Tags
Author, Brinda Berry, Contemporary Romance, facebook, Facebook Page, Gloria Richard, Guest Blog, Humor, social media, twitter, Writer, Writes
Brinda Berry shows her savvy again. THIS time with Facebook. Mine need help–my face, my book, my FACEBOOK.
I have been a twit for the last month. Not in the TWITTER guru sort of way.
Rather, my twit mode resembles my family room floor at the moment. Taking a quick look around, we have two-year-old lab Molly’s raccoon toy, Molly’s puppy tug rope and her big dog tug rope. Ah! Over by the card table, I see both red and purple Kong Wubba octopi. The Three Dog Bakery primo chew braid rests under her chin.
So many projects (toys to her), so little time focused on one thing. I may will never teach Molly to put one toy away before she takes out another. But, I do control how many projects I handle at one time.
I won’t have Brinda Berry on my site forever (sob!), and I have done a half-bleeped job of implementing her sage counsel.
I made an executive decision this morning to focus on my web presence for as many days as it takes to get up to freeway on-ramp speed. Look for changes here, a stronger presence on Facebook and Twitter lists. And HOLIDAY FUN in December.
In keeping with that commitment, I chose to get Brinda’s post ready tonight so it would be here first thing in the morning. What a concept! I am so glad I did.
Do you know why? No. Not so I can sleep in tomorrow morning. Because Brinda is taking on FACEBOOK in this installment and she has six frigging informative illustrations to insert. If it takes more than a hour to get this post ready to rock, I will let you know lie.
With that monologue, please let me turn the hammock over to Brinda. I have some work to do!
SERIAL WEB PIMP BRINDA BERRY
Brinda Berry is the author of The Waiting Booth, a YA fantasy published by Etopia Press. Currently working in higher education administration, she spends her days thinking of ways to improve education for college students. Brinda spends her nights devising exciting tales that involve teens who might be saving the world.
Facing Facts with Facebook
by Brinda Berry
.
Gloria has been such a good sport in letting me prod her into trying new things on her blog and on Twitter. This week, I’d like to dissect my own presence on one social media platform— Facebook. Facebook is not my happy place. There…the truth is out. I’ve never interacted much on my personal page; therefore, when I knew I had to make an author page, I cringed. I don’t know why this one is so much harder for me than Twitter. I could tweet for hours if I didn’t restrain myself. Facebook is my social media burden.
I’m trying to learn to love it. (Fake it till you make it mentality.) So, I created a business page, enticed friends/fans to “Like” me, and automated blog post announcements. I occasionally pop in to share a link to something interesting or to update my fans on progress with my writing career. Let’s examine my progress with this to see if this is effort well-spent. I hope that this self-analysis will aid Gloria in looking at her own presence to determine any changes she may make in her Facebook interactions.
Exhibit #1:
I logged into my Facebook account and clicked on INSIGHTS on the menu at the left. This screen shows me information for the past month. I can see that my Total Likes percentage at the top of the page has increased by 0.59%. Look at the rest of the stats on that line and you will increases across the board. The important one for me if the People Talking About This. That number (15) indicates that activity is occurring that spreads the news about my page. Maybe someone has shared one of my posts or liked a status. That activity has potential when you look at how many Friends of Fans there are in my circle. I have fans with lots of friends and hope to interest them in visiting my page.
Exhibit #2
While you are looking at this screenshot, notice the HELP section for insights. In addition to being able to click on any of the question marks (?) to get a definition, you can access a tour and guide for more info.
Exhibit #3
So, you scroll down the Insights screen and you can discover which posts are most popular with your audience. Arrow 1 – this icon tells the type of post. As you can see, the video trailer of The Waiting Booth has gotten the most attention. Arrow 2 -I know this because 8 people shared, liked, or commented about this post. Arrow 3- Virality is the percentage of users of saw my post and then went on to interact. It’s the potential of that post spreading. The 2nd most popular item is when I posted a note about my writing/publishing progress. The 3rd popular is one with a box and blue arrow. This icon indicates my automated blog title/link postings. Conclusion? People respond more to my personal updates. I should be doing that more.
Exhibit #4
The next screenshot shows that I have an audience of mostly females between 35 – 54 years old. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll take any age, but I would like to increase my younger audience since I am a YA author. My audience of 13-17 year olds should be larger. I’ll need to creatively come up with a way to increase this group on Facebook. Maybe I should investigate other YA authors’ pages with large followings to see what is happening on their pages.
Exhibit #4
Scrolling down to the bottom of the page, I can see how people are finding me to “Like” and the dates when this is happening. Over the last month, most people were on my Facebook page and clicked Like. Second, people clicked on the Facebook Like button from an external site like my website Facebook box. That tells me that my social plugin box is working and is important.
