Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog by J.Q. Rose.
Today I am dissecting my promo on Facebook. FB has been nagging me to boost posts I shared in my news feed. Some of their suggestions were crazy because the topic had expired or it was a writing quote or some graphic which had nothing to do with promoting my books.
THEN, they suggested one of my favorite graphics that promoted my latest release, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard. I loved this photo of a dog that reminded me of Mr. Tweeble's dog Jingles.
They made it easy. Not as complicated as some FB ad gurus indicate. Of course, this was a boost, not a full blown ad which is a bit more involved. (I tried it once, and could not begin to reduce the text on the ad, so they declined to put it up for me. And I was too frustrated to spend anymore time on it.)
I used their date suggestion of Sunday evening, Feb. 18-February 21 for the promotion. (Anybody know if the first of the week is better for sales than the end of the week or a weekend?) I just needed to declare the location of the ad (USA) and the gender and age of folks interested in reading.
Here are the results from Facebook:
| You targeted women, ages 50 - 65+ who live in 1 location, and have 1 interest. | |
Location:
United States
Age:
50 - 65+
Gender:
Female
People Who Match:
Interests: Reading
| |
| This promotion ran for 3 days. | |
| Your total budget for this promotion was $10.00 USD. |
Now, would the ad pay for itself? I don't know since my publisher receives all the sales information for all the major booksellers, but I did sell something because the book's sales rank climbed on amazon. However, there was more going on during that time than just the boosted post.
The promotion ended on Thursday. I post on my blog every Wednesday. That Wednesday, February 20, I posted my book trailer for TOSB, and I always post the 20th of every month on my publisher's blog, Books We Love Insider Blog. Although that blog was about pickleball, I still promoted TOSB there too.
I admit I did have a bigger reach and more engagements during the FB promotion time. I think the image and information on the post is engaging. I thought it was a good choice to use.
If you've tried a FB ad or boost, please take a minute to share your experience.
Thank you.
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| Terror on Sunshine Boulevard.Winter Warm-Up 2018 Blog Tour |
One author who has been a real cheerleader and mentor to me is Roseanne Dowell. I'm thrilled to share the last stop on the blog tour with her at her blog.
Please stop in and say hi to us. I share the reason why I write short stories, articles, and fiction and non-fiction books. With 5 million books available at amazon, one has to love writing to even consider throwing a book into the public eye and compete with all those titles for a reader's attention. Creating stories is not the only reason to write. Find out "Why I Write." I imagine you will understand and agree the reasons are the same as yours.
Click here to join us at Roseanne Dowell's blog.
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| Thank you to all my Hosts! Picture courtesy of Pixabay |
HUGE THANK YOU to all the BLOGGERS who hosted me this winter! See the list below.
| SCHEDULE | |
| JAN | |
| 15 | Sandra Cox |
| 17 | Nan Sanders Pokerwinski |
| 25 | Diane Burton |
| 27 | Ellen Jacobsen |
| FEB | |
| 9 and 10 | Janet Lane Walters |
| 10 | Helena Fairfax |
| 22 | Susan Palmquist |
| 28 | Roseanne Dowell |
8 comments:
Nothing to share, but good luck with the FB thing. Keep us posted. I am interested in hearing all I can about it.
Thanks for sharing about your FB promo. I've been offered a free $10 boosted post, too, and I tried it. It's very hard to say if it affected sales or not, but at least my posts reached a wider audience.
I don't really understand how to make best use of the targeted audience. Author Mark Dawson runs a lot of courses in FB ads https://selfpublishingformula.com/spf-022-using-facebook-twitter-and-youtube-ads/ It seems like one of those things that takes a while to get to grips with, but if you can do it, it reaps rewards. However, I object to FB constantly asking me to promote posts - as you say, even posts that aren't worth promoting - and their messages have the opposite effect.
As a whole, though, Facebook has been great for me for getting the word out about my books and my editing service, and for connecting with readers and other authors.
Very interesting analysis, JQ.
Hey, JQ. Thanks for sharing. You are always so brave to try new things. I'd say for free, this worked out for you.:) Congrats.
I’m pretty sure I saw your boosted post and I’m not in that demographic. What is FB telling me?! ��
I haven’t noticed any improvement in sales when I’ve boosted posts. Hope it works better for you!
Thanks, Juneta. Glad you stopped in.
Thank you, Nan. I know one boosted post isn't much of a scientific measurement for the effectiveness of a boosted post promo program. But I couldn't turn down FREE!!!
Hi Helena. Yes I liked the idea of a wider audience specifically targeted to my audience instead of willy-nilly over the entire internet. I believe Mark Dawson was one of the FB ad gurus I watched on a webinar. He made FB ads seem so complicated. I really should have had the promo at a time when I had done nothing else because now I don't know if the sales were due to FB or the blog posts. Still fun to follow through the days it was up. Thanks for leaving your comment.
Yes, Marsha, I probably wouldn't be so brave to do it if I actually had to pay the $10.!!! hee hee
Joselyn, I'm positive you didn't see my boost. No way. You're definitely NOT in that age group, but you are a woman in the US and a reader. Hmmmm...LOL.
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