This week’s Author Tips is filled with rich content to help you either get started or substantially grow your Facebook audience. You may be tired of hearing it, but Facebook is the Social network. The platform has around 1.2 billion members and many of them may be looking for the message you’ve got to share. There is no more powerful single platform on the Internet to find and share ideas and experiences with old friends and meet new friends.
There’s a pretty good chance you’re already one of those 1.2 billion people currently signed up for Facebook. But here’s where we get into the distinction between having a Facebook ‘Personal Profile’ and having a Facebook ‘Page.’ If you’re objective is to build audience for your book, a Facebook ‘Page’ is where you’ll need to do it, not your personal profile. Matt Dickerson has created an excellent step-by-step how-to video for creating a Facebook page for your book (https://www.truepotentialmedia.com/blog/video-blog-how-to-create-a-facebook-page-from-scratch/). If you haven’t created your’ book’s Facebook page yet, I really recommend you watch Matt’s video and create as your go.
Now that you’ve got your book’s Facebook ‘Page’ you need to start inviting friends to it; in most cases you’ll begin with the ‘friends’ you already have on your Facebook ‘Personal Profile’. Matt to the rescue again! You guessed it, Matt has created a how-to video about inviting friends to your book’s Facebook ‘Page’ (https://www.truepotentialmedia.com/blog/video-blog-how-do-i-invite-my-friends-to-join-my-facebook-page/). God Bless you Matt.
I’ve got my page; I invited my friends. Now What?
Now you’ve got to share with your current ‘fans’ and attract new ones. Time to meet another friend of mine Paul Getter. Paul is a Facebook guru. He manages Facebook pages for his clients that total in the millions of Facebook ‘fans.’
Here are 10 of Paul’s best tips for Facebook Page success:
- Timing: Posts tend to get more shares on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Also, posting early in the morning (prior to 8 A.M.) has better engagement. Test your audience!
- Be direct: Ask directly in your posts to share, comment or like.
- Be consistent: Post at least 2-3 times a day for optimum results.
- Ask open-ended questions in your posts (use words like Where, When, Why and Would).
- Use photos and videos. Photos have the highest visibility and strength on Facebook.
- Post interesting and helpful content. Avoid self-promotion (limit selling items to 20% of posts).
- Offer specials, discounts and try running contests.
- Use Facebook Sponsored Stories Ads to highlight News Feed Posts.
- Post directly from your Facebook Page. Avoid using 3rd party apps such as Hootsuite, Buffer or tweetdeck to post to your page (3rd Part apps will lessen your Edgerank).
- Keep it short. Post with 80 characters or less in length usually receive more shares.
Now get started – if you’re not yet on Facebook (that’s rare) or if you haven’t created a Facebook page for your book, watch Matt’s video on creating a Facebook page, then invite your friends (per Matt’s second video mentioned above), then make new friends following Paul’s rules for Facebook success.
By the way, if all of this seems a bit overwhelming and you think you may need some help, reply to this e-mail. We’ve got some options that’ll get you up and going fast and create an almost instant audience for your book’s Facebook ‘Page.’