Facebook 101 for authors<\/h2>\n
By Joel Pitney<\/strong><\/p>\n When I bring up Facebook to my author clients, the responses range from \u201cWhat\u2019s the relationship between book sales and vacation selfies?\u201d to \u201cI know Facebook is important, but I have no idea why or how to leverage it for my book.\u201d But I\u2019ve found Facebook, when used effectively, to be the most effective social media outlet for authors to drive traffic to their websites and build exposure for their books.<\/p>\n In this article, I’ll address some of the key decisions that authors face when launching or refining their Facebook campaigns. I will also outline the best practices I’ve found to be most helpful.<\/p>\n Before you begin a Facebook campaign, <\/span>it\u2019s important to<\/b> remember that it\u2019s a long game<\/b>. You will likely encounter all kinds of articles, promotional emails, and experts promising \u201csilver bullets\u201d to help you gain \u201cmillions of fans\u201d virtually overnight. But these are empty promises. Like any aspect of book promotion, your success depends on the quality of your content and your long-term commitment to trying things and adapting to what is and isn\u2019t working.<\/span><\/p>\n So as you begin your Facebook journey, set your expectations appropriately and prepare yourself for a marathon, not a sprint. Don\u2019t bite off more than you can chew, because you\u2019ll burn out before you even start. Start your page small and add a new strategy or tactic each week or month. <\/span>Let the page, and your relationship to it, grow organically<\/b>. <\/span><\/p>\n The simple answer is <\/span>yesterday<\/span><\/i>. Facebook marketing only works when you\u2019ve built an engaged audience of people who resonate with your ideas, views, and content. So you shouldn\u2019t wait to start until your book is ready to be purchased. <\/span>You should start as early as possible<\/b> so that you can find your target audience, discover what kinds of things resonate with them, and build a \u201ctribe\u201d of followers who will be interested in everything you do, including your book when it comes out. <\/span><\/p>\n Okay, it\u2019s time to get started. The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of page to set up for yourself or your book. There are two general ways to set yourself up in the world of Facebook:<\/span><\/p>\n Here’s an example of a Page header. Note the arrow pointing to “like.”<\/p>\n When you set up your \u201cfan Page,\u201d you\u2019ll be given a few options of what type of Page to set up: an author Page, a business Page, etc. <\/span>I highly recommend setting up an author Page under <\/b>your name<\/i><\/b>, not the title of your book<\/b>. This way you can build a following for all of your work that will promote the book you\u2019re launching now and any future books or projects that you want to launch. <\/span><\/p>\n When setting up your fan Page, be sure to use a professional headshot for your profile picture, and develop a cover image that clearly conveys the value and perspective of your Page\u2014both in the image and with text on the image. This will be important for your Page promotion efforts (outlined below). <\/span>Here\u2019s an article<\/span><\/a> about developing an effective FB cover image.<\/span><\/p>\n (For more on profiles and Pages, read “Facebook profile, Page, or group? Au author’s primer.<\/a>“)<\/p>\n Okay, so you\u2019ve got your Page set up. What do you do next? The first thing is to populate your Page with regular posts and give people a sense of who you are and the \u201cvalue\u201d you might bring to their lives. <\/span><\/p>\n A good goal is to post something to your Page every day<\/b>, but as I mentioned earlier, it\u2019s important to start off slowly and build. You might try to publish two to three\u00a0times per week to start off, and then grow to daily posting once you\u2019ve gotten the hang of things. <\/span><\/p>\n What kind of content should you post? The short answer is: anything that would be of interest to your target audience of readers. But within this, I recommend a nice mix of the following:<\/span><\/p>\n So you\u2019ve built your Page and started to populate it with interesting, relevant content. How do you make sure that people are reading it? Unfortunately, <\/span>Facebook is now a \u201cpay to play\u201d game<\/b>, so even the greatest and most interesting Facebook posts won\u2019t see much traffic unless you invest some money in promoting your content. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To understand Facebook advertising, you need to know a little about how Facebook works<\/b>. Most people consume Facebook content via their feeds (usually on their phones) where they see a stream of various posts from their friends and the Pages they follow. But not every single post by every fan Page makes it into a user\u2019s feed. (In fact, just s small percentage of Page posts show up in feeds.)<\/span><\/p>\n How does Facebook filter what shows up in someone\u2019s feed? It uses an algorithm that takes into account both a user’s Facebook habits (which posts they\u2019ve liked, shared, clicked, or commented on) and the financial investment made by that the Pages they follow. This means that <\/span>a lot of the posts that appear in a feed are there because the producer — the Page owner — paid for them to be there.<\/b> And you\u2019ll need to do the same to get your stuff into the feeds of your fans. <\/span><\/p>\n Here’s an example of a sponsored post.<\/p>\n Now that I\u2019ve (hopefully) convinced you to incorporate some advertising dollars\u00a0into your Facebook campaign, let\u2019s talk about how to do it. Here\u2019s the strategy I\u2019ve used with a lot of my author clients:<\/span><\/p>\n One of my favorite things about Facebook is how many simple, easy-to-read analytics it provides to track your progress. But it\u2019s important to understand which statistics are more important than others, and how to respond to the data. You should determine the key metrics you want to track, and determine how much you\u2019re spending for each. Below is a breakdown . . . . \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While there are no set-in-stone benchmarks for how much money you should be spending for each of the above metrics, your goal should be constant improvement. Over time, you want your cost per fan, like, comment, share, and click to be going down, as you tweak your advertising strategy to do more of what\u2019s working and less of what\u2019s not. <\/span><\/p>\n At this point, you might be thinking, \u201cThis will take me a lot of time that I don\u2019t have, and I\u2019m not confident in the return I\u2019ll get from what I put in.\u201d Fair enough, but in my experience, over time, your investment of time and money will start to pay off. <\/span><\/p>\n That said, here are a few tips for saving time:<\/span><\/p>\n There you have it. That\u2019s my two cents on using Facebook to build your author brand and promote your book. As I mentioned in the beginning, the key is to get started and grow organically, adapting and building along the way. I hope you find the information useful and please share any questions or suggestions from your own Facebook experience in the comments below!<\/span><\/p>\n Got a question about using Facebook for book promotion? Ask it here in a comment. And, if you found this detailed how-to post helpful, please consider sharing it with your author networks.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Joel Pitney<\/strong><\/p>\n When I bring up Facebook to my author clients, the responses range from \u201cWhat\u2019s the relationship between book sales and vacation selfies?\u201d to \u201cI know Facebook is important, but I have no idea why or how to leverage it for my book.\u201d But I\u2019ve found Facebook, when used effectively, to be the most effective social media outlet for authors to drive traffic to their websites and build exposure for their books.<\/p>\n In this article, I’ll address some of the key decisions that authors face when launching or refining their Facebook campaigns. I will also outline the best practices I’ve found to be most helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,20,11,12],"tags":[346,798,799,800,730,731],"class_list":["post-9058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-columns","category-news","category-tactics","category-tools","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-101","tag-facebook-101-for-authors","tag-facebook-advertising","tag-facebook-page","tag-facebook-profile"],"yoast_head":"\nA note for your journey<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Facebook-101-for-authors.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nWhen to start?<\/b><\/h2>\n
What kind of page to set up?<\/b><\/h2>\n
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![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Facebook_Page_header-300x118.png\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nCreating consistent content is key<\/b><\/h2>\n
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![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/image-quote-300x300.jpg\")
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Increasing your exposure with Facebook advertising<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/sponsored_post.png\")
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Tracking your progress<\/b><\/h2>\n
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![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/popular_post.png\")
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How to handle the overwhelm<\/b><\/h2>\n
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![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC5415-298x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Today’s guest blogger,\u00a0Joel Pitney, is a writer, filmmaker, and book launch specialist. He offers book marketing services<\/a> <\/span>and custom author website design<\/a>. There’s lots of “Facebook 101 for authors” information to absorb, so you might want to\u00a0bookmark it so you can refer back to it later.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nFacebook 101 for authors<\/h3>\n