Social Writer: Facebook

Facebook is a bit of a sucker these days. It’s one of the most used social media platforms out there, but when it comes to Facebook pages, that’s absolutely pointless. Facebook is a pay-to-play platform, which means if you want people to actually see your posts you have to pay for advertising.

Before we get any further, let me cover some basic Facebook lingo (if this stuff confused you, don’t worry, it confuses a lot of people):

Profile: This is what most people have. You add your photos, your basic information, and your friends here. Your timeline is where your profile is at.

Page: This is what you like. So when you go and like your latest author, you’re probably “liking” their page. Pages are designed to give people a place to have a following while still maintaining their privacy. If you don’t want random strangers friending you on Facebook, you’ll want to set up an author page.

Setting up your author page is simple, and you can follow this tutorial to set up your page. Once you get there, you’ll need to add a profile picture, a cover photo, and invite your friends to like the page.

But before you set it up, we need to decide, is it worth it anymore? With an average of 5% (if that much) of your “fan base” seeing a post, you need to have thousands, if not millions, of people liking your page to see a lot of outcome. So, in a lot of ways, it may not seem like it’s worth the effort.

And it’s really not, but this is Facebook, and you want to have a place for potential readers (and buyers) to find you. So, set on up. Your best bet is to go ahead and use a scheduling service. Yes, it may feel less personal to use a scheduling service, but when five people are seeing your posts, is it that important?

You want to update your Facebook page, but don’t put any time into it that’s more than necessary. Facebook is going to have to change it’s ways sooner or later when people start ditching it and the whole system begins to collapse on itself.

Having a face on the platform is good, but don’t throw all your social media credit at it.

You can read an updated version of this blog post here.