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38 Responses to Is This the End of Free Facebook Book Promotions?
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Patty says:
Thanks.
I’m seeing more and more proof that these things do indeed work.
Book sales are up, followers to my timeline, pages, and blog has gone up and now I’m having an event on FB and attendance just keeps growing.
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Well, it has been a ton of hard work since I’m the only one moderating but it has been way worth the effort.
I can honestly say that once it’s over I’ll be taking a couple days off Facebook.
And.
That’s another tip I found when doing research about all this.
Too frequent posting can get you locked out of Facebook altogether for a period of time. So normally, when I don’t have some kind of special promo going I take an entire day, sometimes two and post nothing.
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I guess it’s better to do a couple of quality posts that get lots of interaction than loads of them that don’t attract any responses. That’s what I’m aiming for from now on.
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Reblogged this on Lyn Horner's Corner and commented:
Facebook is making it more difficult to promote our books for FREE!-
I wouldn’t say more difficult, just different.
I read an article on the fact that one of the reasons they’re doing this is because so many people simply post off site links with no engaging intro to their posts.
So, after reading this, I began to post links from my blog and not only encouraged persons to read the post the link led to but invited them to come back to my timeline group or page to comment on what they read.
Immediately two things happened. First, more people began to read, and sign up to follow my blog, and then more people began to comment on what was being shared.
After all folks, Social Media is supposed to be “Social”
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Yes, it is supposed to be social, at least our Timeline should be. I have one reservation about FB asking us to be more interactive, and that’s because I’m worried they’re just after more information about us. We are all aware they want to know everything about our likes, dislikes, our celebration days, etc., so they can sell this information. Are we just giving them more ammunition?
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Their wanting info has nothing to do with it. That’s an invalid worry.
Honey once you sign onto the internet in any form or sign up for any newsletter, or anything else your info is out there.
You cannot spend all your time worrying about that kind of stuff and anything on your Facebook or any other type of Social Media should be social, it’s the secret to selling books or anything else.
I have nearly 1000 friends on Facebook, and I interact with at least half of them each month, it’s all about how much you want to allow yourself to do.
But.
Doing things like worrying about what sites know about you only limits you.
Relax, don’t worry and enjoy the ride. Before you know it you’ll have more going on with your books etc. than you could ever hope for.
Most of what you hear on the news about all this Facebook and other junk is just a bunch of hype. Just learn to go with the flow. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time.
Writing is supposed to be fun. Publishing your books is a blast and engaging with your readers is so cool!
I’m totally blind, and I fear not!
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I’m so sorry I missed this latest comment. Thank you for the advice. Still trying to work out ways to function on Facebook.
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Hi.
I’ve been reading up on these changes for a while now, and have been putting into place things which are already baring fruit.
In fact, I wrote to Facebook about all this and got some great tips.
What I recommend first, is paying attention to who among your Facebook friends and followers actually interacts with what you post by reacting, commenting, and sharing posts, and who do not.
Then I recommend when you’ve got something very important to share, you tag those who are great at not only reacting, commenting and sharing posts, but those who have similar things of their own going on.
I’d also like to suggest that it is highly frowned upon to share adverts of any type on your personal timelines, but rather it is suggested rather strongly that you have a page which reflects who you are and what you offer.
Just my thoughts and suggestions.-
Yes, I am doing the same as you are. The more I engage with others on FB though the more I get back. It depends on the FB crowd.
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Hi.
It really does depend upon the folks you’re interacting with.
I have learned a lot over these past few months by doing a lot of studying marketing concerning Facebook and other social media platforms, and after all these years of struggling am finally getting some Fab results.
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I’m pleased your hard work is paying off, Patty. This marketing lark is complicated and ever changing.
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It can put one into a tizzy to be sure.
I have a couple things working in my favor.
I don’t have a lot of other obligations, my business is directly connected to social media, and I tend to be a bit of an info hog so I read a lot of articles etc.
I also don’t own a TV and when I’m working I turn everything else off so distractions are minimized.
I also suffer from sleep issues, which make me be awake in the night so well, what else is there to do when one cannot sleep but work.
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Most of the time my work is fun and I enjoy it so much I don’t feel much stressed.
Also, when I stop for meals, or to clean, go for walks, etc. I’ve always got an audio book or podcast going and those also help me relax.
Stress is only in one’s mind, and can for the most part easily be overcome if one only changes their mindset.
This took me a while to learn but once I got it I was good.
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That is sound advice! I’m certainly going to tag the friends who usually comment on my posts. On Facebook, I only do 2 posts about my books on 3 days now. So that’s 6 each week. I have 3 books, so I’m only posting twice a week on each. I will either add a blurb and a review to the post, or I will use an excerpt.
