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Creative book marketing tip: Add a PicBadge to your Facebook and Twitter profiles

This is a post by Novel Publicity President, Emlyn Chand

Are you ready to start spreading the word about your book, your blog, or your brand? Well, one of the best things about the web is that the possibilities for quick, creative and effective marketing are pretty much endless.

Last week, I discovered PicBadge, the ultimate in visual social media marketing. You simply login to the site using your Twitter or Facebook account, upload an image, mess around with it in the badge viewer until it looks good, and then pop it on your profile. You can invite friends to do the same. In fact, you’ll need 10 “supporters” to get your badge listed publicly.

With the help of a handy widget, auto-announcements, and a Facebook page tab, getting support is easy. The site also allows you to monitor your badge usage with a campaign dashboard and eventually plans to add a way to contact all of existing your supporters directly through their site with special announcements.

Right now, most of the leading badges are for causes like peace, love, and breast cancer awareness. That’s all well and good, yeah, but think of how much power these simple little buttons could wield if applied to your book promotion strategy.

I set one up for my book last week and was shocked and amazed when it gained 14 supporters within the space of a couple days. Now I’d like to show you how to set-up a PicBadge for your brand, step-by-step.

I’ve just created one for Novel Publicity too, in case you’d like to wear it and show some love to indie authors > click here

 

Creating and disseminating your PicBadge step-by-step:

*screenshots to follow

1. Go to www.picbadges.com
2. Click “create a picbadge” from the main menu.
3. Click the big, red button to “create a PicBadge now!”
4. A window will pop-up; enter your login credentials for Facebook.
5. Now you’re in the creation screen; upload an image.
6. The image will probably be too big to fit in the button space; you can drag and resize it until it’s just right.
7. Choose the background color you’d like to have around your image.
8. Click “preview.”
9. If your badge needs tweaking, click “edit” to go back; if it looks great, click “submit.”
10. Now you’re going to have to enter data about your PicBadge.
11. For category, select “TV, Films, and Entertainment,” that’s actually the closest we can get to books or publishing.
12. Enter a simple and readily identifiable title.
13. Enter a “call to action;” this will be shared on Facebook or Twitter whenever anyone adds your badge, so make it good. The one I used for my book is:  “Are you a fan of paranormal fiction? If so, you've gotta check out Farsighted by @emlynchand”
14. Enter something into the “more info” box. You won’t be able to use line breaks or any html, so keep it succinct. I used a very short teaser for my book.
15. Enter relevant tags so people can find your buttons. Try:  publishing, books, indie authors, and your relevant genre or themes.
16. Fill in your location, website, and do the security check (RECAPTCHA box).
17. Check the box to acknowledge the site terms; click “publish.”
18. Choose friends you think might add the badge; and select to send a Facebook invite.
19. You’ll have the option to purchase real print buttons; you can X to get out of that if you’re not interested.
20. Click on the new pop-up window to add the PicBadge to one of your social media accounts; you can add it to your FB profile or page or to Twitter.
21. Adjust the settings; you can swap in different pictures, scale the images, drop and drag the badge to any of the four corners of the image, or make your photo gray-scale.
22. Follow the instructions that pop-up; they’ll be different for Twitter and Facebook.
23. When you’re done go back to the “collect supporters” screen; it should just pop-up.
24. Click “add a tab” under “Promote this PicBadge on your website or Facebook page.”
25. Select your page from the dropdown menu, and click “add a tab to your page.”
26. Follow the steps as directed; the tab will pop right up on your page (scroll to see a screenshot of a PicBadge Facebook tab).
27. Go back to the “collect supporters” screen;  select “add a widget.”
28. Copy-paste the code provided into a text widget in your blog’s sidebar (scroll to see a screenshot of a PicBadge widget options).
29. All done! Now you’ll need to collect at least 10 people who are willing to wear your badge. Once you have 10, it will show up in public searched on PicBages.com. Getting there isn’t as hard as you might think.

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About this post's author:

Emlyn Chand is the president of Novel Publicity and a YA author. She loves to hear and tell stories and emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). Her first novel Farsighted released in late 2011 and is of the YA genre. Learn more about Emlyn at www.emlynchand.com or by connecting with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or GoodReads.