactly “social networks,” but these reviews are sitting right at the point of sale, which is a tremendous tool if enough readers share their thoughts.
• Post a review to your blog (looking to start a blog? Visit www.wordpress.com to set up a free account)
• Add it to your Facebook profile
• Add it to your book list
• Add it to your Visual bookshelf or other book application. Share a brief review there.
• Join the Coffeehouse Theology group
• Post a link to the book’s page www.inamirrordimly.com/coffeehouse-theology/
• Add it to your MySpace profile
• Add it to your online library such as Library Thing or Shelfari



There are plenty of other tools out there that authors themselves can use, but as far as what readers can do, these are all simple ways they can talk back via reviewing and help spread the word of your book.

Think first about who it is you want to involve in your organization, who it is you want to reach. Try to provide some real data on them. Does your nonprofit conduct regular, systematic market research? No? What a surprise.

Fortunately, there’s fair bit out there for free. Forrester’s interactive marketing blog is a good place to start. The authors of Groundswell have posted lots of free data on various demographics, and maybe some of it will be helpful to you as you discuss what your members are likely to be doing online.

The centerpiece of it all is My.BarackObama.com, where supporters can join local groups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raising pages. “If we did not have online organizing tools, it would be much harder to be where we are now,” Mr. Hughes said.

Mr. Obama, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, credits the Internet’s social networking tools with a “big part” of his primary season success.

The heart of the campaign’s online strategy is a teeming corner of Mr. Obama’s headquarters two blocks from the Chicago River, a crowded space that looks more like an Internet start-up company than a campaign war room. During a visit in late May, a bottle of whiskey sat, almost empty, atop a refrigerator (there had been plenty of victories to celebrate lately, a staff member explained).

Sitting amid a cluster of cubicles, Mr. Hughes, whose title is “online organizing guru,” handles the My.BarackObama.com site, which is known within the campaign as MyBo. Other staff members maintain Mr. Obama’s presence on Facebook (where he has one million supporters), purchase online advertising, respond to text messages from curious voters, produce videos and e-mail millions of supporters