Thank You for Being a Friend

At school I was never going to be the British equivalent of the Prom Queen but thanks to being the class clown and being able to make people snort with laughter even during lessons (I’ll save how I did that for another time) I had my fair share of friends. I was not however, as popular as blonde haired, perfectly formed Mary Rose, who was admired by every girl in the school, lusted after by every hot blooded male and doted upon by every teacher.

Decades later I find myself in a similar position. No, I have actually managed to pass through school. I am talking about social networking sites, particularly Facebook. I have quite a few friends on Facebook but as far as my fan page goes, well I am not as popular as J K Rowling who has 1,117,211 ‘likes’. In fact I am some way off.

As a writer it is natural that you would want to build up your fan base, but as in those days of yore when I had just a small crowd of friends, part of me isn’t too worried that I have only about 300 fans. Surely it is better to have people who really like you than go out there attempting to lure anyone to your page?

As part of my research for my last book I wondered how easy it would be to produce a fake account, create a false person and get them ‘friends’.

I created an account for a female who claimed to be a writer and translator. I didn’t upload a photo of her face; instead I chose a photo of a dog, which suggested it was ‘her’ puppy. I posted no status for her but allowed her to join several writing groups on FB.

Facebook soon suggested friends for her and she sent friend requests to those people. They replied and added her as a friend.

By the end of six months she had over two thousand ‘friends’ by doing no more than adding suggested friends of friends and receiving requests. Nearly all were from writers, obviously because she ‘hung out’ with writers.

What does this prove? One thing it suggests is that many writers are gregarious and trusting. We will happily befriend people, especially if they are friends of our friends, believing them to be like minded writers. We also probably want to grow our network or fan base because many of those who befriended the Fakebook person asked her to also ‘like’ their page.

I personally don’t have a problem with this although I think we should be a little more cautious about the way we grow our fan base. Do we want fans who will buy our books or do we want to try and make out we are the most popular girl or boy in the school?

If you want to increase your fan base there are many opportunities to gain new ‘likes’ or followers for example participating in Facebook fests like those offered by World Literary Cafe or Indies Unlimited.

Some people don’t hold with these mutual ‘liking’ fests as they feel they are not getting true ‘likes’ or proper fans but I can only speak from personal experience and not only have I gained some ‘likes’ and followers for my pages but some of those people have actually bought my books, written reviews for them and now communicate regularly with me. If that isn’t a fan, then what is?

I found out recently that you can even buy fans to follow you or fan your page. I didn’t try it for Facebook because I value my fans there and didn’t want to lose my page but I checked out buying fans on Twitter. I found a site offering 5000 fans for $65. Bargain! I sold my wedding ring and purchased 5000 of them. The service was prompt. Within four days I had 5000 fans. Here are some of them:

Maisie Debarig @MaisieDebarig
Auburn, Alabama
Cab drivers are living proof that practice does not make perfect Howard Ogden
Following: 22 • Followers: 93

 

Mirella Chehebarw @MirellaChehebar
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darknes
Following: 25 • Followers: 37

Funny how Mirella bears a striking resemblance to Maisie. Maybe they are twins. Twins who by the looks of the photograph, have had sex change operations. Well, they are fake fans so I didn’t expect a lot. What I also didn’t expect was for them all to disappear after only following me for 72 hours. I got up one morning to find they had all gone and I was alone again on Twitter with only my loyal followers.

Every fan-selling website, no matter how legitimate and professional it seems, delivers fake fans. It’s tempting, I must admit, to buy a few thousand fans and have an impressive Facebook page but what does it really achieve? These people will never buy one of your books or promote you to their friends or write a review for one of your books.

In truth, getting fans for your fan page isn’t that difficult. As long as you have a book or books that appeal to people, people will naturally like your page. You just need to know how to use the tools that Facebook gives you to give everyone a chance to learn more about you.

Some ways to do this include:

• Facebook ads

• Contests and giveaways

• Fan-only discounts

• A reveal page

• Posting great content

• Using viral apps

• Asking your fans to tell their friends

• Promoting your fan page

 And guess what happens when you do these things? You end up with a bunch of people who actually like you as an author and want to buy your books

The problem is, a lot of authors don’t want to put in all that work and would rather just take the magic pill and buy fans or court anyone to increase their popularity. It’s almost guaranteed that bought fans or fans who really aren’t interested in your genre of writing rather the few real ones in the mix will never buy anything from you.

So to everyone else, your page might look awesome because you have a gazillion fans, but you know that you’re not making a dime from them. Do you want to to appear successful or actually be successful?