166 Why Facebook is Overrated for Book Marketing

From Novel Marketing · 35:32

Show by Novel Marketing

Listen to the full episode herehttps://www.novelmarketing.com/166/In this episode we are going to talk about why Facebook is overrated!BackgroundWhen I joined Facebook, it was only for college students. When I purchased my first Facebook ad, they were called “Campus Fliers.” I was the marketing coordinator for one of the first political campaigns to use Facebook for statewide political advertisements in Texas. I have run marketing companies, purchased tens of thousands of dollars of Facebook ads and done dozens of hours of Facebook Live. I have taught at conferences on how Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm works.In short, I know what I am talking about when I say Facebook is nearly useless as a marketing platform for authors.It is overrated for the following reasons:Reason #1 SharecroppingThe fundamental problem with building your platform on Facebook is that it is digital sharecropping .Sharecropping is when a wealthy landlord allows a poor person to farm his field in exchange for a share of the crops. The problem with sharecropping is that the poor farmer can be kicked off at any time from “his farm” since he doesn’t technically own it. Most of the economic advantages go to the landlord and most of the risk goes to the tenant. Sharecropping is a technique the rich have used to exploit the poor for millennia .There is nothing new under the sun.You don’t own Facebook. You sharecrop on Facebook’s digital land. Facebook gets nearly all of the economic advantages of your activity and if you find something that does advantage you, they will adjust their algotherm to stop you.I remember when Facebook groups were transcendent. Then when groups got too powerful they destroyed them in favor of pages. Now pages are de-optimized in favor of groups, but only new groups, not the legacy groups. So the cycle continues.Reason #2 State of MindFacebook is a party where people talk about politics and show off photos of their grandchildren.Trying to sell something on Facebook is like selling Amway at a party.Now let’s say you throw your own party, a Tupperware party lets say, in this setting people are in the mood for hearing from you about your product. The medium is the message. Trying to break into someone’s political conversation with a commercial is very hard to do successfully.Throw your own party instead.Reason #3 EdgeRankFacebook has an algorithm called EdgeRank. I explain how EdgeRank works in this post . As we talked about in Novle Marketing Episode 123 the algorithm has been tweaked in many ways that hurt authors.Currently, any post about something not on Facebook (like a book for instance) will be hidden from about 96% of followers give or take depending on various EdgeRank factors . Let’s say that 1% of people who see a post about a book will go on to buy it (not an unrealistic conversion rate expectation).So, you have 1,000 fans on Facebook, only 4% will see the post or 40 people. Of those 40 people only 1% will buy it so 0.4 people. That rounds down to zero. To sell a single book through a Facebook page with the current EdgeRank algorithm you need 2,500 fans. Do you have 10,000 fans? Congratulations! You can expect to sell 4 books.Now some authors work long and hard to improve their EdgeRank score so they can sell maybe one book per 1000 fans but in reality most sales come from some other channel.Anyone who tells you otherwise is most likely looking at pre-2018 data.Anyone notice the difference between posting on their Page and their Profile?Jim’s example when he posted on winning the Christy Award a few weeks ago.Reason #4 Opportunity CostSome authors spend an hour a day on Facebook. Before you think this is not you, check the screen time app on your iPhone and then add the time you spend on Facebook on your computer.Opportunity cost is the cost of the next best alternative to Facebook. So what is your next best alternative? It depends on you.An hour a day is about 300 hours a year, assuming you take Sundays and holidays off. That is about how much time it takes to write a book. So the opportunity cost of Facebook is about a book a year for many authors. That is a very high opportunity cost!Other things you could do rather than spend time on Facebook:• Get better at speaking. 6 hours a week is enough time for three toastmasters meetings a week. Then start speaking small, start speaking on your own YouTube channel …• Telling people directly about your book, never underestimate the power of one on one sales. Jim’s story of telling people when he flies.• Podcasting. The fastest growing medium for book marketing.• Blogging. The benefit of blogging is that it gives your readers something to share on Facebook so you can have your cake and eat it too.• Write more books. This needs to be said again it is so important. The best way to sell a book is to write another book. This is especially Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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