Rev Up Your Book Release With Coordinated Social Media Promotion

The first time I heard of Thunderclap, I cringed. Sounded like a social disease to me, not social media promotion. But I overcame my initial reaction and checked it out. I am super glad I did.

Thunderclap is a service that amplifies a message crafted by you with the power of the “crowd.” Think about it: often your friends, family, and contacts want to help you, but they either don’t know what to say and when (and how to include the right link and image), or they try and do it clumsily in a way that doesn’t help. You’re still grateful, but you’d like to make it easier for them and better for you.

Enter Thunderclap.

You craft a message complete with an image and a link, and you recruit your social media contacts to join you in the message, or “Thunderclap.” Then, on the day and time or your choosing, all of the messages are released at one time. It creates a heck of a buzz and the possibility of “trending.”

Let’s take a look at my Thunderclap experience for the release of my seventh novel, Hell to Pay.

First, I read the information on the site advising me on how to craft a message and how to promote it. Next, I reviewed their privacy policy, to be sure I wasn’t putting my contacts at risk. I was satisfied and you can read it in its entirety, HERE.

Then I chose my plan. I used Lightning. You’ll want to follow the Pricing link on Thunderclap and carefully consider your options.

After I had my message drafted,  I contacted every person I wanted to recruit for my Thunderclap individually through social media. Here’s an example of one of those messages:

Yes, it’s time consuming, but don’t people deserve your individual attention when you’re asking for a favor? And I would humbly suggest that you should have “relationship credits” in the bank before you ask, meaning you already help them more than they help you.

I also posted requests on Facebook and Twitter, but they were less successful than my individual messages. I sent out hundreds of the messages, and was limited by Facebook to doing them in batches because when you hit copy/paste, they automatically get suspicious of spam. So be it. I’m glad they try to control it.

I had a really successful response from my crowd in support of my message.

357 people signed on, with a combined “social reach” (friend list) of 472,533 on the various social media Thunderclap works with:  Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Their messages posted all at once, and I took the time to click like and comment (as did my awesome husband) on all of them I could find. When I did, I encountered a number of messages like these:

Check out the comments: not only did I get exposure of the message I wanted at the time I wanted with the right link and image, but strangers acted upon the message. And they were people my own posts would not have reached. The Thunderclap’s were further shared by friends of friends, again, people I could not have reached myself reaching their people. I also found that my own contacts acted upon the messages, but based on the posts of my friends, not mine. Because people ignore me when I toot my own horn. They hate it when writers shout BUY MY BOOK (or some form thereof). Your friends give the post you wrote visibility and credibility.

The end result? And one I communicated with my Thunderclap supporters through an “update”:

This was an extremely well spent $45, and I’m already prepping for my Thunderclap for the release of my eighth novel, Fighting for Anna. Have any of you Thunderclapped?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).