Last post I talked about Twitter for writers, so now it’s the turn of Facebook. I’m sure I’m in the minority but as a writer I prefer Twitter probably because I have difficulty in sharing personal stuff with people who in fact I’ve never met. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve a lot of good friends on Facebook but the truth is I haven’t met any of them face to face so to speak.
What does FB offer writers ?
A platform to display a dedicated Facebook page where you can exclusively post about your writing exploits.
Access to thousands of writing platforms, which makes networking with like minded souls easy.
The ability to link your blog so that when you update, the content automatically appears on your page
My tips
The same goes with Twitter as it does for Facebook in that I’m no expert. If you do a search you’ll find lots of people more knowledgable on the benefits but below is my take.
- First one should go without saying. Be polite. Manners matter and there’s nothing worse than someone shouting off. Before you post take a deep breath and read back through your words. I’m always replying to posts and then deleting them before pressing that little button because I write from the heart but post with my head – remember what you write can’t be unwritten.
- I mentioned that there’s lots of public writing groups to join. On the other side of the coin there are lots of private writing sites that don’t appear on FB searches; these are by invitation only. These are the groups you want to be invited on to and the only way is by being nice.
- All groups have rules, and they are there for a reason. Break them at your peril because you will be barred.
- Professional cover photos with decent images do attract attention and are all part of the writer’s advertising package.
- Did you know posts with images have (so I’ve heard) a 70% increase in reach, so it’s a no brainier really.
- As I mentioned in the introduction it’s also a no brainier not to link your blog to your Facebook account. For 2 minutes work you save yourself a lot of bother and time with having to post across all social media accounts.
- Just posting about books, book sales is boring and that unfollow button is so easy to press. On your Facebook profile page most posts should be non-promotional. I said about the 80:20 rule for Twitter. For Facebook it should be 99:1. This is networking in its truest form. These people are your friends even if you may have never met them. They deserve a safe place to chat that is primarily away from book advertising. One of my friends posts a good morning message each day, taking the time to add photos – it’s the first thing I look for now and I’d miss it if it wasn’t there.
I haven’t mentioned advertising because I’ve yet to pay for any book publicity and that includes Facebook. I hope you’ve found this useful and not too preachy. I’d like to hear your comments and any tips you can add…
Jen
Jenny O'Brien HQ 