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Last week Facebook users received an open letter from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg thanking them for being one of 350 million members.
So, what does all this mean to you as an author?
If you aren’t on Facebook, you should be! In fact, having a facebook page can almost replace your a functioning website since the network’s features allow you to share resources, add multimedia such as book trailers via the You Tube tab and much more.
Facebook is a great social networking tool authors can use to brand themselves. It ’s a great open forum in which to engage readers in a more intimate setting, by sharing more about yourself while they do the same.
But like all other social networking sites, you decide to use make sure you not just wasting your time or spinning wheels. And how do I do that you ask?
Profile vs. page/group
Facebook allows users several options regarding the type of face you want to present to the world. If you’re an author with a well known name you might want to opt on a fan/group page since the number of friends you connect with won’t be limited by the magical number 5,000 which can lead to your profile being deleted. Plus a fan/group pages let you share links, videos, photos, and start discussions. It also allows your brand to go viral, since your page/group will be showcased on other people’s profiles.
If you’re like me, you can maintain a more intimate profile page and then open up a fan page in the future when you start to grow your friend/fan base.
Speaking of building friends, I have a couple of tips on how to build friends, which in my opinion is difficult and taxing at times. Even to the point where I’ve faced an inquisition a time or two from people who questioned how I knew them? And where I’d met them. Come on people get real.
Sorry, I digressed.
Besides using your email contacts list, promote your Facebook profile on your websites/blogs. It always amazes me when people don’t cross promote. Another great way to connect with fans/friends is the friend list of other authors. If the person willingly connected with another author who writes within your genre, then they’re probably a pretty safe bet. I’ve done this as well with my myspace profile.
Private Vs. Public
Depending on your branding goals, you should decide on whether to set your profile on private, limited visibility or public where the entire world will see your profile. Of course having a private profile would entice people to connect with you to see what you’re talking about. But then there are also two valid reasons why you should consider a public profile.
The main reason would be to increase your visibility and profile ranking in name search. The higher your ranking the more likely someone will click on you and discover what a great author you are.
Also, Google’s newest venture ”real-time search” not only pulls data from websites but also from real-time social networking sites Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter and then lumps them into all search results.
This new launch which went live today means any topic you maybe discussing on your social networking profiles, such as your new book, will now be displayed on Google search. BUT that’s only if your Facebook/Twitter profile is public and your Myspace stream data is publicly available. This new venture if you use it properly can help you reach an even bigger audience that didn’t even know you existed or weren’t neccessarily looking for you.
To see how the platform works, here’s a YouTube promotional video:
Information Vs. Blank Slate
Your readers want to know the persona behind their favorite books. So paint them a picture by filling out the information fields provided. Luckily with group/fan pages you don’t have to go through this rigamorle. Also be sure to provide the links to your blog, other social networking profiles (i.e. twitter or myspace accounts) and most importantly your author website where they can read excerpts or find links to buying your books. You can also use this area to with keywords that potential readers can search against.
Also don’t forget to update your status. It’s rather hard for your readers to follow you if you’re not saying anything. Pressed for time? Schedule your status updates with Hootesuite up to day or a week or even months in advance.
Host/Post an Event
Surprisingly, events are a great way to extend your brand. Let the general public know what you’re doing and invite them. Even better host an event on Facebook. For example, Rachel Hauck just hosted her birthday party on line while integrating her new release Sweet By and By co-authored with country singer Sarah Evans. And since the party was public anyone searching for Sarah Evans, Rachel Hauck, or Sweet By and By would be directed to the event and hopefully converted to being a friend of Rachel’s page.
By opening up your event to everyone, you can meet new people and discover other people who have a shared interest and can support your career. Events can also be cataloged on your Facebook page.
Do you have any other tips? They would be greatly appreciated in the comments section:)
up next: Facebook in your Face!
According to the technorati, Myspace is a sitting duck. And people in the digital industry are waiting for the day when it will be blown out of the water and go the way of other popular websites like drKoop.com. So is Myspace, which boosts more than 125 million users, 71 million unique visits per month, and 38 billion page views a day (Comsore, April 2009) really a waste of a writer’s time and marketing efforts?
Despite its increased popularity in Latin/South America, Myspace is no longer the no.1 social networking site in the United States having just lost their place at the top of the rankings in the past ten months to Facebook. Their market share has shrunk so dramatically they even laid off 30% of its workforce in June.
So should you create your own space on Myspace?
Myspace is great for certain niche markets such as the entertainment industry. That’s why their login page always features celebrities, burgeoning rock bands, comedians and upcoming movie releases. It’s also a cheap alternative for unpublished writers to create a buzz/name for themselves before they sell their first book without shelling out any money for a full blown website.
(a hunky comment from author Paige Tyler)
I had a Myspace profile for 2 years now despite my love/hate relationship with social networking and the site’s weakening visitor numbers. My reason for my Myspace loyalty? Well, it’s easier to add or find friends on Myspace compared to Facebook because Facebookers are much more selective when it comes to accepting a friendship connection or joining a fan page.
Hmm…I wonder if its because people don’t want to junk up their pristine profile page with something or someone they personally don’t know or don’t really like? Or maybe it’s because they don’t want to expend the energy trying to keep up with people they don’t talk to on a regular basis. I will admit the latter is one of the main reasons I only have 27 friends on my personal FB page. And all of them are either family or really, really close friends who I speak to on a daily basis. None of them are former high school or college classmates or people from my job or within the writing industry.
(a little Valentine’s Day humor from author Lila Dipasqua)
Sorry, I went window shopping.
