Facebook Pages for Authors are some of the best tools writers can use to find their readers. Facebook is, of course, one of the most popular social medias available today. Many of your readers will seek you out (or you’ll find them) via the website. But there’s a few things to know when working with the website.
Facebook Profile vs. Pages
Most of us probably already have a Facebook profile. It’s where we post photos of our pets and kids and food, and where we get into arguments with our family on the opposite side of the political spectrum. But Facebook intends for your personal profile to be just that–personal. If you use your profile to sell, there’s a chance it could get flagged for removal.
Instead, authors should create Facebook Pages. You’ll need to use your personal page to create a page, and Facebook has more information here.
Facebook vs. Twitter
Each social media site has a different type of content that works better. Whereas Twitter works best with a lot of content, Facebook requires decidedly less posting frequency to achieve the same result. As well, Twitter shows all content in a stream, Facebook has the dreaded algorithm (yes, much like Amazon’s) that shows content to specific people.
For both media, videos and images work better than straight text. You can also use a litany of different tools to connect Twitter and Facebook so you’ll only have to post in one place.
Facebook’s Algorithm
One of our biggest issues with Facebook is the algorithm. Facebook is moving toward a model of pay-to-play; that is, they’d like pages to pay to reach the audience they’ve already accumulated. They rank certain content higher, including content that doesn’t come from your own website. We’ve noticed a difference between blogs that originate on our own URLs and guest blogs from other URLs.
Because of this, we use both our Facebook pages as just another tool to disseminate information, instead of an active presence where we talk to our fans.
The other reason why we opt to not utilize Facebook (or pay them) is because our audience is much younger than Facebook. For authors who target young adults and teens, they’re better served focusing their energy on Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. For those who focus more on older adults, Facebook is the place to focus your energy.
Facebook Ads
For those who are focusing on the older audiences of Facebook, it might be worth it to invest in Facebook’s advertising programs. For a budget that you set, you can boost your posts or show your posts to brand new people. Facebook also allows you to have pretty refined granularity to show your ads to specific people. Considering the amount of information people feed to Facebook through likes and comments, there’s a good chance, if your users are on Facebook, your ad might be seen by them.
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