Online Presence Mentors

Modeling Your Online Presence

Dan O'Brien

You might be wondering why I chose these two celebrities. There are a plethora of reasons, but the most important aspect is how they interact with fans. Anne Rice might be best known for her vampire novels, but she handles herself wonderfully on Facebook. She is courteous, posts about personal things and substantive issues in publishing, and she responds to fans despite the fact that she is a world-renowned novelist.

George Takei might have the funniest posts on Facebook and he is simply a wonderful human being. Again, he is personal, courteous, and responds to fans despite his notoriety and busy schedule. I am slightly partial to both of them because they both took the time out of their days to respond to me: Anne Rice responded to one of my emails and George Takei replied to a message on Facebook. Needless to say, as a fan, it was the highlight of my day. As a writer, I took notice of their commitment to their fan base.

If you can’t take the time to post about the process, interesting tidbits you have found around the web, and things that your fans might be interested in reading (ask them if you don’t know what to post), then you might want to rethink being on social media in the first place.

The take-home message is simple: interact.

Don’t react and auto-post. Be a real person as often as you can be. The best way to sell books is to connect to the people who you want to read your book. The greatest way to do this is to interact with them early and often.