Right now you may be hearing severely conflicting information about Facebook’s new 2015 news feed changes. Some people may be telling you it is time to drop and run to other social media networks? Who would blame them after Facebook very specifically made it known that the already limited reach of the news feed for pages is going to get significantly stricter?
Well this is where the interpretations and information get skewed. Facebook does not admit to making you pay to have a page instead of a profile. On the contrary, pages are and will remain free to create. What changes is it specifically making that will affect authors so much? Content filters. Facebook will be working more proactively to filter out repetitive sales posts and promotions that are strictly for no other reason than to drive sales.
What does this mean for authors? Simply this… You will need to get more creative on Facebook. Instead of sticking to generic posts to engage your audience you will need to let them in (so to speak). For authors Facebook is a critical key to building rapport with your readers and expanding your potential base. That won’t change. For most good marketing affiliates the best practices of engaging your readers and an 80/20 model (the ratio isn’t exact but it should be close) of non-brand related content to branded content should remain strong.
This has bandied the topic of having to pay to boost every post you want people to see. This isn’t necessarily going to happen. Unique and interesting posts that are meant to draw new readers are rarely the posts that Facebook is talking about regulating. The items specifically discussed are the sales and promotions without a clear cause. For example, “Enter now to win a Kindle Fire… (link)…” would likely be one of the ones restricted. Whereas a post about your time you spent writing today that encourages your readers to inspire you with something witty would likely make the same numbers we are seeing today.
What is the takeaway from this? Don’t abandon your author pages yet. They are still responsible for more than 1 billion views on Facebook a year and are still an effective tool when used properly. Will you have to pay to promote occasionally? Yes, most likely especially if you are doing promotions or giveaways. This however may help you in the long run as there will be less meaningless spam to compete with.
Soon we will be discussing custom content filters and targeting your readers audience on Facebook.
Meagham: Very interesting. So it looks like Goodreads contest aren’t going to be seen by your facebook friends?
Also I do not have an author page just a regular facebook page. And also you are saying we can’t promote our books on facebook after the first unless we pay for an advertisement? Stacy Nix Palm Springs Facebook.
Stacy,
No that is not at all what I am saying. This is meant for authors with the Facebook Pages. Your friends will still see your Goodreads giveaways but you may have to be more creative in getting them seen with the new feed restrictions. The paid advertising is used for the author pages (not profiles). The pages will need to be more creative or pay for the generic sales adds. Blog posts will be a better approach since they will not be as heavily wieghted down in the feeds. =)
I have already noticed that anything that mentions God, Christ, or anything biblical or Christian gets WAY less views than a post about my favorite type of ice cream or football team. This can be difficult for things like devotional blog posts. I get a lot more people seeing writing tips and author interviews or book reviews. It seems diversity may be one key?
Part of that I think is the audience base to be honest. The Christian market is smaller than the general author interviews and book reviews. For your site there is a new plugin for book reviews I am demoing on some of my other sites. I would really love to use for yours. It will make your posts be easier to find in Google when you are doing the book reviews.
I know they’re going to charge for posts they deem “ads.” How will they do that? If you try to post something they think they can charge for, do their algorithms pick it up and warn you before it posts? How do they charge you if they have no payment info from you? Thanks for the post, Meaghan.
Sandra, actually it is much simpler than that. They simply will not allow it to reach many people. It will still be in the feeds to people who visit your page to see but the actual newsfeed it wouldn’t be shown to many, if any, people. Is there ways around that? Probably, if you have a strong network of people who support you are are willing to comment, like or share those items then you might still see the numbers you are seeing now for the same posts.
Essentially Facebook is going to make it harder for pure adds to be seen. They won’t be back charging for them or anything like that but if their algorithms pick up the “adds” then the only way you would reach the same audience is to boost to post. Does that make sense?
Meaghan, keeping up with my “personal” FB page and my “author” page has been difficult. How about if I just keep everyone up to date on my “personal” page? My friends from my “personal” page have not been great about moving over to my “author” page – despite the invitation to come see all the exciting things I’m doing there. Could it be that “less is more” here?
Penny, in some cases yes. Your specific one, probably not. Simply put you are also a public speaker. The author page is a good splash page for the media side to see and interact with you.
You and I will be talking about this next weekend at http://writersadvancebootcamp.com/ however there are some major benefits we don’t want to overlook for your site.
Keeping up to both though I can show you how to make much easier. I’m glad we are rooming together so we have enough time to work out a great plan for you!