Author-readers interaction: #2 Facebook

Last year approximately 1.23 billion users actively logged into Facebook every month. Furthermore, about 556 million users access this site daily via smartphones and tablets. As I get myself more and more involved in blogging, I notice that most authors have Facebook pages. The impressive statistics on Facebook are solid reasons for authors to communicate with fans and potential readers via Facebook.

Why does an author create a Facebook page when s/he already has a website? With Facebook page, fans do not need to keep visiting website to get updates on the author’s works. When a fan likes an author’s Facebook page, all the latest news would appear on his/her News Feed. Facebook page is about a community: it gives an author a place to talk to and get feedback from their fans. The more active and friendly an author becomes the closer relationship s/he will have with fans. Check out Dan Brown’s Facebook page. His picture with Mark Twain is liked by more than 2,600 people? Impressive!

A couple of weeks ago, Romance Festival 2014 organised many Q & A sessions with authors, book cover designers, blogger and publishers. One of the guest authors was Samantha Young, a New York Times bestseller. Due to big time difference between USA and Malaysia, I wasn’t able to join the session. It’s a good thing that the the Q & A is still there. I could read it at my leisure. Using Facebook page to conduct a Q & A session benefits the readers too. It is much easier to locate post and read it, unlike  Twitter (the messy order of tweets in a Twitter chat confuses me at times).

Facebook is the most popular social media in the world. If you are a public figure, then you ought to consider creating a Facebook fan page. Don’t know how to start? Go to this link for tips.

Are you already following your favourite authors via Facebook? If you answer ‘Yes’, then like this page. 🙂

ps: This is a serial of blog posts about communication method between author and readers. Read other posts on Twitter and Pinterest.