My conclusions today are that I should do the following:
1. Post personal updates on my writing more often.
2. Create a campaign to gain followers between 13-17 years old.
3. Add my Facebook Like social plugin box anywhere else I can. I am on a group blog for the Diamond State Romance Authors and I can add it there on my personal page.
4. Post videos whenever possible to test theory that people prefer those to text on Facebook.
I welcome your thoughts on what you like to see on Facebook. Gloria has done a terrific job with posting regularly on her page as well as gaining followers. I hope she’ll share any of her thoughts on her strengths and weaknesses with this social media.
AND the winner of the $25.00 Amazon gift certificate is Emily Tardy! 
Emily, Brinda will be in touch. Brinda used Rafflecopter for her contest. She tells me Emily was selected when she went to FACEBOOK and LIKED ME. Aw, shucks, Emily. Thanks!
Whoa, BRINDA! Just when I thought FACEBOOK was like email with pictures…
Remember, leave a comment, a question (Brinda will answer on-line). Trust me. I’ll be checking in, too. It’s WEB PRESENCE day(s) here at Gloria’s Hammock.
Gloria Richard 
Good morning, all!
Before the “writers write” wisdom begins to buzz, I MUST tell you that I had a message from Brinda in my inbox this morning. “WRITING trumps everything,” she said.
She’s right, of course. I can’t let my characters voices and my storyline and my enthusiasm for my WIP atrophy while I amp up web presence.
To clarify: I will devote a set amount of time to my WIP each day. It will temporarily be reduced to provide angst-free time to establish my blog, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and (just when I thought I had them all) Google + presence and routine.
I want to catch up. I want to get this blog “themed” so my posts aren’t willy-nilly. I want to feel like my web presence isn’t an ugly Christmas sweater in a sea of cashmere. That’s all. Just a few days to channel my creative juices toward establishing MY voice in CyberVille. Thanks for visiting!
Morning Brinda!
Aha! This time, I’m ahead of you. I found FB Insights and have looked at my status a few times.
Great to point out your actual audience vs your target audience. How to make yourself visible, let the readers know you are out there? That is the challenge on Twitter, FB, blogs and websites. Growing the network helps, and then, we have to be creative in finding ways to let our presence be known. It isn’t enough to have a presence, we have to utilize our presence. Understanding where we are helps us to identify where we need to go, and from there, we can come up with ways to get there.
Hm. A little like plotting a novel.
Thanks for this post!
And, thanks for taking time out of your busy chat session with me to visit, Sherry!
You are SO ahead of me on knowing the numbers. I’m glad Brinda clarified the “talking about” number.
Phew! It wasn’t the “en es eh” or “see eye eh” after all. [Psst. Sherry and I use codes for the agencies. Don’t want them doing the Big Brother thing on our across-the-border chats.]
Sherry- You are so right. It IS like plotting a novel. You have to know where the story begins and what’s going to happen that is exciting.
This is too cool! I didn’t know there was an Insights or anything on there!
I haven’t been able to get to facebook for a few days, work, blog tours, the usual, but I realized that I had a whole LOT of people to friend that I have friended before. Plus I’m no longer getting email alerts about comments and the like, which means I’m always way behind, unless I pop in to say, “Hey, folks, blog with free giveaway,” or some such thing.
Back to the mss in progress, but this was a great post. Thanks for sharing!
Terry,
Thanks for taking time to stop in and read. Yes, the insights section is what makes the business/fan page so valuable vs. the personal type of FB page. I look at my stats every couple of weeks. It’s good to see what people are responding to where I can provide more of it in the future.
Hey Brin, great post. Thank you for sharing this. : )
Thanks for visiting, Tara. I’ll bop over to visit your site later today. You’re on a “Brin name” basis with THE Brinda Berry? Whoa!
That’s my super secret agent name…but you’re welcome to use it. 😉
This is just a great post. I just looked up the rest of the posts in this series and they are GOLD! Thanks! 🙂
Thanks for bopping back through the other posts, Lea. I must have some serious good karma stored up b/c I have no CLUE how I lucked into Brin on my blog.
Lea,
I noticed that somehow I skipped replying to you! Thanks for stopping in to read. Gloria and I have a blast with this series and hope others do as well.
Morning (oops afternoon) Brinda,
I do not have an author FB page yet. Still finishing up my book. Should I do one now or wait???? What are the advantages to “starting early?”
Lori- I replied to you below. Just want to make sure you see it. 🙂 Thanks for reading and for asking my opinion.
