|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 13, 2014 15:48:09 GMT -5
Hell's teeth, I can't even get people talking about my books on my Facebook page - what chance they'd do so on a website forum? I have 64 like on FB - not all of them known to me (and some decidedly dodgy ones) - and I can't seem to get any engagement going. I ask questions and they're ignored. I post comments that people turn a blind eye to, and links that no one clicks. Sometimes I think I'm just talking to myself.  My experience is pretty much identical to yours. The only thing I have going for me is the Magic Appreciation Tour (a site for magical fantasy authors). Several of my friends are from that group, so they sometimes like or comment on my blog links. No readers as far as I know. |
|
|
|
Post by Becca Mills on Feb 13, 2014 16:16:41 GMT -5
Hell's teeth, I can't even get people talking about my books on my Facebook page - what chance they'd do so on a website forum? I have 64 like on FB - not all of them known to me (and some decidedly dodgy ones) - and I can't seem to get any engagement going. I ask questions and they're ignored. I post comments that people turn a blind eye to, and links that no one clicks. Sometimes I think I'm just talking to myself. My experience is pretty much identical to yours. The only thing I have going for me is the Magic Appreciation Tour (a site for magical fantasy authors). Several of my friends are from that group, so they sometimes like or comment on my blog links. No readers as far as I know. Yeah, I think the website/blog thing is hard to do, assuming that what you want to do is attract reader engagement. The only people who ever followed my blog were other authors, I think. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it makes the site not about marketing to readers/cultivating fans directly. When I get my blog going again, I'm going to radically reorient it toward reader interests. Not sure exactly how to do that ... Facebook is hard, Lynda. There was an interesting thread on it on KB over the last couple days: www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,178306.0.html The trick seems to be to get high-quality likes -- people who like your page b/c they genuinely want to interact with you -- and then to develop a pattern of posting that attracts engagement. I took Shawn Inmon's advice and crafted a reading-related question for a post yesterday, and it got (for me) very high views and engagement. It seemed like sort of a fluffy question to me (to what degree have you switched over to ereading?), but some folks were interested. Maybe what makes a good question is answerability? Not sure. Then you have to keep doing it, day after day, because you have to fight your way into people's feeds. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 16:23:33 GMT -5
Facebook is hard, Lynda. There was an interesting thread on it on KB over the last couple days: www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,178306.0.html The trick seems to be to get high-quality likes -- people who like your page b/c they genuinely want to interact with you -- and then to develop a pattern of posting that attracts engagement. Facebook has some other issues. I think some were brought up in that thread, but they deliberately obscure your posts from followers unless you've paid to promote each one. Since going public, they've used a lot of somewhat underhanded ways to get more money. Honestly, I think some of them are really lame, because FB doesn't always let you know that nobody has seen things. Right now, I think blogs are the best way to communicate with readers. Many writers only write to other writers on their blogs, though, so readers don't find their blogs very interesting. I slowly got on the email list truck, but I'm not real happy about it. I don't prefer to know things by email, but maybe it's just me. |
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 13, 2014 16:51:38 GMT -5
Facebook has some other issues. I think some were brought up in that thread, but they deliberately obscure your posts from followers unless you've paid to promote each one. Since going public, they've used a lot of somewhat underhanded ways to get more money. Honestly, I think some of them are really lame, because FB doesn't always let you know that nobody has seen things. Right now, I think blogs are the best way to communicate with readers. Many writers only write to other writers on their blogs, though, so readers don't find their blogs very interesting. I slowly got on the email list truck, but I'm not real happy about it. I don't prefer to know things by email, but maybe it's just me. I'm cautious about how much effort I put into social networking tools that are owned by someone else. You are playing in their sandbox, and they make the rules. They can also change the rules at any time. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to use them; that's where you'll get exposed to NEW readers. However, I want my EXISTING readers to have a resource that is completely controlled by me. Working in business applications development for 25 years taught me that the #1 asset for any business is its customer list. For me, that list is my readers (even if only Amazon knows who they really are). My blog, my book web site, my new releases mailing list, these are things *I* control. Most of my blog posts are reader-oriented, although I do occasionally publish information related to my writing experiences. I do participate in a few social networking sites (mostly Twitter, Fb, and G+) in hopes of finding new readers, but I can only stand to do so much. I'd rather invest the energy in content I control. |
|
|
|
Post by Suzy on Feb 13, 2014 17:14:30 GMT -5
That's so true,Daniel. I feel I have to put more effort into my blog. That's where I'd like readers to find me.
|
|
|
|
Post by Becca Mills on Feb 13, 2014 17:46:40 GMT -5
The problem is that they all already are on Fb. Asking them to come to your blog is a separate thing. In fact, they have to leave the place they hang out and go to some other place. I think that's why it might be hard to generate consistent interaction with a blog.
