Writing Tip – Making Facebook Work For You
So there’s been a lot of panic about Facebook changing their policies or their algorithms or whatever it is. The rampant speculation is that they want you to pay to boost your posts, because FB has to make money somehow, right? I’ve seen so much anxiety and rage and gloom over Facebook policies and politics, and so many people are terrified of what it could do to their ability to reach an audience or have their books discovered, that I have to say something.
My Facebook Page Today
Here’s the thing. Since Facebook started making their changes, I haven’t seen a huge decrease in the amount of hits my Facebook author page has been getting. My posts are still getting hundreds of organic hits per day. All of the followers we were supposed to lose yesterday because of the latest round of changes? I didn’t lose a single one. I actually gained two. The doom and gloom that was forecast? I’m not seeing it. And I have some definite theories on why that is.
They say that when it comes to social media, you shouldn’t try to be everywhere, you should try to master one channel and be there in full-force. Facebook is that channel for me. I reach a lot of people, interact with them, and see results on a daily basis. Here’s how I do it.
The number one thing to which I attribute my Facebook success is the type of content I post. Once in a blue moon I’ll post what could be considered an advertisement for one of my books. Usually when I’ve got something new coming out. But long ago, when I was first getting into the social media game as an author, I was taught the golden rule by which I organize my social media life: for every one promotional post, you need to post ten non-promotional, friendly, interactive posts.
Really, it’s as simple as that. I see my Facebook page as a way to hang out with people. No pressure, no stress, just hanging out.
Okay, so what does “just hanging out” on Facebook mean?
A couple of years ago, I started looking intently at the kind of content that people like and share on Facebook. I asked myself what sort of things get spread around the most, what things I couldn’t resist sharing. It’s an easy answer: cute memes, cat videos, and inspirational quotes. And the things that get liked and commented on the most are anything where someone is asked to state their opinion or vote between two irresistible options.
I started doing two things. First, I started posting fun memes that had to do with my brand—memes about reading or writing or romance. Here’s the catch, though. I didn’t share them from other people’s pages onto mine. When you do that, the original poster gets credit for any shares, not you. It’s important to get credit for the shares, because any likes on shared posts count as likes for your page.
Simple solution: when I saw a meme I liked, I saved it to my desktop and reposted it myself. After a while, I started sharing memes from Pinterest that way. I consider it killing two birds with one stone, because not only do I get credit for the likes, most meme-makers include a link or some sort of stamp on the meme, so I’m sharing them too. It’s pretty cool.
The other thing I started doing was the Yummy Bowl. That was a simple March Madness-type bracket competition pitting hot celebrity guys against each other in the ultimate showdown of hotness. All I did was post two pics of lovely men who I knew were very popular next to each other and asked for people to comment with the name of which guy they liked the most. Comments are golden when it comes to ensuring your posts appear in people’s newsfeeds. Why do this? Because my brand is hot romance novels. My readership and followers are people who want to fantasize about yummy men, and who likely cast their favorite celebrity in the role of the hero of the novels as they’re reading. I’m straight-up appealing to the same hormones that people employ when they buy romance.
Of course, if you write a different kind of blog, you would want to have a different type of contest or ask different questions. But in general, I would recommend picking something that you know your fans already like and have an opinion on. Press those buttons!
Pretty sneaky, huh? The Yummy Bowl concept (which morphed into Who Played It Better for actors playing the same character and Man v. Man for non-tournament-style voting) allows me to have fun with my fans and to ask their opinions and respond to them directly about things. I am always very open to any match-ups that they suggest. But from a technical point of view, it allows me to keep fresh content on my page that elicits a large number of comments. Every day. Over time, that translates to your post showing up in people’s feeds more frequently.
The other, more minor but still important thing that I do is that I have my Facebook feed connected to Twitter. Every time I post on FB, that post is tweeted. But not the other way around. There’s an entirely different language over on Twitter that doesn’t translate well to Facebook. But even if your posts on FB are longer than Twitter permits, you can still get the whole thing across. It’s a great system.
And so, every once in a while, when I post an actual promo or advertisement, it gets seen. 90% of the work I do for fun and socialization helps that 10% of content that includes buy-links and calls to action. And it works. My posts are seen without me having to pay exorbitant sums (which I do for some things on occasion).
Let me know what works for you. I’m always interested to hear if I’m just a fluke or if I’m really on to something. And come visit my Facebook author page to see for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/merryfarmerauthor
