Social Media: How Do I Make it Work for Me?

One thing I'd really like to get better at is using social media as a more effective marketing tool. Last year I did an on-line marketing challenge that gave all sorts of great tips. One of the best things that came out of it was setting up a Twitter account, which previously I hadn't had. I was super stoked about it, but now nearly a year later...it is sitting and languishing. I rarely post on it, so it's out there collecting cyber dust. And to be honest, I'm not sure how it's that much different than Facebook, other than you're limited to the number of characters you can use in a post. I'm sure I'm missing the point because I don't understand how it really works.

The same for my Facebook account. I rarely check that either. The biggest issue I have with Facebook is when I first set up my account, I did it as a personal account. What I needed to do was set up an author page. Does anyone who is more Facebook savvy than me know if I can switch it?

And will switching cut down on the endless stream of day-to-day from the hundreds of friends I have? I don't want to offend anyone, but what I'm looking for is a way to promote my books, not look at pictures of everyone's cats, babies, birthday parties, etc. I totally don't even know enough to know if having any author page would cut out the zillions of personal posts. Is there a way to use Facebook for strictly promo and not get an endless stream of everyone else's life?

Because I just can't keep up. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I am sorely tempted to go completely off-line with my Facebook account. I think, but again I'm so not up on how it all works, that I can put a 'hold' or 'stop' or 'freeze' on my account or something like that until I figure out how to switch it over from a personal page to an author/business page...if it's even possible to do that. Maybe I need to just 'erase' and start completely over. I just don't know.

What I need, me and every other author out there I'm sure, is a fresh approach. What's going to make me stand out from everyone else out there? I tried a promotion for my New Year's Eve release last year, but it didn't really pan out. I think I fell about 995 short in my #sellathousand 'challenge'. But in a sense, I don't consider it a complete failure. It got me to try something different as a way to reach readers. And as part of the promotion, I joined a few Facebook groups strictly for promoting books, which were great while I was running my contest and 99c book sale. The sale part of the promotion seemed to work better than trying to sell a thousand of a single title. I may try putting some of my others titles on sale in the near future, to see what kind of results I can garner.

What I need is to set aside time to really work at promotion. Part of the problem is I think of my writing as a hobby, not a 'real' job. Which means that other things in life always come first and take precedence over my writing. I know I'm not the only one. Everyone is busy and has a million things going on. I think I used to be better at balancing everything. I'm not sure what changed. Maybe just my attitude.

I don't mean to sound whiny...and I apologize if I do. What I'm really looking for here is to know how you use social media. Do you post on Facebook or Twitter everyday? Do you find there are certain types of posts that tend to draw more attention? How do you deal with the non-writing posts of Facebook? I'm not looking to steal anyone's unique and original ways of promoting, but if you're willing to share some tried and true strategies you've used, I'd be eternally grateful.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Facebook Ads

Jennifer bought a Facebook ad…

Rebel Ink Press just rereleased my first book, A Heart of Little Faith. It was previously published by Whiskey Creek Press, but that press was bought out and I got my rights back to my books. On November 10, A Heart of Little Faith was released with more editing (thank goodness) and a new cover.

Unfortunately, the rerelease occurred at a time when I had no spare moments to do any publicity. I was in the homestretch of organizing a fundraising auction and I hadn’t cooked, seen my kids, or slept in weeks. Publicizing a book? Not happening.

Last month, when I went to the writer’s conference, I attended a workshop about social media, and one of the things discussed was using ads on Facebook. For a minimal fee, you can tailor who sees your ads and how long you want them to run. You pay per click on whatever website you connect it to and you watch your results in real time. So, I decided to try it.

I used my book cover, created two tag lines, linked it to the Amazon page and spent $5 per day for 5 days. I targeted romance readers and decided even if it failed miserably, I was only out $25.

Here’s what happened: According to Facebook, in 5 days, I received 18 clicks on the Amazon page for a total of $24.96 spent. I’m not sure if any of those clicks resulted in sales yet. However, what was unexpected was my associated Facebook author page skyrocketed to reaching more than 2000 people (at one time I think it was at 2400). On a normal week, I reach 200 people max.

My conclusion is that the $25 increased my exposure. Whether that translates into sales, who knows? But I might try it again for a few other announcements I have coming up.

Trying To Be Everywhere At Once...And Failing

Jennifer and her online presence.

When I first became a writer, I was told I had to market myself and have an online presence.  I’d already joined Facebook with a personal page, and I soon added an author page, which I’m only somewhat successful in directing people to. I soon followed with Twitter. Later, I added Google+, Foursquare and recently, Pinterest (although I haven’t done any publicity about that). And of course, I have a website and a blog, and I contribute to other blogs, such as this one, weekly or monthly.

That’s a lot of time to spend online.

Social media is fun. It gives people who mostly stay home a social outlet to interact with others, similar to the water cooler at an office. At least, that’s what I’ve used to justify my almost constant time spent switching from one form or another throughout the day.

Lately, however, I’m noticing that I spend more time than I should in a virtual world. I’ve also noticed I’m not as happy as I used to be. Now, there may be other reasons for my lack of happiness, but I think it’s time I started to do something about all of this. And perhaps there is a connection between amount of time spent online and happiness.

My website is essential for me as an author. My personal blog is essential for my mental well-being—it’s one of the places I vent, I kvell, and I publicize my writing achievements. It’s a mix of personal and professional, so I talk about everything that interests me—writing, religion, politics, parenting, the news. Maybe I shouldn’t mix those things together, but it’s who I am, and I’m not changing that.

The blogs I contribute to are important as well, because those are writing blogs and allow me to reach an audience I otherwise might not reach.

