Facebook

 

Facebook

Let’s start our social media tour with the big guy. Well, big guy for Gen Xers. Many of you probably know and use the app. As a writer, it’s the best place to find readers.

Facebook is a social media platform where users can post messages, pictures, videos, just about anything to share. Friends can post comments and replies. It’s an interactive environment with many layers. Not only can you post, but you can chat with friends, join interest groups, read news, find out the weather, and more.

Getting started is easy. Create an account by just signing up. Search for people you might know and send them a friend request. Search for writer and reader groups and join the fun. Boom, eight hours later you made dozens of friends, five interest groups, and played twenty different games.

But as an author…

Here are my two cents. Facebook has the readers. Most users are over thirty, but these people read, have money to buy books, and time to chat online in fan groups. If you are a YA or children’s author, Facebook probably won’t have your readers. But you might find their parents. Facebook is designed for user interactions, advertisements, and information. Authors can use these elements to promote their books and brands.

How to use Facebook as an author.

•  Set up an Author Page. (This differs from a Profile.) It’s a business page where fans can find you. Keep it set to public so that anyone can find you. Invite your fans to the page either through direct invites or when they like one of your posts. Use this page to promote your books and brand through interesting posts, ads, memes, videos, pictures, etc. Post every day. It might sound like too much work, but it’s worth it. Because of Facebook algorithms, some of your fans might not see all your posts. Having many posts to interact with will keep the page hot in the algorithms. The more comments on your posts the better you will do. Encourage people to click Love, Care, Laugh instead of just Like (thumbs up) when enjoying your post. The other reactions besides Like move you up in the algorithms. (Or they did, at the time of this post.)

What to post on your author page? Everything, from personal stuff (not too personal though, like your home address or pics of your babies) to cover reveals, to book sales, to vacation slides, to pet pics to… You get the idea. This page shows the world (of Facebook) who you are and what you are writing. Find a style and be consistent. Post those cat pics every Saturday. Use Wednesday as a tease on Hump Day (especially if you are a steamy or erotic writer), do a TGIF meme on Friday, or whatever your style.

• If you have a large fan base, create a fan page (Group). It’s a page for your fans to hang out, discuss your books together, and have some interactions with you. A fan page is for the readers to talk, not you. (Of course, you need to monitor it. Maybe create a spin-off group for spoilers. Be sure everyone plays by the rules.) I know a few authors who’ve had luck with these pages, gained new readers and had fun interacting with fans.

• Learn to create ads through Facebook. Because the app is full of readers and is far-reaching, Facebook ads are a great way to find new audiences. Best advice: Take a class on Facebook ads with a reputable person. I’m still trying to figure them out. A few other romance authors teach wonderful classes on how to make ads and make them pay. It’s worth the cost of the class to reach new audiences through an app where you already established a presence.

• Team up with other authors. A Group for your genre with other authors allows you to share audiences, give more content to readers, and expand your reach. Plus, it’s super fun. I’m a reader in some groups, but I help run a romance group where we have guest authors, contests, parties, play meme games, and more. It’s a nice small set of authors sharing and reaching out to our fans. They are perfect for when you are still establishing your fan base and might not have enough people for a fan Page. Plus, opportunities abound to help other authors and get help yourself. Plus, readers love these groups, especially ones that give out free prizes!

Facebook can be a powerful tool for an author, but not everyone likes or is on the app. Next week, we will discuss Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Social Media for Writers

 

My blog friends, 

I have an idea. Give a listen to my proposal and let me know what you think.

We’ve worked through about twenty-five apps so far. Yes, some posts were just links to check out, but we covered some serious ground. We’ve talked about grammar, organization, writing programs, marketing, graphics, and more. I hinted at some social media sites such as BookBub, Goodreads, and Book + Main. But we haven’t tackled the big social media apps.

I’m guessing if you can find my blog, you have some grasp of social media. After talking with a good friend about Instagram, I wondered if I could help writers with social media apps, too.

Here’s my plan.

I’ll post one per app on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Pinterest, Linktree, YouTube, Discord, and maybe a few more. I’ll do the what-is, how-to, and for-authors in one post. We’ll focus on the “how does this benefit you” side of these apps. Some are probably familiar. Others might be completely unknown. (Fortunately, I have two teenagers to assist me.)

