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!: Using Social Media Properly And Not Be Labeled a Spammer Part II #MyWANA

Welcome to Tammy’s Tidbits here at Writer’s Words of Wisdom, WWoW for short. Ever since Paloma Beck came up with the idea, a group of us have been sharing bits and pieces of wisdom we’ve accumulated along our own journeys to become published authors. We may have different experiences and opinions on what worked for us individually, but we do agree on one thing—our need to continue sharing what we’ve learned with fellow authors. 

This week, I’d like to expand a bit on my post from last week. I shared Kristen Lamb’s book Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World. The biggest lesson to learn from that book is social media should be first and foremost SOCIAL. You make connections on those sites by being personable and sharing a bit of yourself to make people WANT to get to know you. If they like you, they’re more than willing to take a look at your books and you never have to ask them. They’ll do it because they want to. If they like it, they’ll tell many more of their friends, and so on and so on.  As authors, our best form of promotion is word of mouth.

The Dark Side of Social Media

As much as this can make your career, it can just as easily break it.  You’ll become a nuisance if you start filling up your Facebook pages and Twitter feeds with nothing but promotions and posts that scream:
• “Buy Me!”
• “Like my page!”
• “Here’s a copy of my book, now write a review.”
• “I liked your page so here’s mine…”
• “Please RT my book link. I need more reviews.”

Don’t get me started on the automatic response messages as soon as someone actually does like your pages or follow you on Twitter! Those are so annoying and impersonal. It basically tells the recipient that you’re way too busy to actually chat with them or comment on any of their posts. If you’re too busy for them, what makes you think they’d be willing to take time out of their busy day to do what you demand of them? 

So what do you do when you have very little time in the day to make your presence known on all your social media sites? 

There are some programs that can help you such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Triberr. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of them all is they enable you to schedule a ton of posts ahead of time, around the clock, giving the illusion you’re present when in actuality it’s just empty words.

The only way you can connect with authors, readers, publishers and anyone else you wish to “meet,” is to be PRESENT. I’m not saying you need to be there 24/7, but the time you are there, make it count. Comment on posts and tweets before you share them. Comment on things that have nothing to do with books or publishing.  Show people you have other interests that make you a real person to them. 

I’ve bonded with others online over my crafts and cooking. These very same people have gone out and purchased every single one of my books so far and we’ve never talked about them at all. They were interested in me personally, so they made the extra effort to read my books.  Now they’re my biggest fans and cheerleaders and I do the same for them. 

What about support groups? 

There are a ton of them out there and it’s just so easy to join them all and worry about how you’ll participate in all of them later. The BIGGEST mistake you can make is to set up your promotional posts to go into all the groups at the same time. Not only do you run the risk of breaking the rules of when you’re allowed to post promotional material, you will tick off the people in the group you’re trying to connect with in the first place.  

Trust me, I just spent the end of last week trying to be peacemaker between two groups of author friends who were at war with each other because of this sort of “spamming.”  The sad part about the whole thing, all of it could've been avoided if a couple people took the time to read the rules against posting promotions. These same people belonged to so many groups, they used Hootsuite to set up automatic promotional posts in every single one of them. It's no wonder they didn't remember violating any rules. They didn't even remember joining in the first place!

Do yourself a favor and keep the number of groups you join to a few you know you’ll be able to be an active participant and can follow the rules of what sort of discussions are allowed. You never know who may be watching you. If you behave badly, the members of one group are sure to talk to members of other groups. Before you know it, you’re persona non grata. 

Overall, use social media to socialize with others. Build up connections and friendships with people. These folks will in turn tell the world about you and your books all based on how you treat them. If you’re personable and show people you’re real and care about them, they’ll sing your praises. If you flood their inboxes with buy me links, and take over their personal social media space to proclaim your new release, you’re going to be labeled as rude and yet another author behaving badly.

So go on! Meet and mingle on Facebook and Twitter. Join a few Yahoo groups and be active in them. Follow all the rules and guidelines for each group you join and NEVER, EVER forgo sending personalized responses in favor of the impersonal automatic message.  Above all else, don’t spend so much time on these social sites or setting up promotions that you forget to do the most important thing of all—your writing!

Until next week,
~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website
Tammy's Blog
Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 
Sassy Vixen Publishing
Friend Tammy on Facebook
Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page
Friend Tammy on Goodreads
Friend Tammy on Pinterest
Follow Tammy on Twitter
Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube


If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!

