As of January 2013, Facebook has 1 billion users. 219 billion photos have been uploaded and there have been 140.3 billion friend connections. The average age of users is about 22.

Clearly Facebook is not going anywhere and although my teens hardly use it anymore, many of us visit the site daily. From a business purpose, engagement is more important than fans. You can have a 1,000 fans but if only 2 people are interacting with you very few people will see your posts on their feed. Take a look at the number of fans you have on your Facebook business page. Now note how many people are “talking about this.” Your goal should be to increase the “talking about” number.

Last year Facebook introduced EdgeRank (also known as News Feed Algorithm or why you see what you see on your news feed). It is important to understand how it works because it makes an impact on how many people see your page. Brittany Botti, Social Media Marketing Professional explained it simply: “The more your fans like, comment, share, or click through on your posts, the more often they will see your posts in their NewsFeed.”

Have you noticed you tend to see posts from the same people in your news feed? It’s probably the people you interact with most. For your business page to show up in more people’s feeds, you should improve the engagement by mixing up your posts.

Here’s a few ideas for increasing engagement:

• According to a study by SocialCode, the best time to post on Facebook is after 7pm EST on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

• Ask questions. Find out more about your fans

• Post photos. It is the most popular type of post

• Use quotes from books you love

• Change the cover photo regularly. It’s more fun and keeps people engaged

• Graphics from Pinterest (just make sure you give credit to the creator)

• Post short “thoughts” or “comments” – Posts that are 5 -10 words perform best

• I hear “Fill in the blank” gets lots of engagement. I have not tried it myself yet, but seems like fun

The most popular type of post is text only (short, funny, thoughtful ones). The least popular are updates with links. Add a link sparingly only when you need their attention and have a call to action. It’s important to be selective about the links you add as they are the least effective in promoting engagement.

If you are only on Facebook because you want to sell something, I am not sure any social networking will really work for you. Facebook allows us to know our “partners” better. Today partners are our clients, customers, and readers. It is because of them we are in business and by treating them with regard and respect, I think we’ll be in business longer. Of course, social networking is a business investment so you should totally promote your company/book/product, just mix it up. Hope this is helpful.

What have you found to be effective in encouraging engagement on Facebook?

© 2013 Fauzia Burke. All Rights Reserved.

Author Bio
Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, a digital publicity and marketing firm specializing in creating awareness for books and authors. For online publicity, book publishing and social media news, follow Fauzia on Twitter: @FauziaBurke. To talk with FSB and ask your book publicity questions, please join us on Facebook.

“Markets are conversations,” said the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto and it is still the number one thesis on their Web site. Social media allows you to have those conversations. When I wrote a Blog on Huffington Post called “It’s 2010: You Really Need to be on Facebook”, I was shocked by the response. In fact, Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts wrote on her Bnet blog that judging by the response, you’d think that I had asked people to walk around naked. It is surprising that anyone could still deny the benefits of social media for marketing.

Today’s marketing is truly about conversations. So if you are going to spend the time and money marketing a product or service, you should think “will this start, maintain, or enhance the conversation?” Will this get people talking, will they take it to their twitter feeds and Facebook pages? Will they forward, post, or retweet this?

I have found that it is seldom that one big hit that results in conversations. You need a lot of attention, some big, some small, all moving the conversation forward. If you compare hits to the old formula that big is best, then the smaller blogs have little impact. But if your goal is to truly broaden the scope of the discussion, you need lots of people talking on lots of different Web sites and blogs.

Even a feature on Web sites like CNN.com or Oprah.com does not guarantee instant increases to your Web site traffic or book sales. In fact, these days even a Today Show appearance is no guarantee. However, I believe a sustained effort to keep people talking results in speaking engagements, paid blog posts (yes there is such a thing), interview opportunities, more fans on your Facebook page, more traffic on your site, increased sales, and a recognition and expansion of “brand YOU.”

Selling books is almost always the first goal of every author, however if you chat with them a bit they’ll say things like, “I want to help people,” “I know my book will make a difference,” “I want to make sure people know what is really going on,” “I want to make people laugh,” “I want to entertain my readers” or “I envision a world where people love what they do and if they read my book they would.” I often take on projects based on these secondary goals, the goals that speak to the truth of the person and the importance of the book. These are the goals that are worth talking about.

As a marketer, I can’t ever get people to talk about the author’s first goal. Not once has a reviewer said, “Please buy this book because the author would like to have a bestseller.” However, those secondary goals have always started conversations and sparked interests and led to interviews and discussions.

Many of the bloggers we work with post their reviews on multiple blogs and Web sites like Twitter, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, Ning, Library Thing, Facebook, and more, all of which increase the search visibility of the book and author. In that way, those reviews or features are all fluid and viral. They do not stay where they are created. They often take flight and have a much broader life than just the traffic on their own blogs.

Search results, conversations and virality are most important in today’s connected market place, and they are achieved by a broad spectrum of coverage, not just the sites that get the most hits.

So as of today, think about the real reason you wrote the book, the reason why only you could have written it, think about those secondary goals, and then get on with the business of starting conversations.

What do you think it takes to promote a book these days? Please share your comments. Thanks.

To celebrate 16 years of online publicity business, FSB founder and President, Fauzia Burke, has taken the company to the Javits Center in New York City to officially debut at this year’s BookExpo America 2011. Being a recognized vendor at BEA is a big deal for FSB as it allows the company to better inform the public about its services and how they fit into the ever-changing publishing world which is right now abuzz with digital technologies. The online component of book publicity has become an integral process of today’s successful branding and marketing campaigns and FSB is proud to be at the forefront of this movement. See Fauzia’s BEA digital marketing presentation online if you missed it at the show. You can also hear her discuss these trends in a special podcast presented by BEA.

Each day at the FSB Associates booth a different set of members from FSB’s team along with Fauzia and Vice President John Burke will be greeting attendees with an in-depth presentation on the latest trends in book publicity and personal branding. Keeping with the digital theme, the company’s social publicity brochure and valuable resources are presented on USB flash drives for participants to take with them for later reference. There’s even an Amazon Kindle up for grabs for those that enter FSB’s giveaway.

Midway through BEA, there have already been tons of celebrity sightings and friendly exchanges with the big movers and shakers that make the publishing world go round. The photos below capture a taste of the fun and excitement FSB has experienced so far. Catch more up-to-date happenings on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Or better yet, come to booth #4304 and visit us in person if you’re in town!

Whether you attend or not, make sure to visit BookExpo America’s web site for information on the large number of programs and events taking place.

BookExpo America (BEA) is North America’s largest gathering of book trade professionals attracting an international audience. It is organized with the support of association partners including the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the American Booksellers Association (ABA).  BEA is recognized for the media attention it brings to upcoming books as well as for the notable authors it attracts to the convention itself.

There are six essential elements for successful digital marketing and when used together they make for a powerful combination. Each element is important on its own, but when you use all six together you will see a strategy that is effective, scalable and long term.

• Website — A professional website is the single most important step towards your digital marketing plan. Your website is your homebase, so make sure it is updated regularly and is current. Use your site as a platform for all other activities. Post your blog and photos along with links to your social networks. Always remember your audience when developing content. If a person cares enough to come to your site, you need to make sure their trip was worth the effort.

• eNewsletter — email is still the most powerful digital tool. Every single author should have an enewsletter. You should collect as many email addresses of your readers as you can. Overtime email addresses of your readers will be a huge asset. You can communicate with your readers through a regular enewsletter sent either once a month or once every 3 months. Just keep those lines of communication open.

• Blog — A blog is the best way to share your expertise and drive traffic to your site. Use your blog on your own website along with posting it on an important high-traffic website as a guest post. Everyone needs content, and it never hurts to ask a popular blog if they want to run your blog post. Blogs don’t have to be long, 500-700 words tend to be the most popular lengths.

• Facebook — Every author should have a Facebook fan page so they can socialize and communicate with their readers. It’s an important element of digital marketing and honestly at 520 million people, you can’t afford to ignore it. Along with being a great place to build community, Facebook fan pages also offer Insights a great tool for monitoring your audience and your interactions.

• Video — There is not a better or easier way to show your passion and personality than video. It can be fun content for your Facebook fan page, your blog, and your website. Remember to post it on YouTube as well.

• Twitter — I know many authors are intimidated by Twitter, but it’s a fabulous way to share resources and develop a following. I find Twitter to be an incredible tool for listening and for doing market research. You can listen to your readers, find out what other people are doing and saying, and build a relationship with current and future readers.

If you chose not to participate in digital marketing and social media, you are only hurting yourself and your readers. There are millions of people on social networks; they don’t miss you, but you are missing out if you ignore them.

Digital marketing is a wonderful way to connect with people who care about your work. Just remember that all six elements of digital marketing working together will produce the best results. There are no short cuts here, but it is all well worth the investment of time and attention.

With over 15 years of experience in online marketing, I can say without a doubt or any reservations, that developing a personal brand online is crucial to your success as an author.

Personal branding is new to all of us, but its importance is growing exponentially. So the question I get asked most is, “What’s in it for me? Why should I invest in building my brand online?” The most important element of a personal brand is that it helps you be yourself and stand out from the crowd. After all, there is no competition for you.

The essential elements of personal brand development include: web publicity, blogs, syndicating content for guest blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  The benefits of these activities increase considerably when conducted in a well-planned and cohesive manner. First, it is best to establish goals for developing your personal brand.

Two of the most important goals of Personal Brand Management are:

• To increase brand awareness through consistent social media interactions
• To increase credibility and establish expertise via web exposure

Developing your personal brand takes time, but the good news is that the tools are free and you already have the knowledge. Social media now allows you to share your knowledge and build a following. Once you “know” your readers you’ll have a lot more control over your career and will be able to promote not just your books but also your apps, conferences, videos, webinars, websites and more. Your personal brand will make you more valuable to your publishers and agents as well. In my opinion, personal brand management is today’s resume.

Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, a constant availability of learning opportunities, as well as a myriad of ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were nonexistent just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting our good name.

Credibility — Web Publicity allows others to lend credibility to your work by posting reviews, interviews and mentions of your book on their site or blog.

Expertise — The benefit of a regular blog is that it allows you to show your expertise and share your knowledge. Four out of every ten Americans read blogs, according to a study by Synovate/MarketingDaily. This trend is increasing daily.

Syndication — Once you have a blog written, it is best to submit it on other sites such as The Huffington Post. If possible, you should also submit your articles to other blogs and sites for guest blogging opportunities. Each time your blog gets mentioned or posted, so does your name and the link to your website. Over time this is the best way to increase the Google ranking of your site.

Relationship Development – More than 500 million active users spend 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook. It is no exaggeration to say that without a Facebook presence you are at a great disadvantage. Engaging with your readers will lead to higher book sales and career advancement.

Share Expertise — At first, Twitter may seem overwhelming and difficult to use, but as you spend time on the site you will likely discover the benefits of sharing resources and collaborating with others.

Networking — About 35 million people use LinkedIn. It is the most professional of social networks and essential for showcasing your professional experience, contacts and recommendations.

Show Yourself — The popularity of YouTube is growing hourly, currently it gets 2 billion views a day. Today, people are looking for an authentic connection with you. Posting a video of yourself allows potential fans and readers to learn more about you, your expertise and your passion.

Although social media engagement may not provide instant gratification, it should be viewed as an investment of time and money in your career and your future. I have experienced first-hand the benefits of personal branding, both for my clients and myself. I have witnessed the difference between launching a book for an author who has work to develop a strong personal brand, versus an author who did not invest any resources in building an online presence.

In the coming year, I urge you to devote some time to developing a plan that includes all of the aforementioned elements. Decide how much time you can devote to each aspect of building your brand and also where you will need to invest in receiving help from experts.

Here are seven steps to developing a digital marketing blueprint. Many people skip the first four, but these first few steps are the crucial difference between success and failure. I have also uploaded slide presentations to help you along.

1. Assess Your Situation – This first step is perhaps the most important. Before you can commit to doing more digital marketing, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Take a snapshot of where you stand. Think of the following questions: how well is my website working for my goals? Do I have email addresses of my customers? How many fans or followers do I have on Facebook or Twitter?When you are assessing your website, look over the traffic numbers. How many people come to your site, which pages do they visit, how do they find you, and how long to they stay? These answers should give you an idea about the effectiveness of your site. If nobody is staying on your website for more than a few seconds, then something needs to be changed.Another element of assessing your situation requires an honest assessment of your resources. How much time, knowledge, technology or money do you have to devote to digital marketing? If you don’t have a lot of time you might need to hire somebody. If you don’t have a lot of money you might have to set aside some extra time to do this work on your on.
2. Know Your Customers – Understanding your target audience will help you devise the best digital marketing strategy for you. Digital marketing is customized and personalized so it is essential for you to know your customers so you can serve them best. Learn about their age group, their gender, their industries. It’s also important to know the tech savviness of your customers.
3. Designate a Storyteller – For any digital marketing strategy to be effective you need a designated storyteller, marketer, brand evangelist. If you skip this step, your digital marketing strategy will not be sustainable.
4. Set Goals and Timelines – Without setting realistic goals and timelines you will not know when you are achieving success and when you are missing the mark. Some realistic goals are: improve your website; build a mailing list; start a fan page on Facebook or get more fans on Facebook; start making videos and getting them distributed; start writing a blog, or syndicate your blog; look into twitter or grow your followers.
5. Implementing Digital Marketing – Once you’ve taken the first 4 steps you digital marketing strategy will become much more obvious to you. Then you can start implementation a plan. I find a lot of people jumping from new thing to new thing without really setting goals or having assessed their situations. In my opinion, the six essential elements of digital marketing are: website, enewsletter, blog, Facebook, video and Twitter. For more details on these elements you can read my blog on 6 Elements for Digital Marketing.
6. Monitor Your Progress – Although a lot has changed in marketing in the last few years, the most exciting change is the availability of free monitoring tools. You can set up email alerts for your name on either Google or Bing, and use Google Analytics for analyzing your website traffic. If you set up a fan page on Facebook, you can use Insights to gain valuable information. My favorite tool for monitoring Twitter is still TweetReach.
7. Be Flexible – Digital marketing is new to everybody and we’re all trying things out. It’s important that you just keep an open mind and experiment. Experiment with your time, and experiment with your money. If you succeed learn from it and try it again. If you fail, just smile. Take a deep breath, and try something else.

Digital marketing is a very innovative field right now and everybody is trying different things in different combinations. You just have to find the right combination for you and your customers.

By Fauzia Burke

We recently posted a Twitter basics blog post that covered the fundamental parts of tweeting that many beginners find confusing. Well, the response has been quite positive and a few of our clients have expressed an interest in knowing whether or not social networking was really worth the extra effort for authors. The overall answer is yes. We’re getting to a point today where authors are thought to be behind the curve if social media tools are not being equipped. Does that mean it’s too late for those who haven’t taken their campaigns online? To that we say no. And to help those who have not adopted social media skills yet, we have decided to share why an online outreach is so important.

The Importance of Social Networking

Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, the constant availability of learning opportunities and more ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were not available just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting your personal brand and help spread word-of-mouth about our books.

Here is also an inspiring video about the importance of social networking.

Developing a personal brand takes time, but the good news is that the tools are free and you already have the expertise in your field. Social media now allows you to share your knowledge and build a following. Once you “know” your readers you’ll have a lot more control over your career and will be able to promote not just your books but also your apps, conferences, videos, webinars, websites and more. Your personal brand will make you more valuable to your publisher and agent as well.

Some Resources

How to Create Your Social Media Presence
How To Make Your Personal Brand Visible With Social Media
5 Easy Ways to Build Your Digital Reputation
10 Golden Rules of Social Media

FSB also provides clients with regular updates on social media. We recommend that you sign up for our newsletter, visit our blog and follow the tweets on two handles that provide resources and tips for digital marketing.

Newsletter: http://www.fsbassociates.com/company_newsletters.php

Blog: http://www.fsbassociates.com/blog/
HuffPo Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fauzia-burke

Twitter: http://twitter.com/FSBAssociates / http://twitter.com/websnapshot

Facebook

Do I need to be on Facebook? Quick answer is yes. Facebook has 500 million users worldwide. Together they are creating a community of savvy consumers, connecting with friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances to share advice, information and yes, recommendations. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

People on Facebook read books and tell their friends and colleagues about books. Engaging on Facebook also allows you to be closer to your fans and prospective readers.

Instructions are provided at the end of this post.

You may want to start by watching this video on Howcast to get oriented and get step-by-step instructions.

An excellent place to start is the Mashable Facebook Guide.

For general questions and step-by-step instruction, please visit Facebook’s help center.

Some Resources

5 Things That Don’t Work on Facebook Pages (and 5 That Do) by Aliza Sherman
Facebook 101 Business Guide on Social Media Examiner by Mari Smith

Everyone on the FSB staff is available on Facebook and you can find us all there. You can also “like” the FSB Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/FSBAssociates

Twitter

If you are hesitant to join Twitter, you are not alone. However, we want to encourage you to give it a shot. Set up an account, follow some people and learn some things. People on Twitter are very generous with their time and knowledge. Yes, you will spend time on Twitter that you already don’t have, but you will also learn things that will make you more valuable, smarter and “in the know.”

Even if you don’t plan to be very active, it is important to get a handle and follow others. It is also a good way for your publisher and friends to discuss your book by referencing you. You can use Twitter to provide links to your blog posts, media events and reviews. However, no one enjoys a 24/7 advertisement. A good rule of thumb is to have a 4 to 1 ratio for self promotion. One self-promotional tweet to 4 that will help others or engaging in the community through reply or retweet.

The best advice is to spend time just observing and seeing what others are doing before posting much yourself. There are people you already follow (favorite authors, must-read columnists, magazines, newspapers, influential friends) and now you can follow them on Twitter.

Some Resources

Best first step is to watch this video for starting with Twitter

Twitter Tweet Anatomy
Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started
Twitter for Business by Twitter
Learn the Lingo
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence by Problogger
A Personal Branding Checklist for Twitter by Social Media Today
Twitter Hashtags by Marketing at About.com
8 Ways To Find Relevant Followers On Twitter by Small Business Trends

Together we have 14 Twitter feeds here at FSB. You can find and follow us here:

http://twitter.com/list/Ishii_Ken/in-house

www.fsbassociates.com
Web Marketing . Social Publicity . Online Branding . Consulting

Now that “2K10” is set tidily in our past, a collection of social media reports and statistics detailing top trends from last year have surfaced to help anyone lost at digital sea get back on route to where the online action is. Now that there are over 300 social media services vying for your time, it’s wise to know where the pack is heading. Hopefully you’ll find the information below helpful when planning your social branding or marketing strategies from here and into the rest of the year.

Facebook

As reported by AddThis, a social sharing service, Facebook continues to lead the race with 44 percent of the total social networking service volume in 2010. That’s a growth of 33 percent from 2009.

Twitter

After examining over a billion tweets, social media monitoring company Sysomos revealed some interesting information about the service nearly everyone has heard of but has taken time to embrace.

The number of Twitter users with over 100 friends has tripled since 2009 which could say the platform is good at forming tight communities. Still, 2010 could be seen as the year of experimenting as 80 percent of all users have made fewer than 500 tweets and that 90 percent of all Twitter activity came from less than a quarter of all users. The company also states that more and more people are disclosing location, bio, and web information to Twitter profiles. Looks like these users have found a service they find valuable and worthwhile.

MySpace

With Facebook now a household term, it’s hard to believe that MySpace was once the most popular social networking site. ComScore, a web measurement firm, reports MySpace worldwide total unique visitors to be less than 13 percent of Facebook’s visitors. At the same time, AddThis shows a backward growth for MySpace of 20 percent. For marketers, it seems pretty clear where time investments are going to be cut.

Services Growth

As important as it is to recognize which services are hot and cold now, it’s crucial to track how these services are growing. AddThis has put together a chart that shows the rate at which the most well-known services are moving. Note that while Facebook is leading the pack, other services still have their eyes on the prize.

Whether you’re posting updates on Facebook, experimenting on Twitter, or transitioning from other services, being active with social media is essential to any branding or marketing campaign. We were glad to see authors embracing social media with roughly 50-70 percent of our clients on Twitter in the summer.  By the end of the year, 100 percent of the clients we represented in December had Twitter profiles they used to market their expertise and books. For 2011, the question is no longer whether you should participate, but rather how you’re going to connect with your online audience.