Facebook, Social Media

How to Optimise Your Facebook Author Page

TGIF folks!

I’m in England and taking a wee break, so to fill in for me while I’m no doubt drinking copious amounts of tea and having a mince pie or three, we have a fab guest post by F.C. Malby (Twitter: @fcmalby).

Her new book Take Me to the Castle is out this week and as part of her pre-release promotions, she’s been using her Facebook Author page to engage and interact with readers. Below she shares her top 5 ways to optimize your page. Take it away, F.C.!

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Facebook is a great way to keep readers up to date with your author news quickly and easily. It is a good way to interact and to share graphics – book cover pictures and video trailers. It is also important to build an email list, and facebook enhances this with a quick call to action.

1. Link to a mailing list

Ask readers to sign up to your mailing list by posting a facebook link and, ideally, with some graphics. It is important to get permission to send information to readers, and a mailing list is a critical part of building up your reader base. Blogging can also do this but facebook has the power to draw in a wider range of readers. More readers are on facebook than on the many other media sites.

2. Share your author news

This is especially important in the run-up to your book release as it builds excitement and readers really enjoy graphics and inside information. Keep them up to date with the projects you are working on and when books, guides, short stories and other writing will be released.

3. Use the Admin Panel

The admin panel, at the top of each facebook page, shows ‘insights’ and these give you a good idea of the demographics of the people who are engaging in your site. It also gives you the number of views per post directly under each post. It is important to know which posts are generating the most traffic. This is a brilliant feature of facebook pages which is not available for a normal facebook profile. Use it to your advantage and see what works for you.

 

4. Use the cover photo

Use the cover photo to show your branding. It is much larger than your profile picture, and it should follow through on your blog, your website, and any other social media sites so that your readers can easily recognise you.

5. Run a contest or a giveaway

As well as a goodreads giveaway I would recommend a facebook giveaway for fans. It encourages people to click ‘like’ on your page, which will put your posts up in their news feeds. You don’t want to spam people using your personal account. Be professional and use your author page to build up your fanbase wisely.

How have you used facebook to optimize contact with readers. Do you have any tips to share?

F.C. Malby is a short story author and a novelist. Her debut novel, ‘Take Me to the Castle,’ is released this week on Amazon in paperback and on kindle. The book is set in Prague and Letovice, in the Czech Republic, during the fall of communism.

You can find F.C.Malby on

Twitter https://twitter.com/fcmalby

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/FC-Malby/118284434987675

WordPress http://fcmalby.wordpress.com/

Website www.fcmalby.com