From Kindle to social media: The Kindle app as an amplification tool for your book content | UnNoticed Entrepreneur — public relations for business owners.
By Jim James, Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.
In the recent episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur podcast, I explored the opportunity for to be a social media platform for your book or for the book that you’re helping to promote.
This is something that you can do on your mobile device (I did it on my iPad. It can work on your phone but the tablet is much better. Kindle on iOS also works really nicely). If you open your Kindle app, you can see your library and bookshelves. On the homescreen, you’ll find “Recommended for you”; below that, “Pick up where you left off.” I’ve got a number of books on my shelf and it includes my own book, The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.
When you click on a book, it will open up to the reading screen. Kindle allows users to share a section of the book by highlighting it.
In my case, I clicked my book and I highlighted “Marketing is no longer about what you sell but about the stories that you tell. By , Author.” After highlighting that text, I was presented with a couple of options, including a dictionary and a Wikipedia search. However, I did not want any of these.
What I did was to press one of the keys that appear just above the text. The bar gave me four dots in colours pink, blue, yellow, and orange. There were also the copy-and-paste, notes, share, magnifying glass, and information icons. I chose the share icon, which is essentially a page with an arrow pointing up.
Then, the app directed me to the selected quote. Underneath, it stated, “The UnNoticed Entrepreneur: 50 Ideas for your Company to Stand Out by Jim James.” It also contained the Amazon link for the book.
The reason that I did this is that I want to repurpose my content. For anybody that’s got 244 pages of content as I have, going through it in PDF format, and cutting and pasting a snippet into Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn is really labourious. Kindle enables you to share content within books in a seamless way from your mobile device.
Scheduling via Zoho Social
You can also schedule your snippets by using an amplification tool (in my case, I use Zoho).
On the Kindle app, there’s a “Share” option on the top right-hand corner. Options will then pop out: You can share by Airdrop, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Zoho Social among others.
After choosing the Zoho Social option, it brought up a control bar where I can find all the accounts that are linked to my Zoho Social account. These include my Facebook account , my Facebook group account, which is called EASTWEST Public Relations , , the EASTWEST PR Twitter , my LinkedIn profiles (my personal profile and my ), my (as Instagram requires a certain square graphic, I tend to leave that out), and my Google My Business account. When I clicked “Next”, it asked me if I wanted to post the thumbnail on Twitter (the thumbnail features the book cover). I chose “Yes.”
In Zoho Social, I have five options: “Publish Now,” “Custom Schedule,” “SmartQ,” “CustomQ,” and “Save as Draft.” What I did was to let the Zoho system decide when it can post the quote. The system decides on that based on how much content I’ve got ready to go and by the times that my posts have been most engaged with. It’s pretty smart technology.
Upon clicking “SmartQ,” Zoho started scheduling and it was saying that the quote is going to be posted on the 26th at 9 a.m. However, I already have two posts going out to the same channels from other books for that time and date. I then had a choice to either select today or another day as I’ve got in front of me the next seven days as a calendar. Through that, I’d be able to choose which day I want to post the snippet instead.
One of Zoho’s features is telling you how much of a chance your post has to get a good response. For instance, If I’d issue my post at 12 p.m. on the 30th of November, I’d have a 20% chance of a good response. If I’d send it at 11 a.m., I’d get a 10% chance. The same happens If I’d post it at 4 p.m.
Zoho optimises for you the best time to post.
If I’d send it on the 25th at 7 a.m., I’d have a 10% chance of engagement. If I’d choose the 26th (though I’ve got two posts already), I’d have a 20% chance of good engagement. If I’d do it at 1 p.m., I’d also have the same chance. If I’d do it on Saturday, Zoho said that there are no SmartQs for that. So I ended up choosing the Thursday slot because I didn’t have any other post that day.
Once I clicked “Schedule,” the post was then scheduled.
Flexible Posting
What’s good about this is that I can go through my book, chapter by chapter, and choose any one of those small snippets to share either with all or with some of my social media accounts.
Now, one thing that you can think about is this: What if I just want to choose one piece and send it to one place? As an example, I chose a piece of content, which is John Lee Dumas ‘ statement: “Hey, Fire Nation. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with myself and Jim today, so keep up the heat.”
I simply cut and pasted it on my LinkedIn page. I can then share it with anybody or with my connections. I can also share it with anyone on Twitter. When I tried to share it on Twitter, it said that I had 15 characters too many, so I had to adjust and do a little bit of editing.
Upon posting on LinkedIn, for example, you can take a quick look at your page and see if it has come out already.
A Powerful Amplification Tool
You can use Kindle on your mobile device as a powerful content application for amplifying your book. Take note, however, that it doesn’t work the same way on their desktop application (it just helps you make flashcards, for example). This is why I recommend using their iPad app. I’m guessing it’s also the same if you’re using a Kindle device.
You can also connect Kindle to your account because there are other authors and book readers on that platform. The idea is to share what you’re reading and what you’re up to so that everybody can see what you’re doing. If you’re taking those snippets and posting those, other people can see your highlights.
Kindle is a platform where you can review your content and take snippets of books. It also lets you post these snippets onto various social media channels in a very quick and easy way.
This article is based on a transcript from my podcast The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, you can listen here.
Originally published at https://theunnoticed.cc on May 12, 2022.
