What do you think of Facebook as a marketing tool for self-published books?An Interview with Ron Pramschufer
A month ago I would have told you that Facebook was a useless website where 15 years olds trash talked each other and otherwise wasted time. As a mater of fact, I originally opened my Facebook account to try to rummage around and see what my 16 year old was up to. Today I am convinced that Facebook should be considered a primary marketing tool by every self-publisher.
About a week or so ago, I visited FaceBook to see if my 16 year old had changed the “Animal House” looking picture of himself that was posted to his account. He hadn’t. To the first time visitor the website is just what the name implies, a virtual book of faces. The first time you go to the site you reach a very plain looking page with a green button that says “sign up”. For those who don’t want to sign up right away there is a search field where you can use to enter a person’s name. For instance, if you enter “Pramschufer”, you’ll come up with my picture, right on top. There are a few links about the picture like “send message” or “view friends” or “Poke him/her” but all links take you to the sign-up page. This is as far as you go without signing up. The sign-up is no big deal, go ahead and do it. An email, choose a password, enter a birthday and you’re in…. or at least part way in. Now those same people that you did the sample search for, you can click and “send message” or “Poke” or “View Friends” or “Add to Friends”.
As a parent, using the site for the first time, I thought I had hit pay-dirt when I hit “View Friends” because I could now see my kid’s “friends”… but that was all I could see… postage sized images of all his “friends”. Other than a few, “I haven’t seen him/ her since 2nd grade; this is as far as you get in the super snooper department at Facebook.
The next level of activity is adding friends, which is what Facebook is all about. It took me a while to figure out what it was all about. To add a friend, you click on the “Add to Friends” link next to the picture. The trick is that the person on the other side needs to click “ok” before you are officially a friend. A friend basically means that you have gone from access of the person’s headshot, to access to the persons home page. What is on a person’s home page? Whatever they put there. I think I originally just listed my name and company name and maybe a picture.
Finding friends is a bit tricky in the beginning. For instance, did I ask my 16 year old son to be my friend? Of course not. There was no way he was going to click OK and let me in. He doesn’t even let his older brother into his “inner sanctum”. I tried my oldest son first. He accepted me as a friend. That was pretty neat. I got to see some of his friends. Many of which I already knew. I clicked on a few of them and they were added to my friend list. I still didn’t see any real point to the site until I did a search for publishers, or self publishers, I forget which. Lo and behold up pops the picture of probably the best book hustling self-publisher on the planet, Relentless Aaron. I click the “Add to Friends” link and a half hour later Relentless was on my friend list. It was exploring his site that the full impact of this site became apparent.
If you are going to sell books, or anything else for that matter, you need to look your prospect in the eye, reach out and shake their hand and demonstrate how your product meets their need. Facebook give you that opportunity. I don’t see it as a “quick hit” but a place to build a strong foundation on which to build. The site is very easy to work with and everything can be customized to meet your personal tastes. There is a great mixture of work utilities as well as playthings and other gimmicks to keep you coming back for more. If you let them, your “friends” will get to know you. As they get to know you, they get to know your product. If you are an author/self-publisher, you have something to share. Share it.
Facebook is the #7th highest ranked website on the Internet for web traffic. To put that number in prospective Amazon is ranked #33. Think about that a moment. Authors spend countless hours and sometimes thousands of dollars to get a few copies on a shelf, spine out, in a bookstore visited by a few thousand people per month, in hopes of selling books. Facebook has tens of millions of visitors and it costs nothing but a little bit of your time.
If you are already listed in Facebook, look me up and add me to your friend list. There aren’t too many Pramschufers there so it shouldn’t be hard to find me. I started a group called Self-Publishing Basics the other day. You are welcome to join that as well. I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with that group yet so you’ll certainly be getting in on the ground floor. If you haven’t signed up yet, go do it now. Once you are in, spend some time there and work on your contact page. This is how people will get to know you. There are dozens of modules that can be added to your site to help people get to know you and help you communicate with others. Have some fun, meet some prospects, shake some hands and sell some books. See you there.
Your friend,
Ron
From Publishing Basics Dec 5 2007
http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=230
