Alright, in today’s blog on Social Media, we’re going to talk a bit about Facebook. I don’t post a huge amount on Facebook because, as with other forms of social media, I’m not convinced everyone wants to hear about every little thing I’m doing. 🙂 However, Facebook is one of the best forms of social media (in my opinion) for staying in touch with family, friends and more!

The blogs we’re working through are broken up into the following posts:

1. Twitter and the Self-Publisher
2. Facebook and the Self-Publisher
3. Goodreads and the Self-Publisher
4. Other Social Media and the Self-Publisher

So, let’s talk about Facebook.

Facebook is popular.

People use all sorts of different forms of social media, but Facebook is one where you can give a HUGE amount of information and connect with tons of people. The best part of Facebook is that it is extremely relational. It’s set up well to comment on stuff, interact with people, send private messages and more! You can easily post photos and videos and it seems that just about everyone is on Facebook. (NOTE: like all social media, Facebook rises and falls on trends. Currently, the trend is for younger people to use other forms of social media more. While Facebook is still extremely well used–by younger and older people–it cannot be your only form of reaching out.)

In Facebook, you create an account and set up a profile. You then start adding friends along the way and they (assuming they continue to follow you) will see what you post and keep abreast of what’s going on in your life.
Part of the key to Facebook, however, is having decent content. Someone can be your friend on Facebook, but they can “unfollow” you and then they simply won’t hear anything from you unless you message them directly. Personally, I have unfollowed a ton of people. Some people do nothing but complain, others post continual political messages, others post what I feel is inappropriate content and others just post way too much. Just a little caution, if you’re hoping to make use of Facebook, post content people actually want to hear. If you don’t, they won’t hear anything from you. 🙂

Here are some handy ways to make use of Facebook as a Self-Publisher

1. Set up an Author Page

I would strongly recommend you do this. The benefit to an author page is that it can be set up almost like a personal website. Since people are asked to like and follow your author page, you can interact well through that page and keep your author page focused in on what you do as an author.

As you build relationships through your author page, you can post updates on your latest book, answer questions about your writing, share words of encouragement to everyone and more!
To find out how to set up a Facebook Author Page, check out: How to Set up a Facebook Author Page
If you’d like to check out my Facebook Author Page, here it is: www.facebook.com/shawnpbrobinsonauthor/

2. Blogging

If you are a blogger, you can connect your Facebook page up to your blog and your post will be shared on Facebook with all your friends (who are following you). Now, Facebook has just limited this sharing so that you cannot link your blog up to your personal profile, but you can still link it up to an author page and then you can post your blog on your personal profile manually (copying the link over and posting it like a normal Facebook comment).

3. Respond Quickly through Your Facebook Author Page

When people post on your Facebook Author Page or send you messages, respond quickly. If you let it sit for three weeks, it sends a clear message that you are not a regular person… you’re just a little out of reach. Make sure you are friendly and relational. Show that by replying quickly to people!

4. Post Useful Stuff

On your Facebook Author Page, you should post updates about your book, share reviews you received about your book, show pictures of interactions you’ve had about your book and more!

This is a way to share with people the excitement you have about your books and to hear from them about their excitement reading your books!

Downside to Facebook

Author Page Spam

I have found that I get spam through my author page–not a lot, but it’s really weird. I get strange video suggestions from people I don’t know or pictures of a trampoline or something. I was even once tagged in a photo of a family at Disney Land. I don’t know them, I wasn’t there with them, but they tagged me. I think it was a fun trip, but I can’t know for sure. Although I assume they made a mistake in tagging me, it was a nice gesture.

NOTE: If you get a photo or video sent to you from some stranger through your author page, I would mark it as spam immediately. Don’t open it, don’t view the video… just spam it and delete it!

Promotion

Promotion on Facebook tends to have its ups and downs. A lot of word can go out over Facebook, but as with Twitter, it’s not the public posts that go out to the masses that give the results, but the relationships you build with people. When the relationship is built, the posts are read.

I also find the general pages for promotion of your book to be less than useful. For instance, there are a TON of Facebook pages out there for promoting your book. They are set up for this purpose, they are free to join and you can simply post a promo for your book on their page! The downside is that the people who follow the book promotion pages tend to be all authors who are also trying to promote their books. 🙂 Authors tend to be more focused on getting others to buy their books from them than on buying your books from you. Soooo… promoting your books on Facebook Book Promotion pages can have little effect on sales.

Where those promotion pages are good is that they open the door for you to connect with other authors.

There you have it! Some tips on using Facebook! Soon we’ll look at Goodreads and a number of other Social Media sites that can be used by authors!

NOTE: in the coming weeks, I hope to post an early copy of the official SPoaB Guide (Self-Publishing on a Budget Guide). It’ll be a bit of a walkthrough on how to Self-Publish from start to finish. Keep your eye out. My hope is that it’ll go up in its unfinished form by mid-August!

Shawn