Five great social media tools you aren't thinking about enough

This weekend I read a lot of great blog posts about building an author platform. While they all had great information, one thing I noticed was that when they talked about social media for authors, many would focus on Twitter and Facebook. That makes some sense because those networks are so popular, but it also made me think about how many other ways there are to get involved with social media that don't involve the big name networks.

This week I want to write about some of those other tools, how they relate to using social media effectively to build an author platform and offer some suggestions about using them creatively.

Here is what I'll cover:

1. How to use Pinterest as an Author: This visual social media network saw massive growth in 2012 and has a proven track record of leading to sales. I'll talk about ways we can use a visual social media network as authors who usually focus on words and how it can be a source of traffic for your writing.

2. Why You Should Use MailChimp to build your email list: This email list tool has been fantastic for me as an author to communicate with my readers. While most people I talk to tend to think about email and an email list as something separate from social media, I'll write about why I think it is the greatest of all social media tools and how it fits into your author platform mix.

3. Audiobooks: Audiobooks tend to be an afterthought for most authors I talk to, but they can be a very powerful part of your platform and have an audience all their own. I'll look at how to create an audiobook and how it can help with your social media marketing overall.

4. Figment: Figment.com is "A community to share writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors." I got this idea from a comment that Brock left on one of my posts, and I am forever grateful. I'm working on my next novel right now, and I'll explore how beta readers and getting early feedback on your next novel project can be a social act as well as part of your writing and editing process.

5. Print books: Print books? Come on, Scott, you're saying. But I'm serious. Print books are not a silo separate from your social media networks. In fact, they can be a welcome personalizing element to your social media outreach. I'll talk about a few ways I've intentionally tied my own social media efforts to print books and how they've helped me reach more readers, gain traffic and make sales.

Image courtesy of houdini_cs via flickr