Why am I backpedaling? Again, the conversation with my friend and the class on TikTok given by my publisher got me thinking. As authors, we need to market ourselves, our brand, and our books. Social media is the best way to get your name out there. I’ve learned many tips and tricks from classes, authors, and my teens about how to use these apps to my best benefit.

What do you all think? A couple months of social media or should we focus on marketing and writing programs?

Let me know what you think in the comments on either the blog, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I’d love to hear your opinions. (Or tell me what other apps we should explore.)

Thanks!

Love,

Ginny

Mailchimp for Authors

 

 

The biggest take from Mailchimp is: make a newsletter. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard from successful authors that newsletters are key to sales. They allow you direct contact with your readers.

So, what do you need to start your newsletter? Glad you asked. (I’m not the guru of newsletters. I’ve taken a few classes and can pass on all the advice I’ve received.)

Here we go:

• A PO Box or business address. Before you sign up for Mailchimp, have a business address. On Mailchimp, your street address is included in any newsletter. Again, if you don’t want fans at your house…
• A logo/brand. Before making a landing page or newsletter, make a brand for yourself. Find/create/buy a graphic you can use commercially and pick a font for your name. Remember, branding is about you, not just your books. Be sure the info/colors/style choices match who you are as a writer. I write steamy contemporary, but not erotica. My font is curly, and my logo is a drawn heart. Simple, easy to remember, and on-brand with my covers.
• Content. Plan your campaigns for new releases, cover reveals, vacation photos, guest content from other authors, etc. Randomly sending out “Buy My Book” emails gets old fast. Use personal stuff if you can, like pet pics and hobbies, but perhaps not family photos.
• A landing page. Be sure to include GDPR/Internet commerce law questions to comply with all legal restrictions on using email addresses. It also gives your customer a friendly welcome. You can also use the landing page to either gather more information or perhaps do a lead magnet to reward readers for signing up. A lead magnet is a giveaway of some sort. Some authors use a free book, chapter, swag, or an original story not available anywhere. Readers love free stuff, and a free book wins every time.
• A list of contacts. Your mailing list is essential to marketing to people who want to hear from you. Mailchimp makes it so easy to create and maintain. It does all the work for you. If you completed your sign-up GDPR/Can-Spam/Internet commerce law compliant, every contact chose to be on the list. Back it up once a month. That list is pure gold and completely in your control as a business. It’s great to have a presence on social media, but Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. have their own agendas. Any of them could disappear instantly. There’s the possibility of losing out on huge customer bases if your social media crashes, you get banned, or someone hacks your data. But that list of contacts, regularly backed up, is yours to keep, to use as you will, and to maintain contact with your loyal readers.
• Sign-up Link. Mailchimp will provide you with a direct link to your landing page. Copy that link and post it everywhere on your social media and website. Especially your website. People go there specifically to find you. WordPress has great plug-ins to create places on your webpage for newsletter sign-ups. Facebook will also allow you to add a button to your author page that links to your newsletter sign-up. Always give this link to readers if you do Facebook takeovers, blog hops, or any other personal promotion. You might not catch that reader during your takeover. But when they receive your wonderful newsletter with your books, your hobbies, and your pets, you can win them over then.

Hopefully, that will get you all started with newsletters. And don’t forget to team up with other authors to do newsletter swaps and share audiences.

Mailchimp is a great app for this service, but there are others available. Most work on these same principles. As an author, I cannot recommend enough for everyone to get a mailing list and publish a newsletter.

How To Mailchimp Part 2

 

Last week, we rushed through creating a newsletter. This week we’ll highlight some of the other features on Mailchimp. Again, there are so many things you can do with Mailchimp. I can’t possibly get to them all.

Templates

It’s a great idea to create a template for your monthly, quarterly, weekly newsletter. (Though if you are weekly, you don’t need me.) A template of your newsletter with your layout, logo, links, and other data already added makes it even easier to send out. A few clicks versus building an entire layout. Click on Email template and choose one that will work for most of your newsletters. Click on the top box to enter your logo, banner, or standard picture. Click on the social media tags and add all your links. (This is the best part of a template—not having to find all those links.) Don’t worry about the info at the bottom of the template. When you create a campaign, Mailchimp will automatically add that data (address, email, etc.).