There are two reasons to do it now. (1) I would do everything I could to have this ready to go BEFORE you sign a publishing contract. I had no idea before signing my contract that there would be so much more to do after. I didn’t know about the time involved with rounds of edits on a book under contract. It would be nice to have a FB author page sitting on ready. After you sign the first contract, there’s pressure (external and internal) to have another MS ready for marketing momentum purposes. (2) Pre-contract, I’ve been told that agents and publishers want to see if you have a web presence and are willing to market yourself.
I will work on that. I have a blog and am building a website. Trying to crossover from the Christian market to mainstream YA right now. I am going to watch what you and Gloria do to your FB page over the next few weeks! Thanks for all your help. I’m enjoying being your “twitter” friend. Thanks for putting up with my ignorance. I will try to be entertaining–it’s alway good to give back!
We still have to set a date for your guest blog over here, Lori. Your sense of humor shines through all those prolific words you put on the page.
Okay, today was one of “those” days and I’ve come to your Wed. bright and early post at the end of the day. Alas, I can cheat and read all the comments that came before. ONE: Brinda I am in a muttle over grafts. FB was opened by my daughter, she is a tyrant and puts whatever pics she wants … BUT I have recently combined the daily menu of my kids and their friends with some of my writing friends.
TWO: I could say something really dull like I’d rather chew nails than learn more about social networking. You know the line … “Promote? All I want to do is write.”
AND THREE: There is only one true cyber joy in my life and it’s my blog. I love it. Visiting, doing guest posts, interviewing and reviewing and the gamut of what I call my own personal magazine. I love blogging to the same extreme that I hate one of the other “he who must never be named.” Do I liken twitter Voldemort from Harry Potter? Yes, like Lord Vader and Voldemort, twitter is my dark side, Facebook is like a simple chat where I can read about my writer’s group and their latest books published and keep up with pictures of my grandchildren … twitter is like a needle in my eye.
So you see Brinda, for every like their is a dislike, or one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor 🙂
Gloria,you have humor, a rare and wonderful quality in any writer. So go write something funny :)You are already light years ahead of me just understanding the language of all of this stuff.
Florence,
(1) I love the phrase “muttle over grafts.” It’s a new one for me. 🙂 I’ll have to look it up. Are you saying that your daughter set up your PERSONAL facebook page? The one where you “friend” people and keep up with each other’s statuses? That’s wonderful and fun. It’s different from a FACEBOOK fan page. They function in a different way and are for marketing businesses. You can still make one if I’m understanding correctly. Yeah, don’t go and poke your eyes out with a stick. I promise it’s not that painful. I have a Personal page for Brinda Berry with my friends and then a separate Business page for Brinda Berry, Author.
(3) I can tell you love to blog because you do a wonderful job on yours. Continue on!!
Hey, Florence! Thanks for popping by and giving me (us) a new phrase to play with, Woot! Love it when they’re unique enough that they haven’t yet reached cliche status.
And, I agree with Brinda. You have a well planned site. Your posts are always interesting. Write on! <==== Pity. That's become cliche in our writer's world. I like to think I invented it, but (unlike our buddy Al and the internet) I exit my imaginary world before I declare that to the world.
Ok, it’s official. WP ate my comment yesterday. Now I have to remember what I wrote! I do know that part of it concerned me not liking FB at all. I try. But Twitter is so much friendlier! On FB I feel like whole conversations slide right by. I thought it would be the other way around, but it’s not. I will continue to try to participate on FB though. At least once a week. I know, it should be more, but what can I say? Thank goodness for automated posts??? Oh, and I remember. I think to also address the YA 13-17 year olds you might go on social gaming sites like GAIA. They have book review forums as well as lots of teen chat. And you can kill dolls and chase chickens and things like that too. Too much fun!
Buurp! So! That’s where my extra pound came from yesterday, Jessica. All your lofty words and NOT the Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. Phew!
I weigh in (Yikes! Unannounced and obscure segue alert!) on the FACEBOOK side, Jessica. When a blog rocks, I can post it directly to FB from the author’s site and add a thumbnail. Same goes with helping other authors who I follow. Both a Tweet and a FB link are good. But, Facebook stays “put” for a bit on my author page, and visitors get a taste of what I like, who I follow, and a bit of my voice in the intro blurb.
BUT, I’m a neweeter, so TWITTER may grow on me. Thanks for visiting! Off to check out your post today, oh-prolific-blogster-person.
Gloria- You are wonderful about supporting others on your FB page. I’ve noticed that. *note to self to be more selfless like Gloria*
Jessica, o kindred spirit in not liking FB.. I agree that Twitter is mega-friendly. It’s like FB is a “club” and Twitter lets everybody be friends . What a great idea about GAIA and gaming forums. Did you know my YA characters are gamers? Maybe you just have ESP. Anywho, that is an excellent suggestion. Thank you.