Publishing Confusion – Part Four – Social Media

Social Media.

Most of you know how to use the basics…or do you? I thought I was good with Facebook, when one day a course in our local region we found a tutorial on how to use Facebook for business. It blew what we thought we knew right open. OUCH. Luckily there was no re-learning, there was extra learning.

In the last twelve months, many of our Social Media websites have updated. Things have moved, changed or disappeared. Even we’ve had issues finding various items. Sometimes the frustration creeps in and takes over. The better you can use Social Media, the better you can MARKET your business and grow your AUTHOR BRAND. With saying that, we need to give you a few ways to make more out of a post and images.

We’ve always been taught that images get more people looking at your posts. However, what sort of image do you need to use? Have you ever looked on Facebook to see which type of images get the most likes and shares? Why do they get so much attention. Why do people stop scrolling and read? 

Next time you find something you like and read, think about what you notice first. Is it the writing? Which part? A title? A font? Large fonts? The mission into marketing is endless trying to find out what will work for us and our books. RESEARCH…yep that word again. Weird how it keeps cropping up.

Advert for Shattered Badge, Shattered Trust by Sandra Brewster.

We’re going to make a Facebook Post. It was a new release for one of our clients. The novel is called ‘SHATTERED BADGE SHATTERED TRUST’ by Sandra Brewster. It is available on AMAZON. To the left  of the screen is the book cover. For those who are sight impaired the image shows a police badge which has been broke into pieces the the book title across the middle. At the top of the cover is the Authors name. The background is a greenish blur of a crime scene.

First things first is to make a 3D cover so it looks like a book rather than a flat image. This will make it stand out better and hopefully grab a readers interest. It is obviously a story which involves a character who is a cop. Though what is the relevance about the Shattered Trust? Who’s Trust was destroyed and why? Maybe a bit of the synopsis will tell us what’s going on. Can we add it to the Facebook Post? 

This depends on what type of Marketing you are looking at doing. Who are you aiming your ADVERT at? Are you doing a PAID ADVERT or a post in a group? Will you make a TEASER for the story or a POSTER. On that note…if you can’t use photoshop, GIMP, Krita or similar graphic apps then please use CANVA. It’s FREE and easy to use, even for those who think they aren’t good with technology.

CANVA – AUTHOR INTRODUCTION IDEA

In the first PNG image you have all the different areas, all giving you different information. Obviously this is a small image of what the poster would be if it were printed out. Looking at it digitally and asking a few friends, I see what they like and don’t like. The BOOK BLURB is to pale and needs to be BOLD FONT. The eBook app in the image above the authors profile image needs to be put in (can’t do this on CANVA FREE). I don’t like is the BOOK LINK.. it looks to big and untidy. We may make it smaller or use a QR Code.

We have made some adjustments on this second image. The book cover has been placed into the eBook app on the image. In the next image we have put the BOOK BLURB in bold to show what it looks like.

The main issue with the poster is having to use two different apps to make the poster. We started in CANVA and played around, asking for opinions… Now we need to put all of this together. This same poster only needs the book cover adding to the eBook reader along with the QR Code and then it is finished. For now we’ve left the book link in though made it smaller and bold.

My next question is: What do you think? Is it good? Are there any changes? What do you get from reading the poster? Would it make you look up the author and read her books?

Please let me know in comments.

NOTE: The image is to complex to put in ALT TEXT.