7 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page

Facebook Pages (also known as Fan Pages) look similar to personal Profiles, but they are designed for business use and they are a terrific way to promote yourself and your business. You can create a Page for your business, book, or even a character in a book. People join your Page by clicking the "like" button at the top of the page. (That button used to say "become a fan.")

Facebook Pages have several advantages over personal Profiles:

1.  You're limited to 5,000 friends on your Profile, but there's no limit on the number of people who can "like" your Page.

2.  Pages are designed for business use, so it's more acceptable to be promotional on a Page than on a Profile.

3.  You can create multiple Pages to promote different products or businesses.

4.  You can send a message to everyone who has joined your page. Your message will show up in the Update section of each fan's Inbox.

5.  You can create customized "tabs" or screens on your Page. For example, you can create a tab to promote your book and include your cover image, book video trailer and other content on that tab.

6.  After people join your Page, they will be directed to the Wall tab each time they visit the Page. But you can create a customized welcome screen for new visitors to land on. And each of the "tabs" or screens on your Page has its own URL that you can link to directly from outside of Facebook.

7.  You can use your Page to increase your email subscriber list, by adding an opt-in form and free bonus to one of the tabs. In the screenshot below you can see the Free Ebook tab that I added to my own Page.

Learn how to create custom content like this on your own Facebook page in the August issue of The Savvy Book Marketer Newsletter. If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up now and you’ll receive exclusive access to the newsletter archives, including my tutorial, How to Create Custom Content on Your Facebook Page. You’ll also get a free copy of my ebook, Top Book Marketing Tips.

To learn more about how to use Facebook to promote yourself and your book, read Facebook Guide for Authors or The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Have you already created a Facebook Page? Please share the link using the comment section below.

Comments

[Hyper Facebook Traffic]

Wow, the form on facebook.That's good marketing.

[Peter Charalambos]

Yup....Facebook

My traffic increased greatly once I used Facebook....good advice

[J. Steve Miller]

Thanks Dana! That was just the information I was looking for. On your list of priorities, where would you put "using Facebook" in the mix. As authors we all have limited time. In order to keep up with friends on Facebook, we can't use that time to send press releases, research the most popular thought leaders in our niche to send review copies to, etc. Thus, would Facebook be a top priority or lower priority? Do you see lots of actual sales coming from your Facebook presence?

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Hi Steve - well that's a tough question but I'll give it a shot. The most effective marketing strategies for any particular book depend factors like the type of book, the target audience, time constraints, budget, etc.

On average, I'd say that for nonfiction books Facebook would fall into the "medium" priority range, assuming that people in your target audience are Facebook users. I'd give a higher priority to some other activities like blogging, article writing and speaking, but I definitely recommend making time for social networking.

Yes, I do believe that Facebook and Twitter contribute greatly to my book sales, although it's probably more indirect than direct. See this article for more: http://ow.ly/2dsWG

Good luck with your book. (By the way, I love your book's tag line -- nice job of defining your market!)

Dana

[Anne O'Connell]

Hi Dana, Thanks again for some great insight! I wholeheartedly agree with you in that I have a Facebook profile for just family and friends and a business page called Global Writing Solutions Online (for my copy writing business). After reading this post it's clear to me that as I come into the home stretch of writing my first book, I need another page specific to that. I'm going to go now and set up my Anne the Writer page (my Twitter and Blogspot handle).

Thanks and keep that good advice coming!
Anne

[Candace Davenport]

Hi Anne-

I love your advice. We publish little books in a niche market and have our own page (www.facebook.com/ourlittlebooks) which has been incredible for business.

We always tell out authors, even before we publish their little books, to set up their book page on FB. Most of them 'get it', but unfortunately, not all do. Your post is excellent in telling them WHY they need to.

Now, we just need to customize our page more! Thanks.

Candace Davenport
www.ourlittlebooks.com
Little Books with a Big Message

[Candace Davenport]

lol- Sorry Dana- My fingers grabbed Anne from the post above while my brain was elsewhere. That's why "preview" is a good option!

Candace

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thanks Candace - and I just Liked your page! That word of the day thing is fun - I could sure learn something there.
Dana

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thanks Anne, and good luck with that book. It's never to early to start promoting!

[Lesley / sloanwriter]

Thanks Dana, it seems I can learn to expand my facebook page, which is not doing too much at the mo.

[Local Internet Marketing (New Jersey)]

Glad you had time to write about Facebook Fan Page, Dana. I've been seeing a lot of businesses using that feature as a local internet marketing (New Jersey is where I live and the biz district is still booming with companies - big and small) strategy. Most people say that it's effective. And fast, I believe. I haven't visited my Facebook page lately, so I'm not sure about the latest features of Fan Pages. Is it free of any charges?

- Hillary Carter

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Hillary, there's no charge (yet) for anything on Facebook except advertising. The fan page needs to be promoted to attract visitors, and it's best to offer people some kind of incentive for visiting or joining. To get a benefit from the page, you need to be active in posting and commenting on other people's posts.