Facebook Tips for Authors by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

#Facebook #SocialMedia

Social Media is like writing. You have to work at it through trial and error before you figure out your voice and discover what works best for you, your personality, your goals, and connections. Plus, keep in mind that goals change, so your social media will go through stages, just like your writing.

Here are some perceptions that we are going to have to accept and figure out how to work around:

1) People prefer to friend personal profiles over liking fan pages. The word "friend" sounds better than "fan" or "follow". I think this is why Facebook changed "fans" to "likes".

2) We can ask FB friends to like our author page, but we can't force them as you have probably discovered.

3) People can "unlike" a page just as fast as they can "like" it.

4) Readers do want a glimpse into our personal lives. They like praying for us, connecting with us, and knowing all the news. I consider them my online church family, but I don't share everything. 

I started out trying to keep my personal profile separate and luring everyone to my author page, but I gave up. I couldn't change other people's perception, so I had to change mine--the way I think about FB and my place/role there. I'm on FB to network and make connections to people. Being able to see and communicate with my family are an extra bonus. FB isn't private. They own every piece of content and photo we upload onto their site, regardless if it is on a profile page or a public page. If a hacker wants my info, he/she can get it. If we are careful and don't upload anything we wouldn't want people to see or know on our personal profile or author page, then it doesn't matter.

Here are some suggestions that have worked for me. These suggestions will not work for everyone, so please keep that in mind.

1) I recommend my author page to every person who friends me. Over half of them have not liked my page. I don't know why, but I do know that I don't want to lose my connection to them, so I've made the decision to sacrifice my profile page to accept others. Some people who have NOT liked my author page did buy my books. I don't understand it, but I stopped trying to analyze it a long time ago.

2) For those who have both friended me and liked my page, I make sure I post different things on each so it doesn't feel repetitive to them. I'm so used to it by now so it doesn't seem like extra work. It's merely part of my job.

3) The social culture of FB and Twitter are so different, that I don't link them. I tried this, and I started losing likes because FB people don't like as many posts as Twitter people. Therefore, I use Twitterfeed and I've set certain blog posts to go to FB and others to Twitter. That way some of it is automated and does free up time for me to post things I want to generate discussions on and to do other things.

4) If you want to generate discussions, ask a question. People love giving opinions and sharing ideas. Be careful not to get too political or controversial.  

5) I give a glimpse of my personal life, but I don't share anything I wouldn't want anyone on the Web to see or know. I post fewer family photos on my author page, but I do post some. I post more on my personal profile. I'm careful not to post images of my teenage daughter in her swimsuit or talk about vacation until we are back home. I monitor her FB page and I don't allow her to accept people she doesn't know. Other authors have sent her friend requests, but I don't let her accept them unless there is real viable connection. For instance, some of my author friends she has met, others had something in common with her, and I personally know them and trust them after having met them several years at writing conferences.

6) I screen each friend request and the profile of anyone I send a request to. If someone doesn't have anything about themselves on their About section, then they aren't being transparent enough for me to accept their friend request. I realize that some people are private, but FB is a "social" network, and if I don't know you, I need to know why I would want to know you. What do we have in common? If their timeline is available, I check to see what kind of posts they have. If it is nothing but games, I don't accept. If a man sends me a friend request and everyone of his friends are female, something is wrong and I don't accept. If someone sends me a friend request and their entire page is in a language I don't understand, I don't accept. I won't be able to communicate with them and I am not interested in having to click on translation options. 

7) When I reach my 5,000 friend limit, I'll have the perfect excuse to send people to my author page, and they will know it isn't because they didn't pass muster to be my friend. It puts the blame on FB's rules, not me. Plus, I won't have to screen people anymore.

8) I don't worry about keeping up with 3,800 friends. I create my friend lists and use them as needed and I don't worry about it. I have enough pressure. I don't need to add more to myself. If I happen to see a post on my newsfeed and I want to comment, I do it and I forget about it. I don’t worry about trying to comment on everyone’s post. Based on some of the comments I've seen from others, I'm concerned that many are putting too much pressure on themselves to try and keep up with everyone. Don't do that. Just relax and let go.

9) I've set all my social media on an email address that is NOT my main email and I've turned off notifications that I don't want. That way, I'm not annoyed by tons of alerts. I don't need to know that 20 people commented on a post after me. Also, if one of my social media accounts is compromised, they don’t have access to my main email. This has happened to me before and I had to start all over creating a whole new FB account, so I know what it's like to build it up from scratch, TWICE!