#WWoW!: How to Use Social Media To Build Your Brand Without Making Yourself a Nuisance #MyWANA

Hello fellow authors! Welcome to Tammy's Tidbits here at Writer's Words of Wisdom. Each week I try to share the information I've learned along my journey to become published. It's been two years since my first erotic romance was published. Now with three pen names, five books published, and the launch of my own publishing house I can honestly say...whew! What a wild ride! 



Some may say I must have found the secret to succeed in this author eat author world, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm still learning the ropes and feeling my way around to find the best methods to connect with fellow authors, readers, publishers and everyone else in between.  I've gone from having zero social media accounts to having six different blogs, two separate websites, five Twitter accounts, multiple Facebook accounts and pages,LinkedIn, Tumbler, StumbledUpon, Pinterest, two Goodreads author accounts, and all the email accounts to go along with the pen names and my publishing house. 

Can it get anymore complicated?  Yep, but let's Not. Go. There.  LOL!

Recently I looked back through all of my Facebook and Twitter feeds and noticed way too many promotions. Hashtags seemed to be sprouting out of everywhere. It was just too much. Sort of like this video. 

While this skit made me laugh, it also made me reevaluate my own use of those things. I'm involved in a few different author support groups and the use of hashtags is encouraged by all of them.  Trust me, you'll know those of us in those groups by the sheer number of tags in our posts. 

What does it do? Ultimately instead of helping get the post noticed by new connections, it ends up only being used by those in the same group. Sure it's nice to have so many folks retweeting all of your posts to their followers, but eventually the venues get saturated with the same tweets over and over again. Readers just skim through and ignore these tag loaded entries.  

Social media is supposed to be SOCIAL. You're supposed to interact and connect with people who genuinely want to know about you and your work. They want to know you're a real person even if you do have multiple pen names. They want to know you have something in common with THEM. 

Kristen Lamb's book Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World shows you how to be social and make connections with people in and out of the publishing world. She shows how you in turn can be someone who connects others to each other and thereby broadening your influence and building up your brand...YOU. 

You'll learn what NOT to do too such as 

• Never immediately send someone a private or direct message thanking them for the connection and asking them to "like" your pages or buy your book. 
• Never expect someone to "like" your pages simply because you just liked theirs.
• Never expect an automatic follow back 
• Never post your own book promotion on another author's Facebook Page or Wall without their permission.
• Never set up automatic tweets or status updates throughout the day and think that will fool others into thinking you're actually online.

Those are just a few of my pet peeves when dealing with other authors and their street teams. That sort of behavior doesn't build up your brand, but makes you and your brand #1 on the "unfriend, unfollow and block" list.

I can hear you all now. "But authors are supposed to support each other. What's wrong with asking them to help out?"

It's ANNOYING. When you don't even bother to take the time to socialize with people before you hit them with the commercials to buy your new book, you really tick them off. It appears to them, all you want is a book sale.  

If you really want these folks to help promote you, then you have to share a bit about yourself. Comment on their posts and get personable. This makes people WANT to check you and your work out. If they like it, they'll promote you all over the place using "word of mouth" advertising at it's best.  If you choose to be the annoying infomercial all the time, folks will be turned off and tune you out. They'll also tell others about your rude behavior. "Word of mouth" at it's worst—for you and your brand that is.

I'm going to try to revamp all of my social media sites to be less promo and more interaction. Why don't you give it a try too? Pick up Kristen's book and see if you've been doing more on the "don't" list than on the "do."  Use her advice, and connect with folks all around the world. You'll be surprised at how your book sales will just fall into place. Mine are starting to pick up and it's only been a week since I started making changes. 

Go on, give it a try. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain here. 

~Tammy

Learn More About Tammy

Tammy Dennings Maggy is a best selling, multi-published poet and erotic romance author with Siren and Sassy Vixen Publishing. Her writing explores many facets of romance from ultimate betrayal to finding your soul mate. Her poetry serves as a companion to her novels and has inspired entire series all on their own. Tammy and her alter egos Lia Michaels and Stephanie Ryan make up the core authors at Sassy Vixen Publishing and together they've created the shared world series Temptations Resort. Look for the first books in that series to come out later this year.

Now happily married to her own Muse and soul mate, she continues to live her dream and act as secretary to all her characters demanding to have their stories told.

Check out:

Tammy's Website
Tammy's Blog
Tammy's Books on Bookstrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,  and iTunes 
Sassy Vixen Publishing
Friend Tammy on Facebook
Like Tammy's Facebook Author Page
Friend Tammy on Goodreads
Friend Tammy on Pinterest
Follow Tammy on Twitter
Find Tammy's Videos on Youtube


If you'd like to share your experiences in the publishing world, please contact us about setting up a guest appearance. We'd love to hear from you!