The Importance of Collaboration in Online Marketing

Although we may be indie artists, this does not mean that we have to go it alone when it comes to online marketing of our work.

Coming up with compatible online marketing partners may take some brainstorming, but it could be very worthwhile.

Collaborative groups:

Let’s first take an imaginary example:

You are a musician who writes country music songs.  Now even if you are very prolific, how many songs can you write and record in any six-month period?

Your fans like country music.  Why not give them more such music to like?

To do this you could find one or two more musicians who write country music songs and whose songs you like.  (It is important to like their music if you are going to be promoting them.)

Then you could form a collaborative group to promote all your music:

Perhaps you have a website with samples of your songs.  At the end of your own samples you might say, “If you like my country music, you might also be interested in the songs of …… and ….”  Then have links to the sites of the other musicians in your collaborative marketing group.

I have personally formed a triad with two other authors who have written a military spouse novel as I have.  We believe that readers who like the novel by one of us will like the novels by the other two of us.

And for Veterans Day this year we will be offering the three military spouse novels for free on Kindle via Amazon’s KDP Select program.  We have even arranged with other blogs to carry information about all three novels for this Veterans Day promotion.

You can read more info about this triad at http://www.phylliszimblermiller.com/triad-us-military-war-novels/

Facebook and LinkedIn groups:

While not as connected as individual collaboration groups, groups on Facebook and LinkedIn can be very good sources for online marketing support.

Thanks to Michele Jennae I am now a member of the open group StooshPR on Facebook (see https://www.facebook.com/groups/stooshpr/).  This is a very powerful group for sharing information and helping each other promote our own work.  I highly recommend you check it out.

And I manage a book marketing group on LinkedIn that is a good source of marketing information.  You can check out this open group at www.LinkedInBookMarketing.com

Collaboration not competition:

What is important to understand about collaborating with artists in your field is that it is NOT about competition.  It is about collaboration in the strongest sense of sharing information and support so that all members of the collaborative group benefit.

While it may at first seem difficult to understand how independent artists in your same field are not your competitors, if you work at changing your mindset to one of collaboration, you can truly benefit from these opportunities.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com

She is also the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks.  Her newest nonfiction ebook is the book publishing and marketing ebook TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and her newest fiction ebook is the romantic suspense spy story CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

Posted by Michele Jennae on November 1, 2012. Filed under Business,Phyllis Zimbler Miller,Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry