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July 19th, 2010 
6Guest Expert: Dana Lynn Smith
Many Facebook users are confused by the role of Profiles and Pages. On Facebook, Profiles are strictly for people. Facebook’s rules require that you register your Profile in your own name and you can have only one Profile. If you set up your Profile in the name of your business or book, you risk having your account cancelled.
A Facebook Fan Page (or Page) is designed for business use and it’s a great way to promote your book. You can set up a Fan Page for your business, book, or even a character in your book, and you can create multiple Pages. Here are some advantages that Pages have over personal Profiles.
- By using Facebook applications like “Static FBML,” you can create customized tabs on your Facebook Fan Page containing graphics, text and videos to promote your book, and even include opt-in forms to grow your mailing list.
- You can specify which tab of the Page that you want new visitors to land on and create a welcome message for new visitors. See my welcome message for an example and also notice the “FREE ebook” tab on the Page.
- Facebook users join a Page by clicking on the “Like” button at the top of the Page and there’s no limit to the number of fans who can join. With your Profile, you are limited to 5,000 friends.
- You can send messages to your all of your fans, which show up in their newsfeed.
- Pages get indexed by search engines and each tab on the Page has its own URL that you can link directly to.
Click here to create your own Fan Page. When you’ve got your Page in place, here are some ways to promote your book by building traffic to your Fan Page:
- Once your Page has at least 25 fans, create a personalized URL for your Page.
- Beneath the photo or image on your Page, click “Suggest to Friends” to send invitations to your Facebook friends to join your page. The invitation will appear in the In Box of your friends.
- Write an article for your blog and ezine inviting people to join your Page.
- Invite people to join your page by posting updates on Twitter, your Facebook personal Profile, and on other social networks. It’s best to offer a benefit, rather than just asking people to join.
To encourage Facebook users to join your Page, be active in posting on the page, maintain lively discussions, and offer some benefits and incentive for becoming a fan. Even though promotion is allowed, you still need to be somewhat subtle and provide value to your fans rather than just a sales pitch.
Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing, by Dana Lynn Smith. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana’s free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you visit her book marketing blog.
Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of several marketing guides, including Facebook Guide for Authors. For more book marketing tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana’s free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you visit The Savvy Book Marketer blog.
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Great I didn’t realise I cuold setup a Fan page for my book
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[...] Promote Your Book on Facebook with a Fan Page: Of course, make it about them not you — just like successful social media users do. [...]
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Do you know if you already have a regular Facebook account, can you also sign up for a fan page to promote a book or character? I’m not clear on this.
thanks
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If you’re planning on having more than one book (whether in a series or just different books by you), I STRONGLY suggest setting the page to reflect that. Having a page for every book is an exercise in cluttering up people’s interest and may cause them to lose interest.
For example, I’m writing a book, called Poo Bah. It’s a faerie tale/fantasy, and I honestly don’t think it will have any sequels. I’m not creating a page just for it, but rather for my writing ‘brand’ – this way, I can promote Poo Bah, and also the other books I work on, to the same set of fans. And when Poo Bah comes and goes, the page isn’t left or ignored.
It makes it seem more interactive.
Just my two cents.
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I agree that facebook \like\ or fan pages are integral to promotion of your book or business. It is separate from your personal profile and gives you another \reach\ to the facebook audience.
Recently, as of March 11, 2011 Facebook made changes for fan pages. No longer can you utilize FBML, now it is Iframe integration.
If you’d like, I can design a \like\ page for you.
Like to fly – http://www.facebook.com/TheMerryBird.Designs
Kristine Sheehan
TheMerryBird.com Designs
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Thanks for your note Kristine. Anyone who installed the Static FBML app on their Fan Page before March 11 can continue to use it (until Facebook decides otherwise), but it may be a good idea to explore switching to iFrames to take advantage of increased functionality. Here is some additional information about creating custom content for Fan Pages: http://bit.ly/gMupxm
Best,
Dana
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