Facebook for Writers

I think we all know by now that Facebook is taking over the planet. It has captured a whopping ten percent of the world’s population. So it should come as no surprise that Facebook is a great way for writers to connect with and build a readership.

One of the things I like best about Facebook is that it is less serious and more fun than other styles of promotion. The key is getting your Facebook friends involved, talking about, and commenting on you, your blog, your stories and upcoming books. Here are some tips on how to drum up a bunch of excitement:

• Pictures and videos -- Create or find interesting or funny pictures and video clips that are relevant to your writing and post them on your wall. Invite people to comment and be sure to post your own comments on how this relates to your writing.
• Contests -- My favorite mystery writer, Carolyn Haines, had a marvelous series of contests leading up to the launch of her most recent book. She posted hilarious pictures and invited her friends to submit captions or short stories. The best captions received a copy of her book. Not only was it a lot of fun but people encouraged their friends to join the contest so that they could win one of Carolyn’s books.
• Networked blogs -- This free Facebook application will automatically take the title and an image from your latest blog posting and post it on your Facebook wall. That way every time you post to your blog you won’t have to remember to tell your friends about it, they’ll already see it on your wall. All you need to do is post comments to get the conversation started. Here’s a link to the Networked Blogs app: http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/index.php?ref=ts
• Special events -- Facebook has a wonderful event tool that writers don’t use often enough. Use the event tool to announce upcoming blog tours, book signings, book launch parties, and more. You can send out personal invitations to all of your facebook friends. They can sign up to attend and get any comments or updates to your event.
• Polls & voting -- get your readers involved by having them vote on book covers, potential titles, and even suggestions for you should play your character if it were to become a movie. Readers love giving input and feeling like they are part of writing experience. You can get them to vote by simply by asking folks to post comments or you can get snazzy by using one of the Facebook voting applications such as Polls. You can find it here: http://apps.facebook.com/opinionpolls/ .

These tools get your friends involved and talking about your writing. You can easily connect them to your blog and upcoming events. Most importantly, you make them feel that they are important... and who doesn’t like to feel important?

Next week we’ll start looking at techniques to build your following on Twitter.

From Tamela Buhrke