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. 

Lacey's Favorite Ways To Use Facebook For Promo

Today I wanted to talk a few of my favorite ways you can use Facebook for promotion. Aside from posting your buy links all the time, there are other ways to entice readers into check out your  books.

Flash Giveaways - What is this? You ask people seeing the post to like and comment on the

post. If you're using a fan page, this will help more people see the post. If you have a new release, this is a great time to post the blurb and cover and give something away that is not your new book. Because I hate to say it, but you want people to purchase the book, right? In my thinking, if you just give the book away, people are going to wait until it's offered as a giveaway again. I am a big gift card giver. They don't have to buy my book with it of course, they can get anything they've wanted.

Anyway, flash giveaways are quick giveaways. A few hours or a day. Your choice. But it's something that as more people like, comment, tag, and share, your info is being shared. And how great is that? It's so hard to reach new readers outside of your usual reach. Hopefully you find one that loves you.

Graphics - These are to be eye catchy and you can include excerpts, buy links, etc with them. And I usually use the website pizap.com. Very easy to use. Anyone, in my opinion, can make eye catching graphics there for FREE! Here are a few I've made before to give you an idea.

And finally, check out these pages. They have forms you submit for them to promote your books. It works! And they want your books to share on their pages. Go check them out!

What To Read After Fifty Shades of Grey: https://www.facebook.com/WhatToReadAfter50ShadesOfGrey
 eBook Korner Kafe (non-erotic): https://www.facebook.com/EBookKornerKafe
Korner Kafe Exposed: https://www.facebook.com/KornerKafeX

Don't Neglect Your Facebook Fan Page #wwow

As authors, we usually have both a fan page for "likes" as well as a facebook page where we "friend". Each page is important, but I must be honest, sometimes I forget about the fan page. The one I advertise and ask for "likes". I have a decent amount of likes, so I need to make sure I'm paying attention to them.

One thing I recently discovered was you can schedule posts on your fan page. I think it's important that you post at least three times a week on the page, and make sure you interact back. Even if it's just liking someones comments. The point of social media is to be social.

How to schedule posts:

See the clock on the left hand corner. Click it.

Then, simply select the year, month, date, hour, and minute.

Then click schedule!

Also, don't always talk about your writing. Be someone relatable. Have young children? Share something funny. Or even photos of pets.

A great way to get your fans talking is with a giveaway. Have a book with a theme? Use it. Such as when my story Finding Home released and I did a giveaway, I asked readers to share a funny moment when they were pregnant or someone they knew. I'd then randomly pick two people to win. It worked out well. I had fans chatting with fans!

That's my tip for the week. Reaching readers is hard sometimes, but if we keep ourselves out there and our pages fresh, hopefully readers will like us and perhaps one day pick up a copy of our books.

See ya next week!

#WWoW! Just Link It.

Let's talk about LINKING. My rule of thumb is when in doubt, just LINK IT! What am I talking about? Really, everything. All of your social networking accounts, blog, website, tumblr - literally everything - should be linked.  Because then you are doing the work once while your impact is huge. It's that easy.

Are there accounts you shouldn't link? Nope but there may be some more geared towards different types of posts. It's still okay to link them because there is always overlap and as long as you aren't spamming out oodles and oodles of promo, your goal should be to extend your reach (and sell more books).

Now time to get to work!

First and foremost, have your blog connected into your social media sites, particularly facebook and twitter. This means each time a post goes up on your blog, it automatically goes to these programs for you. Here's promo without anymore work than setting up your single post. You can set up these links in the SETTINGS account of your blog. Blogger allows you to link with Google+ also and I recommend you do it even if you do nothing else with Google+ (yet).

Link your blog to Networked Blogs on facebook. You can search for the app on facebook and select SYNDICATE to connect your blog. Here is another way for potential readers to find your blog and follow you. It is becoming more and more popular so jump on it! Doing this also means your blog posts are automatically sent out via facebook. If you have an author's page, you can even choose to have them sent there instead of your profile.

Other TOP TWO places to link your blog (that have a bit more to it than just linking):

Triberr - Build your reach exponentially. See my previous post with specifics on this site. This is a bit more involved than just linking though completely worth it.

Goodreads - Thousands of readers use this site. If you don't create an author's page and utilize it by linking, you are missing a big opportunity for networking regardless of the horror stories we see with reviews on goodreads. Check in about twice a week to see if you have any messages, reviews, etc. Most importantly, link your blog to post to your author page! See mine here.

Another place to link your blog is in search engines that give potential readers more places to find you. Most have widgets for you to add to your blog but some just simply place you into a database to be more searchable. My favorites are: BlogNation - BlogTrain - Blog Lovin' - Writing Blogs - Linky - AuthorsDb. Be sure to set up all your links in each of these - most require your blog rss feed so have that handy - so each time you post in one place, your information spreads out across the web.

Finally, make a list of all social networking sites you belong to or any on-line accounts.

Here are some of the most common: facebook - twitter - google+ - LinkedIn - tumblr - stumbleupon - YouTube - Picasa. Go into the SETTINGS options in each of these and be sure you have linked as many of them together (and with your blog!) as possible. There are other sites you might choose to use and regardless of which ones you choose, just be sure to link them.

Remember every time you link it, you reduce your work in half while doubling your reach.

I don't suggest you spend hours a day on these sites.

In fact, linking your accounts means your time spent on marketing decreases even though you are visible in more places. Once these accounts are established (& LINKED!!), you will need to do little more than your regular blog posts. A few of these places I mentioned take extra maintenance but it's minimal and worth it.

How does this help your business?

You will advertise to a wider audience as you increase your reach. You will write more because your time spent marketing will decrease. It's a simple case of Win-Win.

So, what are you waiting for? Just Link It!

And Keep Writing!

Paloma

Here We Are! DAY ONE of #WWoW!

This is DAY ONE of our new blog for writers. It seems only right to give you the history of how we began. In 2012, we started a weekly meme where authors posted Words of Wisdom for other writers on their personal blogs and in our facebook group. The posts included all types of advice based on our own experiences. Sometimes we had special guests and sometimes we just shared things we wished we had known in the beginning. We kept it simple but meaningful and that's our intention now. HERE you'll get concise information to help you in the wild world of being an author. It isn't all about the writing so authors need to know how to do everything else to help sell our books. OUR GOAL is to provide you with useful  tips.

The WWoW! Girls are all authors who come to you from a variety of backgrounds. We all have our own experiences to share and our own opinions to post. You'll hear about traditional publishing, small e-publishing, and self-publishing. You might find your style fits with one of us over the others -and you can find each of us by days- but the advice we give is genuine. Be sure to talk with us and let us know what works for you and if you have advice to share yourself.

Our first tip is all about Bloglovin'. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know Google Reader is now officially gone. If you subscribe to blogs by RSS feed and used Google Reader, you need to switch it up. We recommend Bloglovin'. It's similar to Google Reader, the functionality is nearly the same and it has mobile apps. So, go ahead, try it now and click the link below to follow us.

Follow our blog with Bloglovin!

That's it for today. See, I kept it simple as promised.

Check out my BIO to the left.  My expertise is in social networking. Techy things come easy to me and I love using everything available on-line to market my books. I'm also organizationally-inclined and plan to share tips with you to keep you organized as well. I'll tell you everything I know, week by week. 

And if I don't talk about something you want to know, just ask.

I'll be back next Monday with some more Words of Wisdom!