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Carol, you’d be most welcome at my Facebook event.
I started it a week or so ago, the main event isn’t until Saturday but we’ve already got lots of activity going on and are having a ton of fun.
After just the first week, the page I created the event on had 242 people reached, and 125 engaged.
This week that has grown.
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Can you give me the link? I tried to visit your blog, but to see it I’d have to give my e-mail address. Sorry, I don’t bother looking further if they ask that. I clicked on quite a few today and just closed them without viewing them.
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First, just to let you know, it doesn’t reveal your email address to do that. The blogger you’re viewing never sees that. So don’t limit yourself that way.
Next, glad to share the link.
Here it is.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1084437158419463/?ti=ia
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This is really great advice, Patty, and thank you for for sharing it. I will certainly start tagging my circle of friends who usually interact with me. Perhaps you should tag me and then if I see it, I can respond.
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Will do.
Just be careful you don’t tag too often, that way people don’t become overwhelmed.
Also remember there are two ways to tag. Using the tag button and writing someone’s name.
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I think maybe only two or possibly three posts a week should be tagged with the same name.
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That makes sense. Also, you want to tag according to what you know people like.
For example, if you have a post that deals with children’s books, you’ll want to target those who have children. If you have a post that deals with mystery, you’d want to pay attention to the reading habits of others, and target folks who read that genre, and so on.
I spend enormous amounts of time reading my friend’s newsfeeds, to get an idea of their likes and dislikes.
I also follow many on Goodreads, and blogs to get a broader perspective of who they are and what they do.
Of course I spend something like 60 hours per week on promotional related activities, which takes up most of my days.
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Sound advice! I do have an author page https://www.facebook.com/pg/CreativeBookPages
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Hi.
That author page is where you want the brunt of your book advertising to go.
However, even there you want to make it interactive.
I’ll have a look.
So far I’ve not experienced any of the troubles some seem to be having.
I’ve not been in what some dub Facebook jail, that is to say I’ve not been locked out of Facebook and told I couldn’t post for so many days. This happens when too frequent posts are posted back to back to back with no engagement all posts leading to off site links and with no encouragement to come back to Facebook to engage.
I’ve not had any posts rejected, and have had no problem creating events.
I had a successful event during the last weeks of July and first weekend of August, and have created another which the main days of are in Oct. and am already having activity with great success.
Facebook is in fact next to WordPress my main social media marketing tool.
If I can help you in any way do let me know.
I’ve got to go and walk my dog and eat breakfast, but when I’m back online I’ll be sure and check out your author page.
Have an awesome day.
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Thank you for your interest and comments about my author page. I’ve never had problems either with warnings or Facebook jail. I think I need to ask more questions in my posts to encourage more engagement. I do have a couple of people who regularly interact with my posts as I do theirs.
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Pingback: Is This the End of Free Facebook Book Promotions? | Ann Writes Inspiration
Author -Carole Parkes 
Is This the End of Free Facebook Book Promotions?
The Facebook changes effective from August 2019 will make most unpaid book promotions less effective. Bots are on the lookout for more post engagement. We already know that book promos which just show buy links and a book related image do not attract much engagement. From tomorrow, posts with little or no engagement will be shown to fewer people. The same will happen if posts contain words such as: sale, offer, reduced, buy, free, price, unless of course they are paid adverts. Therefore, authors will have to become a lot more creative with their promotion posts to fool the bots. Our posts should be more informative regarding the story rather than just ‘buy my book, it’s on offer today’.
Not surprisingly, posts with lots of engagement will be shown to a wider audience, and many authors are advising we need to react, share, and comment a lot more.
HOWEVER, DON’T THINK THAT BECAUSE YOU’RE INCREASING YOUR OWN ENGAGEMENT ON THE POSTS YOU SEE, YOUR POSTS WILL BE VIEWED BY A LARGER AUDIENCE. THEY WONT!
For your audience to be increased, others have to connect and interact with YOUR posts. Now you can see how difficult this will be.
In my experience, too many people are willing to take rather than give, and while many are happy to pay it forward, others will happily let them without reciprocating in any form whatsoever. You can’t force people to interact with your posts, so eventually, with no payback, the ones doing all the interacting will slowly diminish.
I don’t know what we can do to overcome this. Hopefully, others will have solutions to the problem of how to successfully promote our books for free on Facebook. I do hope so!
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About caroleparkes
My husband calls me a butterfly because I flit from one hobby to another. Apart from being a wife for 52 years, a mother of three sons, and a grandmother, I'm also an author, genealogist, amateur artist, a lover of most needlecrafts, and occasional poet. Of the above, my most enduring interest has been writing and I hope to be doing it well into old age.