Segments

Find Segments under the Audience menu. This allows you to divide your customer list based on their interests, ages, location, etc. You can split up your audience to target them better. Click on Create a Segment. Next choose which audience members and what criteria to use. Choose Any or All contacts that match the criteria including Date Added, Sign up Source, and Campaign activity. You can segment your audience in many other ways. Each criterion for division has different choices. If you click by Date Added and choose After the Last Campaign was sent, you can send just the newest members of your contact list a message. Maybe a personal welcome note or a lead magnet (a freebie like digital content). We’d have another eighteen-page post if I went through all the options for segments, but questions you ask from your landing page/sign up can determine how you can segment. Hit the Add button to narrow the field further with more criteria. Once complete, hit Preview Segment to see the subscribers who meet your request. Click Save Segment or go back and revise. You can also send a campaign for email or postcards right there. You can export the segment into a CSV file for backup.

Webpages

Click on the Webpage option on the left-hand menu. Choose how you wish to start—Design, Selling, or Services. I’m starting with Design as I’m not planning to sell books or services from my site. Choose a name for your webpage and click Edit My Site. Click on Edit Page to design the elements. Like the newsletter creator, the webpage creator allows you to click on elements on the page and edit them. Uploading your images is easy. Text and images are edited on the right, similar to the newsletter. Each pre-made element can be edited to add data, such as the buttons. Click on a button to add a link. On the bottom right is the Sections menu to speedily get you to a section to edit. Just click on your choice.

Back on the management page, other options include Style that has various color schemes for text and backgrounds. The cookie manager puts a disclaimer about how cookies work and lets the viewer know you are using them. It’s important if you are using a Pixel to let people know you are gathering information. Like WordPress, Mailchimp will host the site with their name in your domain name. Having your newsletter, mailings, marketing, and website all in one place can be super convenient.

As I write this, I see Mailchimp has a major announcement coming. If it counteracts anything from the last two posts, I’ll give you all an update.

 

 

How to Use Mailchimp

 

Let’s get you an account.

1. Click on the Sign up for Free icon at Mailchimp.com for the basic services of the app. Or you can also choose the Pick your Plan button to see more options. On my last blog, I posted about Marketing prices. There is a host of other options for users besides that option. Additionally, there’s a plan for building your website or sign-up for the Transactional email feature. Fees apply with some of these. If you are just starting, I’d recommend staying with the free plans until you have a hefty contact list and/or need to interact with customers using the account. (Honestly, if you need more than just the free option, I suggest you do some serious research the costs of other mailing services, too.)
2. Once you confirm your account by email, you can get started, choose your plan, and add data to your account—name, phone, website, and business name.
3. Next, Mailchimp needs an address, a physical one. WARNING! Here’s the spot where you may accidentally get bogged down. Your address will appear in your newsletter. So if you do not want mail, spam, superfans showing up at the door of your actual house, get a post office box for the address. (Yes, it’s an investment, but where else do you want all your fan mail to go?)
4. Next is the contact list. If you have a list to import, here’s where to submit that information. If you do not, press No or I don’t Know, and Mailchimp will help. Two notes of caution here, mailing lists are essential for authors. Keep your list clean, accurate, and close (in other words, back it up monthly). Second, ensure people on your list volunteered to be there. Spam email is not what you want to accomplish here, neither do you want to violate GDPR or other international email laws.
5. Next, they ask about what you’re advertising/selling. Choose your best options: Technology, Physical Goods, Original Content (blogs, vlogs, photos, etc.), Services, or Other. You can skip this step.
6. Then they ask where you’ve set up shop. Choose what best fits: website, physical store, other. You can skip this step.
7. Last, choose any additional content from Mailchimp—Newsletter, Highlights, Insights, and Analysis.

Phew, let’s actually get started.

Mailchimp has its menu along the left-hand side of the screen.