One of my college friends has a major blog. I really want to support her, but I never remember to visit her blog. I notice her posts and read them ... when they show up in my Fb feed.
|
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 13, 2014 18:57:50 GMT -5
The problem is that they all already are on Fb. Asking them to come to your blog is a separate thing. In fact, they have to leave the place they hang out and go to some other place. I think that's why it might be hard to generate consistent interaction with a blog. One of my college friends has a major blog. I really want to support her, but I never remember to visit her blog. I notice her posts and read them ... when they show up in my Fb feed. And THAT is why you need to hook your blog up to your Facebook page.  I agree that you can't ignore the social networks. I'm just suggesting that you view your blog as your Internet Hub. Put your creative energy into your blog where you have unlimited space, where you own and control the content, and where all the side-bar marketing talks about YOUR stuff (like a signup form for a new releases mailing list). Then you push (or pull) links to your blog onto the social networks. If Social Network X disappears tomorrow, you'll still have your content and can start linking to it from hot new Social Network Y. It's okay if readers prefer to interact with you through their favorite social network. All you've done is expand the comment space of your blog onto that network. None of that affects what happens with your content. What I'm talking about here is "write once, publish many." You get all the benefits of regular interaction on the social networks, but you retain control of your content. Adding new spokes to the hub (or dropping one) is relatively easy. |
|
|
|
Post by Becca Mills on Feb 13, 2014 19:19:17 GMT -5
view your blog as your Internet Hub ! Ahhhh .... I get it.  But! It's so much quicker and easier to post stuff on Fb. It can be just a sentence or two. If I did that on my blog, and I'd feel lame. |
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 13, 2014 19:23:16 GMT -5
view your blog as your Internet Hub ! Ahhhh .... I get it. But! It's so much quicker and easier to post stuff on Fb. It can be just a sentence or two. If I did that on my blog, and I'd feel lame. I totally understand. It's hard to resist the siren song of fast, disposable content. |
|
|
|
Post by Becca Mills on Feb 13, 2014 19:59:11 GMT -5
Ahhhh .... I get it. But! It's so much quicker and easier to post stuff on Fb. It can be just a sentence or two. If I did that on my blog, and I'd feel lame. I totally understand. It's hard to resist the siren song of fast, disposable content. Yeah. That's exactly what it is -- quick, shallow engagement. I also use my Fb page as a repository for stuff I might want to come back to but don't really feel I need to bookmark. But those sorts of links don't generate much engagement, even though they tend to be interesting (er ... I think so, anyway ...). |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2014 21:20:06 GMT -5
view your blog as your Internet Hub ! Ahhhh .... I get it. But! It's so much quicker and easier to post stuff on Fb. It can be just a sentence or two. If I did that on my blog, and I'd feel lame. You still can. There are Wordpress plugins that let's all that show up on your website, such as FeedWordPress. You can make it a little block on the sidebar that perfectly features these short updates. I don't use it for Facebook, but I do feed my Twitter stream onto my blog. |
|
|
|
Post by Becca Mills on Feb 13, 2014 22:52:27 GMT -5
Ahhhh .... I get it. But! It's so much quicker and easier to post stuff on Fb. It can be just a sentence or two. If I did that on my blog, and I'd feel lame. You still can. There are Wordpress plugins that let's all that show up on your website, such as FeedWordPress. You can make it a little block on the sidebar that perfectly features these short updates. I don't use it for Facebook, but I do feed my Twitter stream onto my blog. Thanks for the tip, Lynn! I do feed my twitter stream to a sidebar on my blog. I'll try to add the Fb widget when I get the blog revamped, as well as the reverse (blog>Fb). It'd be great to have all my various posts showing up everywhere. Hopefully I won't get stuck in a never-ending loop of cross-posting! |
|
