2nd EDITION NOTE: This section is largely unchanged from the first edition (barring some edits for clarity). My opinions on Boosted Posts still stand.
It would be remiss of me not to discuss boosted posts, as they are a great way to engage with your readers, but they are less effective at general advertising.
They’re great for engaging with your readers, because you want them to know about new books coming out, new deals, promotions, upcoming books, etc… And all that works best when it comes right from you, in a very conversational voice.
Also, your readers know where to go to pick up your books, so your calls to action (CTAs) can be simple links at the bottom of the post.
One thing I must, once again, state as strongly as possible: unless you’re doing a cover reveal, the same image logic applies. Facebook will greatly prefer posts where the main image has no text.
I recently did a number of head-to-head tests on one of my fan pages, where I promoted a number of books for other authors. I did three with stock photos I picked up, and three with the book covers.
Facebook showed the ones with the stock photos 1500 times each. The ones that were just the book cover only got shown 300-400 times.
That’s right: some of those posts reached 1/5 the people, just because I was lazy and didn’t use a good picture. If ten of those missed 1200 people had bought the first book in a 5-book series, we know that the author missed out on at least $100 in read-through revenue. I later re-posted with better images.
“So why don’t they work as well for general ads? They’re awesome when I focus on my fans and their friends!”
The main reason is that there is no clear CTA (call to action), and that the image does not go to your destination.
Pretty simple, right?
On a purpose-built ad, the little link name in the lower left (usually AMAZON.COM), the CTA button on the lower right, and your image all go to your desired destination.
On a boosted post, clicking on the image just makes the image bigger. Your call to action is buried somewhere in your text, and looks like a link (and may look like a messy link), not a nice phrase.
Considering that there is nothing you can’t do in an ad that a boosted post offers, I strongly suggest that you always do a regular ad when you’re doing anything other than talking directly to your fans about some news or offer.