Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Advanced Social Media

First of all, I'm not even close to an expert on social media. But at the recent Pennwriters Conference, I attended a workshop titled Advanced Social Media presented by Don Lafferty. I'm going to sum up just a fraction of what Don shared but if you visit his website you'll find lots more.

Don is a HUGE proponent of Facebook advertising. He shared some numbers about 'Likes' on your Facebook author page. It seems around 1,000 Likes is a milestone for a dramatic increase in web traffic coming from FB to your site. He said one of the most important things you can do is use FB to gather emails.

Despite Don's big push for spending money on paid Facebook advertising, he emphasized that email is still the leading and most powerful marketing tool. Getting people to sign up for email alerts and newsletters should be one of your goals.

Don also gave some advice about websites. He said to include a books page, an events page and of course, a short bio. And try to have everything important above the scroll. Again use your website or blog to entice readers to sign up for those emails.

Don't also suggested you repeat all Facebook posts on Google+. Google doesn't search FB but it loves all the content on Google+.

Don put forth a way to calculate how much money you should be spending a month on advertising. I think I dropped my pencil when I heard his estimate. It was way out of my budget.

Do you pay for Facebook advertising? Has it worked? Do you have an email list of readers? Do you use Google+? Want to like my Facebook page? I'm a long way from that 1,000 mark.

I'll be out of town on Friday so I'm not posting that day but I'll be around to visit.

17 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Crap, I'm not even on Facebook!
I've never spent money on advertising. So far it's worked. I have thought about a newsletter, but no idea what I would say.

Pat Hatt said...

Newsletters are a ton of friggin work, I'm already here there and everywhere. And facebook advertising I tried once, didn't do a thing.

Robin said...

I am not so sure I buy the success of FB advertising. I can see the advantage of email alerts.

Just an FYI... you started one paragraph with Don't when I think you meant Don. Freudian slip??? Ha!

Cate Masters said...

Already liked your FB page! :)
I wonder how readers react to authors gathering their email addresses? I'd tread lightly there.

Ava Quinn said...

Alex C. took all my answers. I'm not on FB, I don't know what I'd say on a newsletter, and I've never bought advertising, though to be fair, I don't have anything to advertise.

Christine Rains said...

I've found Facebook to be the least effective of the tools I use. My blog is the best tool, and I do try to remember to click G+ for everything.

Michelle Wallace said...

I thought I 'liked' your page, but I hadn't.
So now I 'liked' it...
I've heard many say that G+ is now the way to go...

Michael Di Gesu said...

HI, Susan,

Just like your FB page....

I'm not at that point yet, so I don't know if FB advertising works or not... I believe in BLOGGING! LOL. Everyone knows how I feel about this community.

Thanks for sharing more tips from the conference.

Heather R. Holden said...

Nope, don't pay for Facebook advertising. Facebook has been a pretty ineffective marketing tool for me in general, though. I always get better hits elsewhere...

Unknown said...

I'm with you, my advertising budget is say $30.00 per month, can't do too much with that. :)

L. Diane Wolfe said...

It's good to know my website is designed correctly.

A friend of mine tried Facebook advertising and it was a complete waste of time. I've done some very small ads on books sites and had decent results though.

mshatch said...

Don's talk sounded like it was aimed at people who had an advertising budget but not everyone does. I'm using the old fashioned method of word of mouth.

Arlee Bird said...

I don't think I would agree with Don entirely, not that I have much in the way of direct experience, but I do think paid advertising campaigns don't see much pay off unless huge amounts are spent and like you felt, who among us has that money to spend?

I'm not a big fan of newsletters unless the sender has something incredible to say and most don't. I'm forever subscribing to newsletters that I mostly don't read and eventually unsubscribe from.

I think the jury is still out on Social Media effectiveness and I'm not sure they'll ever all come to the same verdict.

But free? I'd say might as well as long as you don't annoy people with it.

Lee
What is the best short story ever written?
Tossing It Out

cleemckenzie said...

I'm tired of fb jerking people around. They restrict the number of friends you can have, they limit who can see your posts and these numbers change. I'm just not a huge fan.

LD Masterson said...

I'm not at the marketing stage yet but I'm saving all this info for when the time comes.

The Happy Whisk said...

I'm not a fan of Facebook. Sounds like though, he found something that works well for him.

JJ said...

I dropped by to say hello! I have been absent from blogging for a while, and I did miss your posts. It’s good to be back.