10) Be strategic about placing ads on Facebook. I place ads on FB every so often and they have worked--ok, but I did not get tons of new likes, but I did gain a few. I think FB ads works better than individual post promotions. You can set a daily cap and target people who are not already a friend or fan. What is your goal? Is it to sell books? Is it to build up "likes" on your author page? Knowing this goal will determine where you send people when they click on your ad. Also, I recommend setting up a separate credit card just for online purchases so that it isn't linked to anything if it were to be compromised or stolen.

I hope these Facebook Tips are helpful to you! What other tips do you have?

Twitter Has More Value Than U Realize! by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

I would guess that 80-90% of my Facebook friends, including real life face-to-face friends, believe that Facebook is more valuable than Twitter--especially to their business and book sales. 

I used to be one of them. 

Until I took a year and truly immersed myself into Twitter. And honestly--it took a year to REALLY understand it. People use Twitter differently and for various reasons and so you will get millions of opinions on the same topic when you start searching for info. There are many Twitter apps. Some are great, others ok, and some not worth the time. It took an entire year to try them out for myself, see what worked for me, and how it could benefit my work, and how best to implement it. 

For any author who is developing an author platform, Twitter is indispensable, as long as you understand it and use it in a beneficial way. 

For instance, at the time of this writing, out of the 3,502 people following my Facebook author page, only 1,158 are Facebook friends. The other 2,344 are mostly from Twitter at roughly 67%. I would have never had any access or connection to these valuable people, without Twitter. In fact, Twitter was also the channel for pushing the last 20-30 blog followers to my personal blog. I'm not sharing these numbers to boast about my efforts since there are many others who have much higher rankings and followers, but to show you the value of Twitter in case you are not utilizing it to its full potential. 

The Don'ts of Using Twitter

Newbies like to use Twitter like a megaphone, spamming links to their books, website, blog posts, and sales on Amazon. In fact, I wrote a blog post awhile back on A Lesson On Spamming. Like Facebook, Twitter is a social platform, and while it is different from Facebook, it must be treated as a social platform. It will cause you to lose followers, get blocked (and you won't know it), and lose credibility among those who continue to follow you--they've just gotten really good at ignoring you, are doing the same thing, and therefore, neither of you are hearing each other, or they are no longer active. Other newbies don’t know what to do or give up altogether. 

Twitter has evolved over the years and has become a valuable breaking news source and evens the playing field giving us commoners access to big name stars and athletes. For businesses and others, it eliminates the middleman or the gatekeepers. Authors can have REAL conversations with readers without having to spend thousands to travel to a local book signing, it gives people a chance to express opinions on products, services, or actions of others. It allows people to spread info about things that are important to them and make things go viral without spending millions in marketing efforts. While some of this also happens on Facebook, it seems to spread faster through the Twitter sphere. 

Want to Better Understand Twitter?

Take the time to read through their HELP section. It’s full of helpful tips, rules, explanations  and how-to’s. Ask people for their opinions, offer your blog to other authors, run Twitter contests for readers. Facebook is NOT the only place for contests. Learn by watching others, pay attention, read and educate yourself, and then do it. The best way to learn is by doing it. 

Google websites by your friends and people you admire, appreciate, or trust in their knowledge. On their website, click their Twitter buttons and follow them. You will learn best through friends, competitors and READERS. You have readers and potential readers on Twitter. Don't ignore them. Several of my Twitter followers have TOLD me that they don't even have a Facebook account. Therefore, Twitter is the only place I CAN connect with them--unless we connect elsewhere. These readers are already talking about their favorite books by retweeting their favorite authors, posting campaign hashtags, and posting links to their reviews, but you cannot be included if you don't have a Twitter presence--or at least an active Twitter presence.  

Don't overlook the value of Twitter, by spending all your social media time on Facebook!

Creating Facebook Apps to Promote Books by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Now that Facebook has made so many changes to the timeline, and virtually eliminated Welcome landing tabs to prompt visitors into "liking" your page or making a purchase decision, we have to be more creative. One way to get around this obstacle is to create third-party apps promoting your books, campaign launches, and contests.

It's very simple--more so than it sounds. I found an awesome article on Social Media Examiner that explains in detail how to do this and provides a tutorial video that will walk you through the steps. You can set up one app for free, but you will have to pay a small monthly fee if you want to set up additional apps. Right now, for me, one is enough.

If you would like to see an example, go to Author Jennifer Hudson Taylor Facebook page and click on the app that says Jennifer's books. This is an example of what you can do and how you can integrate your blog/website onto your Facebook Page. All the links and buttons are interactive and people never have to leave Facebook, but they have access to all your books and how to purchase them right there.

Here is a link to the article:
How to Use Facebook Apps to Increase Fan Engagement

What are your thoughts? Will you try to set up a new app to further promote your work? Have you already? What service did you use?