• Dashboard: At the beginning, there isn’t much to your dashboard except calls to action. Once you do mailings, you will have summaries and stats here.
• Create: Create a marking campaign—email, landing page, customer journey, etc. (more on this later)
• Audience: Add subscribers, set up an audience list, tags, segments, sign-up forms. (more on this later too)
• Campaigns: All the stats and numbers and data from all your ongoing and completed campaigns.
• Automations: Transactional email is found here, along with segmenting audiences. Some of these are premium features.
• Website: Create a website, store, appointments, and domains.
• Content Studio: An assistant to help you create effective marketing campaigns, products, logos, and ads.
• Integrations: Add Mailchimp to your social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and many more.
• Search: Find the things you can’t find elsewhere.

Mailchimp has many services, but for the rest of this post, I’ll walk you through setting up a newsletter.

1. First, you need an audience. Gather emails through a landing page to create contacts on Mailchimp.
2. Click on the Create button on the left menu. A pop-up will display a variety of projects.
3. Choose Landing Page. This may seem premature, but a landing page will give a place for your subscribers to go when signing up for your newsletter. You will provide a link to this page in your sign-up locations (webpage, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). It’s a great place to get the permissions needed to proceed with emailing customers.
4. Choose a name for the landing page and which audience you will use. (For now you probably only have one audience, and it’s only you. Later you’ll have more so no worries.)
5. Choose from the templates. Start with Lead Generation for a simple template to sign-up customers.
6. This new screen is a template to build the landing page. Add your logo, title, text, company information, pictures of products, links to social media, etc. Do not leave any of the template text on the screen! Use your own words to brag about your company and products.
7. Click on each element and edit on the right-hand side of the screen.
8. Images can be easily uploaded and scaled. Press Replace to remove the stock image and add your images. Search your computer as per usual and upload the image. Use all three menus at the top (Content, Style, Setting) to make them perfect.
9. Text will be displayed on the left as you type. Customize as you would in a word processor. 
10. For the call-to-action button, customize the data you wish to collect. Just email is fine, but if you want to personalize your newsletter, ask for a first name at least. Be aware if you ask for too much personal data, you might scare off the customer. You can also begin collecting data to segment your audience later by adding checkboxes about their interests.
11. Change the title of your button (or not) and decide where the customer will go next after clicking the button. It defaults to a confirmation page on Mailchimp, but you can also send them to a website (hopefully, your website). The confirmation message can be edited below the button options on the right.
12. Social media buttons can be added or removed at the bottom. Click on the icons on the left and add the URLs on the right. Add more than Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by clicking the Additional Service button. Choose from several options included website and email.
13. Be sure to click Save and Close inside the right menu box AFTER EACH ELEMENT is edited.
14. Use the Preview option at the top right of the page to view before you press the Save and Close blue button at the very bottom right of the screen.
15. When all is perfect, press that blue Save and Close button to finish your landing page.

Phew, and we haven’t even written your newsletter yet! This blog post is long, but we’re almost there.

The Actual Newsletter

1. Click the Create button on the left menu. Start with an email campaign for now.
2. Give the campaign a name that will tell what info the newsletter will contain. Customers will not see the name. Click Begin.
3. On this page, click Add Recipients to add your contact list to the campaign. (If you are on the free plan, you only have one audience to choose from.) Add the From content. (It’s a good idea to have a business email for responses to the campaign.) Be clear and friendly about who the email is from. Add a subject line that is clear and inviting. Last, click the Design Email and a template to create the actual newsletter content.
4. Many of the elements here are the same as the landing page. You can add more elements from the right by dropping and dragging. To remove items, click the trash can in the black bar around the block. Again, be sure to click Save and Close on each element. And only hit the Save and Close blue button on the bottom AFTER you have previewed the newsletter (button at the top of the page).
5. Press Continue when completely finished. (Mailchimp will warn you if you forget to edit any placeholders.)
6. Check the status bar at the top of the screen. It will tell you if you are ready to send. You can save a draft, schedule the send, or just hit the button when ready. Review the audience number once more before hitting Send again, and that’s it. The newsletter is out there. (But no more Mailchimp high-fives when done. Oh well.)

There’s so much more to Mailchimp. Next week, we’ll take more about marketing and web pages. Don’t miss the post!