I like Facebook. I shouldn’t. It’s a huge time-suck. But I like it. It allows me to meet people, chat with old friends and be entertained. It also allows me to join online writing groups. And my author page is another way for me to get my writing out there.

Twitter is, for me, a necessary evil. I’m gaining a lot of followers who are reading my blogs and more importantly, retweeting my blogs to others. My readership is slowly increasing. I still don’t like it, but I’m learning to use it more efficiently and effectively.

I’m being very snobby with Pinterest. I’m only following other writers. I’m not posting much, but it’s a great way to create a visual storyboard for my books. And I find fun book hideaways and writing quotes.

I just deleted my Foursquare account. I tried it for awhile to see what it was like. Other than checking in to different places, I can’t find a use for it. Why do I need a record of restaurants I go to? Why do I care where others go? If my friends find a great restaurant, I hope they’ll tell me. Or better yet, take me there (especially if chocolate is involved). But there’s not professional point and it’s making me feel a bit stalkerish. So, I’m done.

Google+ is probably my next thing to get rid of. I tried it, can’t really figure out a purpose to it and am really just posting things because I think I should. But I haven’t seen a benefit and I’m connecting with a lot of strangers, without getting to know anyone. Oh, there, I just convinced myself why I should delete my account. J

Like anything, I think the key to all of this is moderation. Once I’ve pared down WHERE I am, I’m going to pare down HOW OFTEN I’m in any of these places. I suspect I’ll find myself a lot more productive.

And hopefully, happier.

Does networking work?

Paula’s thoughts about social networking

Way back in 2009, when I started writing romance novels again after a 20+ year break, I began to explore Yahoo groups and then Facebook. This was two years before I had another book published, but by June 2011 when ‘His Leading Lady’ was released, I had a fair amount of online friends. Two years later, and with four more books published, I’ve continued to expand my online friendships. It’s true to say many ARE now my friends, and not just names, because we’ve exchanged comments, often to the point of feeling as if we’re having a real life conversation. I’ve made more friends through several FB groups too, notably the GBE2 and Writers’ Post groups.

Blogging has also helped. I make a real effort to visit and leave comments on friends’ blogs, probably two or three each day (on average). I took part in the Six Sentence Sunday group for about 18 months, and the April A-Z blogging challenge for the last 3 years, and ‘met’ more people through both of those. Inviting people to be a ‘Friday Friend’ here has strengthened many friendships, as has being a guest blogger elsewhere.

I don’t spend as much time in the Yahoo groups as I used to, as many of these seem to contain only promotion, but I often follow the links on the loops to different blogs. I also dabbled in Twitter for a time, but I found it difficult to keep up with all the activity there (especially as a lot of it seemed to be pure advertising of books).

There have been times when I felt I was spending too much time on ‘socialising’ – which I prefer to call it, rather than networking. To me, the latter implies that you are ‘using’ the networks simply to promote yourself and your books. That’s not to say I don’t advertise from time to time, but I prefer to think of it as socialising and making friends.

What I didn’t actually realise was that by doing this I was establishing an online presence for my name. Several times in the past few weeks I’ve had friendship requests from people who have said (to paraphrase one of them): “I see you around so often on different pages I thought we were already friends.”

My ‘online presence’ came home to me last weekend. On Saturday evening, I posted a message to the effect that my next novel would be released next February, and I was looking for blog visits in February and March. Within a couple of hours, I had ten offers to host me, some by leaving a comment, others through direct messaging. By the time I got up next morning, there were five more. I know there are other friends I can approach directly to ask for a guest spot on their blogs, but what was especially gratifying about the offers was that only two of these were from bloggers I had visited in the past. The others were from other friends I have made on FB, and it’s always good to be able to visit ‘new’ blogs. I also had two offers to read and review the novel (in addition to their offers to host me on their blogs).

Bearing in mind that FB posts soon get pushed out of sight by all the other posts appearing there, I could probably repeat the request next week, and get more offers. However, I think 15 is enough for now!

One short message on FB has resulted in me being able to plan a two month blog tour. It’s also made me feel a whole lot better about the time I spend socialising on Facebook!

Social Networking

I'll be honest, I have a Facebook page, but I don't use it much. I jumped on the bandwagon a while ago, but decided I'd only use the page for promotion of my writing career. Trouble is, a lot of the people who have friended me are actually friends and as such share non-writing releated tid bits which appear on my page. Then, I'm friends with some authors from whom I also get personal tid bits of information. And this past summer I 'cheated' a bit and posted some personal items on my page.

Now I will be the first to admit, I'm no where near an expert on Facebook. In fact, I'm pretty much a total idiot. I need one of those books, "Facebook for Dummies". I'm sure if there's not one out there, there will be soon.

I guess my first mistake was signing up under only my author name and not my real name. In that way I could have better separated the business end from the friend end. I guess I can still do that, but it's definitely a project for when I have a good chunk of time to devote to it.

A friend was kind enough to set up a "Friends of Debra St. John" page for me. But I use that even less than my regular page.

It's just so confusing to me. There seem to be multiple pages that 'belong' to me and it's anyone's guess which one is going to pop up when I log in. If I had more time to devote to it, maybe it would make more sense and I'd be able to use it as a better marketing tool. But I don't. So alas, much of the time my page just sits there...not doing a whole heck of a lot.

All that said, I am going to 'host' a virtual release party on Facebook in a couple of weeks when my new novella comes out. We'll see how that goes. It took me forever to figure out how to send the invite out, but I think I located the proper 'button' and will get that announcement out next week.

So, how about you? Any opinions about social networking? Likes? Dislikes? Successes? Failures?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Coming November 21 for Thanksgiving - An Unexpected Blessing