HeadTalker - What it is, How to use it, and Why it's Awesome

Happy Monday, everyone! Today's post is going to be rather long-ish, but you'll want to read all the way to the end. We'll be getting into a new marketing tool called HeadTalker. I'll show you why it's awesome, how to use it, and go into how you can apply it to your current marketing strategy. Ready? Grab those pens and notebooks, and let's get going!

As you're all aware, I'm never paid for anything I talk about here on my blog, and there are no affiliate links. This is why I'm free to speak my mind. I don't owe anyone anything, and no one owes me. Recommendations made here are 100% because I loved the product. Now that I've restated that, we can move on.

I'm gonna start with a big WHAT IS HEADTALKER? snippet.

HeadTalker works like Thunderclap, a social media blasting platform, with more options and more ways to get your message trending. Plus, HeadTalker has some REALLY cool features Thunderclap doesn't.

If you don't know what Thunderclap is, go check out this post.

Please understand, I'm not saying you should use one of these over the other, but HeadTalker is another platform to put firmly in your corner because of the features.

Speaking of, let's get rolling on those, shall we?

Social Media Platforms - There are Four

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Tumblr
• LinkedIN

Campaign Features (this is where it gets really cool)

• Video (book trailer!)
• Share Image (I'd love to see them add design specs to this and the next one)
• Background Image (see comment above)
• Media Embed (images, music, etc...)
• Set Supporter Goal (between 25 and 500 - ANY number)
• Include a Giveaway

I have to be honest, when I saw all the bonus features, I got really excited. I did run an experiment to see just how it worked, and I'll get to that after I show you all the "fill me out" things (which will happen now).

CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

As you can see, you have a campaign title, message you want to go out, a URL, the place to embed your YouTube video, featured photo and background photo, a category, your story (which you can edit at any time without having to resubmit and will hold things like music and photos), your supporter goal, a start and end date with a time to go live, and a giveaway option.

Now, once approved, you can't change your URL or message. Those are fixed. You'd probably have to delete your campaign and start over.

Anyway, I did a little test to run through the functionality and check out all the features. Here's how I set mine up:

CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

I also did a $20 giveaway (the minimum, to see just how it worked). One thing I didn't use was the background image option because I wasn't sure what it was and didn't want to muck up the look.

Once my campaign was live, I got a PayPal invoice for $22. HeadTalker takes 10% off the top for handling the giveaway for you. Not too shabby. I put it out there and don't have to worry about it again. For what it's worth, I love simple. *grin*

Now, here are the stats broken down by time:

15 min shot

30 min shot

45 min shot

1 hour shot - Notice I hit my goal of 35

6:56PM

At 10:27PM I got a message that said my HeadTalker was trending and was on the homepage. 

SCORE! After that, this happened!

1:01AM

8:36AM

10:45AM

4:22PM

Today at 11:33AM

As you can see, the numbers are astounding (I'll give a comparison to the other one on Thunderclap in a moment). Now, when I first got the message that my campaign was ready to start gaining supporters, there were a number of links included (this is also pretty fun, so stay with me).

There was a link to the HeadTalker Academy (I highly recommend going through this even if you think you know what you're doing - several tips and tricks there.

Another took me to FAQ (self explanatory, no?).

Still another took me to Success Stories (those were fun and interesting to look through - think of it as a "what works well" class).

But, by far, the most interesting one took me to the HeadTalker Market. This is the place where you can pay others to support your campaigns or have others pay you to support theirs. Now, I don't know about you, but I think this is flipping brilliant. If you can't get the support you need any other way, or if you're serious about making the biggest impression possible and have the cash to lay out there, I don't see limits on your potential reach. Might be better than doing a cash giveaway. Hell, it might be awesome as a passive kind of income, too, if you have a strong social media presence.

So, anyway, for a price (from $1 on up, depending on social reach ability), you can get limitless support for your campaign. I didn't do this, but the option is totally there.

Now for a comparison screenshot of my other campaign. We set this one to go at noon, and HeadTalker to fire at 5PM day of release. This was taken today at 11:33AM.

Is there even a comparison? It's literally crazy, right? Or am I missing something?

