“Like for Like”
Many authors who have Facebook pages participate in what is known as “Like for “Like”. So what is it? It is exactly as it sounds. You “Like” my page and I will “Like” your page. The theory is that if people see that you have a bunch of “Likes” on your author or book page, it must mean you are a good author and that others should likewise follow and “Like” you.
Why “Like” a Page?
On Facebook, liking someone’s page, post, photo or whatever is a method for showing the online social world that you approve of something or are interested in it. Many authors are often recommended to gather as many “Likes” as possible to build a following. Sometimes this advice comes from a publisher who wants the author to build a following of potential customers prior to the release of their book. Other times, the advice comes from bloggers and other authors.
Sales is sometimes described as a numbers game. The main benefit of gathering people to your online social media pages is to market your book to them. The more opportunities to share your book with the public, the more likely you are to sell copies of your book. Furthermore, rather than using a wide-casting net style of marketing where you throw something out there and just hope to nab a few customers, having a following of interested readers and supporters on social media is a keen way to perform target marketing. You want to spend your energy marketing to your target audience rather than everyone on social media. For example, if you write vampire novels like New Breed, you want to target market to readers who like horror and vampire stories instead of readers who like historical biographies. By accurately marketing to readers who like your genre, you will have better chances of selling copies of your book.
Is It Worth It?
You have created a page on Facebook and are trying to market your book to an audience. Is it worth it to participate in the “Like for Like” phenomenon? It’s all about perception. When visitors to your page see that you have received a lot of “Likes”, they are more likely to follow you than those pages that do not have any “Likes”. It’s psychology. Humans typically want to be part of the “in-crowd”, the group, the people who are cool and well-liked. By having hundreds or thousands of “Likes”, you may attract more people to follow your page so you can market your book to those individuals as well.
However, gathering people to your page does not always translate into sales. You may see a slight uptick in sales volume from having more followers on your Facebook page, but the majority of people following your page may not be customers. This is especially true when the people who are following your page are fellow authors who trade “Like for Like”. The people you really want following you are readers. This is not to say that your fellow authors are not also readers. But, the majority of the authors on Facebook are trying to sell their own books and are not actively looking to buy your book.
Facebook Changes
The other problem with gathering “Likes” is that it does not mean your page posts will show up on your followers’ news feeds. Facebook changed their algorithm a while back to place greater emphasis on engagements instead of number of followers. This means that Facebook wants people to actually read your articles and posts. Hopefully, you do as well! You also need to encourage readers to share your posts with others. You should participate in groups and other people’s posts (ie. engage with the social network).
The other aspect of the change made by Facebook is that it is designed to generate more advertising revenue for the company. If you pay for a Facebook ad, your post will be seen by more people. The cost is not very high and it may be worth it to you to do so. However, I have found that advertising on Facebook generates more followers but does not often translate to sales. Perhaps, if we spent more on advertising… (wink).
Bottom-Line
The decision to participate in author groups “Like for Like” requests is entirely up to you. It can benefit you to have a manufactured following on your page to help attract followers who may actually buy your books. However, the primary application for Facebook is marketing. It should never be your primary sales channel. It should merely be another marketing avenue you use to direct traffic to either your own store page or to your book seller’s website.
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