Pull Quotes from your Book and Leverage Them on Social
Creating consistent content that illustrates your expertise, life as a business owner and life as a human being is a lot of work – ask anyone who’s done it for any amount of time!
For me, it took YEARS to get to a place where I consistently posted valuable, informative and inspiring content that aims to create solutions for those I serve. But, when you’re a published author, your social content creation workload has been drastically cut down! How so? Well, that book that you’re currently promoting also happens to be a goldmine of social media content.
Quite frankly, there’s a lot of meat on that bone in terms of repurposing content!
The moment that I find out that I’m working with an author, I immediately get excited at the prospect of diving in and building out content pieces from that book that repurposes their expertise that they’ve crafted and honed over time. This presents a unique opportunity to create a solid foundation of content by creating a hyper-focused strategy that can offer a lot of content for months, even YEARS, on end. During pre-session strategy calls with my author clients, I first direct them to identify interesting passages, chapter titles, and sentences throughout their books, and use those words to create short, social media posts that elaborate on the concepts introduced in those words and phrases.
Usually, I instruct them to specifically choose passages that they can build a unique story around that teaches a lesson that is relatable to the audience they serve.
Example of Repurposing a Chapter Title
For example, I was working with an author/coach client the other day, and as we were flipping through his book, and we came across this page:
I asked him if he felt he could write a valuable story that’s not the same anecdotes that he mentions in the book that focused on fear in a way that would serve his audience.
I suggest that clients mix it up and not always use verbatim passages from the book in their social media as a way to keep their content fresh and not literally a complete copy/paste job. Does that mean pulling entire paragraphs are illegal in some way?
Of course not – but, mixing in new stories with what you’ve already written allows the author the opportunity to provide some variety. It allows offers those in your audience who’ve already read the book a new spin on what is an old theme for them.
In any case, he had no problem creating a new story around the FEAR chapter title, and that’s when I snapped this photo and it became a part of his image content portfolio.
It’s that simple.
Why Not Simple Repurpose Content with Words Only?
I’ve often heard the counterpoint that it’s just easier to copy/paste the chapter title, sentence or passage into a simple text graphic for social.
And they would be right – it is MUCH easier.
That’s always an option, sure, but, the whole point of creating social posts is to gain your audience’s attention and inspire them to act on whatever call-to-action you set out at the conclusion of the post – comment, share, sign up for an offer, pick up the phone and call you, etc.
If you simply create a text on-screen graphic of the quote, yes, that certainly works, but, there is more dimensionality to an actual shot of the book itself – it’s more tangible, more real. It gives the impression to the viewer that they are reading the book themselves.
Photos like this draw people in by breaking down the fourth wall between you and them, and thus, becomes more relatable.
When you factor in that you’re competing against the rest of the noise in your audience’s newsfeeds, leveraging compelling images like this will help inspire them to stop, look and read…
…oh, and buy your book, as well, 🙂
John DeMato is an NYC branded lifestyle portrait photographer and content creation expert who serves speakers, authors, coaches and high-level entrepreneurs across the country. His 50+ e-book, S.H.A.R.E. M.A.G.I.C.A.L. I.D.E.A.S., lays out the how what and why behind creating a memorable and referable online presence – sign up to get your FREE copy today.