What do you think? Will you make the jump from one to the other? Use both? Do you see any downsides?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Creating Your Own Blog Tour - Step Four - Thunderclap

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, it's all about Thunderclap campaigns. I know you've all seen them, but do you know what they're for or what they can do for your blog tour? I intend to show you, so grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

In this series:
How to Sign up Bloggers
Creating Promotional Materials and HTML
Finding Reviewers
Creating a Thunderclap Campaign
Throwing a Facebook Launch Party

Thunderclap. What is it?

Well, a Thunderclap campaign is you, asking for people to auto-share your content the day you want it to be blasted to the world. It's usually one or two lines that'll go on people's Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and/or Tumblr blogs. Basically, it's a boom of content on day one of your tour.

You'll want to create this as soon as your bloggers sign up, so you can spend the time getting people to support your campaign. You have a max of 60 days to get your campaign supported and can choose either 100, 250, or 500. This number is important! If you don't meet it, your campaign won't go. But you can exceed whichever number you choose.

It's a great idea to have a master post with all the blog tour stops (and a short line of the content they'll have) listed at the bottom of your own tour post (you did remember that your blog should be counted as one of the many, right?).

That's the link you want to point your Thunderclap campaign to so everyone who makes it to that post can see the others.

But why a Thunderclap campaign?

Because your social media reach grows exponentially. Let's look at some numbers, shall we?
Without Thunderclap:

• 20 bloggers signed up to help with your tour and all of them post on time.
• Each of those bloggers has 250 e-mail followers (5k people).
• 50 of those followers on each blog are the same people (-1k).
• 100 of those followers on each blog don't read the content/posts (-2k).
• Out of the 2k left, we'll say 1k are readers of your genre.
• Those 20 bloggers may post to Facebook and Twitter, and probably have many of the same followers on those platforms, so we'll leave that number off for now to be reserved in our accounting.

Not a bad number, but you can do better.

With Thunderclap:

• 100 people sign up to tweet.
• Each of those accounts have 2k followers (200k people).
• 50 people sign up to post on Facebook.
• Each of those accounts have 200 friends (10k people).
• 20 people sign up to post to Tumblr.
• Each of those accounts have 200 followers (4k people).
• Out of 214k people, there are probably 10k that are unique and readers of your genre (that's less than 5%, and I'm being generous).

Now, if you look at the number of people you can reach with just a blog tour (1k), and the number of people you can reach with a Thunderclap campaign (10k), it's kind of a no-brainer, right? Yeah, you should probably do it.

But how?

Let's get into that now.

First, go to the Thunderclap website:

Click Login/Register:

Connect one of your accounts and give the proper permissions:

You'll see a screen like this:

Click Start a Thunderclap:

You already have your images, but feel free to look at some of the successful campaigns for ideas. Write up a tweet/post, and click Start:

Fill out the form (remember not to shorten your link), and then click create and continue:

On the last page, you're just looking over everything to be sure it's okay. Click submit, and wait. They usually get back to you with approval or denial within 72 hours.

Have you ever used Thunderclap? What were your results?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Thunderclap - Fractured Glass

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Yeah, I'm running late today! So much to do, so little time to do it in. Anyway, giving you all a heads up about some very cool things going on.

As you all may know, Fractured Glass went live for pre-order last Friday. Let me tell you, it made one heck of a bang out of the gate.

But we're going for a boom!

If you think you might like to show us some support the day the book goes live, join our thunderclap campaign!

Join here: http://thndr.it/1tn4Tzg

We also have a Facebook party planned! You can join in the fun here: https://www.facebook.com/events/844476385605030/

There are some awesome prizes from amazing authors up for grabs. Join the fun!

Also (I know, there's more!), the Goodreads giveaway for a printed copy of the book and a cool Fractured Glass bookmark is still going strong.

Enter here:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Fractured Glass

by Jo Michaels

Giveaway ends December 31, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Remember, next Monday is the big day! The 12 Days of Review Request event goes live and the Rafflecopter entry form for the Kindle HD6 will be up. If you haven't seen the rules page, kindly visit it here.

On day 12, I'm giving away a 2015 Review Team long-sleeved t-shirt. If you haven't joined in the fun for that, you may do so here.

Okay, I think I have everything caught up now. If you have any questions about the events or happenings here on the blog, feel free to shoot me an e-mail and ask!

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck if you entered to win.

Did you join or enter?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo