Guest Expert: Phyllis Zimbler Miller
Since I first wrote an article on this subject for BookBuzzr in August 2010, Facebook has made many changes. Regardless of the changes, creating a Facebook Page for your book or books can be a good promotional strategy.
(Note: Previously, you needed to create a Facebook personal profile before you could create a Facebook Page. That requirement has now been eliminated.)
People “like” your Page instead of becoming a “fan” of your fan page (you “friend” people for your personal profile).
As I explain in my ebook “TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK: Action Steps You Can Do Immediately Whether You Are Traditionally Published or Self-Published,” it is often difficult to find the “create a Page” option on Facebook.
Your best bet is to go directly to this URL – https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
You are given a choice of what kind of Page to create – the Artist, Band or Public Figure choice gives you a dropdown category menu of which Author is one category.
You then choose a name for your Page. Choose wisely because Facebook often does not let you change the name of the Page. (At the moment there is an option to change your Page name but only one time!)
And then you fill out the information.
Here is a very important tip:
While, if you have a Facebook personal profile you cannot include a hot link in your ABOUT, you can include a hot link in the ABOUT of a Facebook Page. You will need to experiment with the wording to ensure that you do not write so much that the hot link gets pushed to an inside page.
You can see the ABOUT on the top left-hand of my Facebook Author Page at www.facebook.com/phylliszimblermillerauthor (this is a Facebook customized URL)
Customized URLs: When signed into your account, you can go to www.facebook.com/username and get a customized URL for your Page (as well as a customized URL for your personal profile if you have one). This way you can use a nice URL rather than Facebook’s long URLs. (Depending on Facebook’s current whims, you may have to wait until you reach a certain number of “likes” before you can get a customized username for your Page.)
Additional information:
Once you’ve created the Page, add another admin besides yourself. This is a good practice for any Page you administer on Facebook as you always want someone as backup for access to your Page.
After you have filled out your Page’s information and uploaded a cover image (the large picture at the top of each Page) and a Page profile photo, you will want to start attracting people to “like” your Page.
(Note that per Facebook’s terms of service you cannot put any promotional info on your Page’s cover image. This means no URL, no phone number, no email address, and no “like this page” or “click on the link below.”)
You can attract people to your Page in various ways, including inviting your friends to “like” your Page, adding your Page link on your blog posts, and buying Facebook ads to get your Page in front of the people who might be most interested in buying/reading your books. (Facebook user demographics enable you to drill down to very specific parameters for Facebook ads.)
Remember, as for all social media platforms on which you participate, you do not want to solely be pushing your books. You want to share information on your Facebook Page related to your books and that others will find worthwhile.
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the Internet marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com
She is also the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON AND FACEBOOK. Her Amazon Author Central profile is at http://amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller
