How to Increase Facebook Engagement Without Paying a Buck #WWow #WritingAdvice

So, you've probably noticed all the restrictions Facebook has on authors pages. As a newbie to the social network realm, I decided to do a little research. I'm still in the research phase, but wanted to share what I've done to try to figure it all out.

Mind you, I'm not a statistician or a numbers person. I am a people person and I'm analyzing the interactions I've had on social networks. 

First, I had a few questions. I spend a lot of time on social media and I wondered which place is more valuable. I could spend MONTHS researching this question alone, but I've come to this conclusion (as many of you have). It's all about FACEBOOK and how we utilize it. 

I've also found that Facebook is the place to connect with readers, whereas Twitter is the place to connect with other authors/publishers/agents.

Here is an interesting info-graphic about the average amount of minutes spent on social media. (Taken from The Wall Street Journal)

This made me sad, as I've really taken a liking to Google+. Again, you can see Facebook is where it's at.

So, with this information, I've learned that we need to engage ourselves more on Facebook. BUT how do we do that when Facebook controls who sees our posts and when? 

Based on what I've heard from other users, I tried some experiements out in one week. 

A little about my Author Page. As of this post, I have 856 followers. Not bad for a newbie author. What IS bad is the amount of views my posts get. With that many followers, I have an average of 25 views per post. NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

In ONE WEEK, here are my most important variables:

The post with the most engagement was a Picture/Quote/Oustide Amazon Link receiving 68 views and 1 share. SHARING seems to be what's important here, because normally a link to an outside source brought down the views.

 Post by Melinda Dozier.

Just as a side note, the second most engagement was a PICTURE of a sexy man. Yeah, yeah, I can't help myself. I have noticed that sexy man pics tend to get a lot more views, though, so that's why I'm including it.

Post by Melinda Dozier.

Other top views included: 

A simple post with only a comment (43 views)

Sharing a FB link (45 views)

Funny picture (45 views)

Also noticeable was that all my higher viewed posts were "liked' or "commented" on. 

The post with the least engagement was a share of a friend's post with a resounding SEVEN views.

As a final experiment, today I asked my followers to comment on a post as part of a FB experiment. After 7 hours, I've had 28 comments & 6 likes. With this post, I've had 473 views and expect more. So, COMMENT, PEOPLE, to help each other out. 

OVERALL ANALYSIS:

To have more engagement/views:

More comments = more engagement (duh!)

Use pictures (don't just link to the picture)

Others share your post

Share interesting posts from other FB users

MORE ANALYSIS to come!

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance author who loves to spend time on social media. Her two books, BREAKING THE RULES from Crimson Romance and LOVE AND OTHER GAMES from Swoon Romance have been category best sellers on Amazon. You can find her at www.melindadozier.com. 

#WWoW! Blog Titles that Get Traffic!

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

WWoW! Use Tweepi!

Tweepi is my favorite tool to use with Twitter.

Tweepi helps you make sense of your Twitter social graph with stats. You will be able to learn about the number of people you haven't followed back, the number of people who aren't following you, search people who your friends follow and much more. It makes it simple to manage your account by doing the following things much easier than manually through twitter...

FLUSH UNFOLLOWERS

This tool allows you to unfollow users who aren't following you back.

RECIPROCATE

This tool helps you find all the users that follow you, but you don't follow back. Then you can follow them back with a click of a button.

CLEAN UP INACTIVE FOLLOWERS

This feature allows you to unfollow users who no longer keep active twitter accounts. It's likely that you're following more than a few hundred people on Twitter. You must've noticed that many of these users either don't engage in conversations, never retweet anybody, or simply just ramble about nonsense stuff all day long (no links to useful content whatsoever!). You can use Tweepi cleanup tool to filter these people out and unfollow them. The Clean-up tool enables you to filter out those inactive and unwanted tweeps by letting you check out their details and decide for yourself!

FIND NEW FOLLOWERS

This feature gives you a resource for finding users with similar interests. The most common way to find and add people with the same interests as you, is to find a popular user within your area of interest and add people who follow these known users.

Tweepi helps you analyze and filter tweeps out -the geeky way,

with numbers in a table- based on their activity and sociability. 

How do you start using Tweepi?

It's only 5 simple steps.

1. Go to http://tweepi.com/
2. Choose "login" (to start using Tweepi for free which is all you need)
3. Enter your username/email with your password and click "Authorize app"
4. Create a Tweepi account with your first and last name and your e-mail
5. Start using Tweepi!

The first time you go through your account, it may take awhile but as you then update it every few weeks, it

becomes less of a chore. You'll find it worthwhile to create a SAFE LIST so you never accidentally unfollow someone you want to follow regardless of any stats. For example, you might be following a celebrity who doesn't follow people but you won't want to unfollow them. You might be surprised though at how many people you follow that aren't  following you and vice versa. Tweepi gives you the tools to make your Twitter account be exactly what you want. Make it work for you using Tweepi.

Then, get back to it...

Keep Writing!

Paloma

#Wwow - Creative Online Promotion Tools #1 #writingtip

Creative Online Promotion Tools!

It's the moment you've been waiting for ... book release day! Now what? Hopefully you've planned a blog tour, tweeted and facebooked information. But you've got to promote your book in creative ways to get your book out there! Here are a few online promotion tools I've found to help you.

PowToon Cartoons: PowToon helps you create animated videos or presentations for FREE. Once you create the cartoon, you can upload it to Youtube and ... BAM! You have a fun promotional video that's different. Here are a few examples I've made to give you an idea of what you can do:

5 Reasons to Read Breaking the Rules

I used this as a guest blog post during my book blog tour.

Ull Chats with Colin

I helped a friend promote her book at my blog with this creative character interview.

I hope you try it out! What other ways can you use Powtoons? If you create something, share the link below!

Melinda Dozier is a contemporary romance writer. Her three debut novels were released in 2013: The Boy Next Door and Time Changes Everything from Entranced Publishing, and Breaking the Rules from Crimson Romance. Her next release, Love and Other Games: Trouble With Gold will be released in October from Swoon Romance. You can find more information at her website:www.melindadozier.com

Prepping For A Convention

I recently went to my first convention. Author After Dark in Savannah, Ga. It was a blast. Tons of fun. But I must admit, when I first arrived, and even when I left, I was like a dear in headlights. There was so many people, so much to do, so many things I didn't think of.

All these great swag ideas I'd never though of. Authors made cell phone screen cleans, lint brushes, hand sanitizer, even tissues. So many awesome things. Some simple too. Such as having stickers made and simply placing it on the item. I left there thinking, why didn't I think of that? Well, I didn't because I had never been.

I did have pens made to give out, and a few special business cards that lead readers to a special site to get a free book.

I recommend when you go to one of these things to have a friend. Whether it's an author you chat with online and you two agree to be buddies for it, or you bring someone along, just don't do it alone. So many authors and readers, you have to break out of your shell and talk to them. A friend by your side will help. Tell them who you are and hope maybe they've heard of you. But don't get your feelings hurt if they haven't. Because going to that convention is your first step to having a face to your work.

By the time you leave that first convention, you'll be ready for the next. You'll know what to expect. You won't look like a sixth grader on the first day of school.

But the best advice I can give, is to have fun. Enjoy the new experience, take mental notes, and have fun.

Here I am at the signing. 

Signing Books! Gotta love that!

Elemental Ball. Lots of fun with Ella Jade and Jaye Shields