Despite Myspace’s tanking numbers, I don’t have any plans to abandon my Myspace profile. I’ve found Myspace is another great way to promote who I am and hopefully sell books because according to my free Myspace tracker MixxMap, my profile outpaces my website in not only page views, but monthly unique visitors by a whopping 125%.
(a nice pick me up from a myspace friend)
I also don’t want to give up my homepage because of the amount of people, almost 2,800, I’ve befriended and the relationships I’ve developed with many of them. I also like to use my profile to re-engage readers by inviting them to off site chats or special events on the Scribes Unleashed Yahoo Group, promote my back list and current releases, increase my visibility on the search engines, simply receive a morality boost from readers who’ve enjoyed my books. And the hot hunk comments aren’t bad either;p
(a sweet birthday wish from a reader)
Which brings me to the crux of social networking. Like any other profile/website, if you aren’t actively using it, it’s nothing but a static web page. And everyone hates going onto a person’s profile they haven’t logged into since 2005. In a nutshell, the more you use Myspace the more SEO value you’ll receive from it. So how can you use your Mspace page to promote myself as an author or promote my books?
Here’s a few tips:
*Seek out groups and communities that are interesting in reading or books and join them.
*Post your book trailer in the Myspace Video section which will further your reach
*Friend people who share an interest in your product or service. Just don’t go out willy nilly and just add anyone. Add people who are readers and not just someone who wants to become “Myspace popular”
*Post, post, post. Keep your profile page current with news about upcoming releases, special promotions with your publishers,
*Direct people to your other networking sites, publishers, and official website.
*Use your blog to give potential readers a taste of your writing.
*Read other people’s Myspace blog’s and leave a comment. You never know who’ll come and visit and be curious enough to visit your profile
*Post comments on other’s Myspace profiles. I can’t tell you how many people have requested my friendship after doing this.
Okay, now that you know a few Myspace SEO basics, I have to warn you that Myspace can also be a time drain. Trust me, I found this out the hard way! So, to save you time and heartache, I would sign up on ping.fm so all of your status updates and blog posts can be sent out all at once with one easy click. I have about 30 social networking/bookmarking sites signed up currently for my 9-5 job.
If you need help gathering friends, you can use a paid application like Open Adder or Friend Blaster Pro or a any number of free ones out there. These applications are great for finding people who match your ideal reader. Remember its quality not quantity. An added bonus of these applications is their ability to distribute comments and messages to all of your friends without you having to post the same message hundreds of times. Unfortunately, they can’t invite people to special events you’ve planned.
So, whether you decide to use Myspace or abandon it, just remember like any social networking site, you have to use it or you’ll lose it:) Which reminds me, I need to roll up my sleeves and do something with my new Facebook author profile:(
Who are Myspacers?
- 51% are male
- 64% don’t have a college degree
- 58% are 18-34
- 61% are Caucasian and 24% are African American
- 44% Have incomes of 30K-60K
statistics provided by Quancast
Stay tuned for ”How to Squeeze More Out of YouTube!”
As some of you already know, I’m using my author blog to share what I’ve learned from my daily forays into the ever changing world of social networking to help my fellow writers/authors brand and market themselves on the World Wide Web.
My first SEO themed post dived into the world of Twitter, a micro-blogging service that has swept the Internet and brought celebrities as close as our mobile phones. Today, as stated at the end of my first post, I’m going to go a little deeper into how to use and optimize Twitter to your benefit.
One of Twitters most popular features is the hashtag, which is identified with a hash symbol (“#“).
Twitter hash tags (i.e., #trick or #treat) help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it in a list on your HOME page called Trending Topics. To understand what a Trending Topic is think of it as the ever popular ”fan wave” during a football game. If you click on a word on the Trending Topics list it will take you to all the tweets where twitters are tweeting about the various topics.
How is this beneficial to a writer? Well if you decide to contribute to the Trending Topic you will increase your exposure. Or even better if you start a Trending Topic such as #read or #writing or #kokobrown then you can weed out all the potential readers out there in Twitter land and follow them or become a twitterhousehold name!
Another great way to use Twitter is to update your Facebook/Myspace/Website/Blog pages. As writers we don’t want to spend all day with SEO so why not kill many birds with one stone? I’ve noticed many of you already do this, but for those out there just starting out you can have Twitter automatically update your status on all of your social networking sites whenever you post a tweet. Even better it’s free!
Here’s a lists of applications that will automatically post your twitter updates:
- Facebook Twitter application setup
- Myspace application setup
- Blogger application setup
- Wordpress.ORG application setup
- Or send your wordpress.COM or wordpress.ORG posts to your Twitter account
If you use more social networking services like Flickr, LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, etc., then consider using Ping.fm to update your status. When you post a message on Ping.fm, it automatically posts that message across ALL of your social networking sites.
Last, but not least, I mentioned twitter.search.com in my last post, but I’m sure you all want something less hands on right? Well, let me introduce you to Tweet Alarm one of the newest application programs on the block that will help simplify your Twitter experience.
Much like Google Alerts, Tweet Alarm searches then pulls information from Twitter much in the same way as Google Alerts and sends them to your email account. And you can set up the alerts to only look for certain search terms and how often you want them delivered. From as often as twice a day or once a week.
Bonus Tip: I just received a great tip from one of the senior editors at Loose-Id, Ms. Georgia Woods ! She uses Hootsuite to set up Tweets in advance. According to Georgia, you can set up a day’s tweets, or a week’s tweets, all in advance, and keep your name out there, and work when it’s convenient for you.
I hope this post helps your marketing/branding efforts with Twitter. And don’t forget if you have any other ways to optimize a twitter profile, don’t forget to share in comments:)
P.S. Thanks to OmniLit and AllRomance for tweeting about my ”Tricks-O-Tweeting” post!
