Dear author, please consider setting up a Facebook profile if you are to make one single foray into social networking. Why Facebook? Well, you certainly have lots of choices of social networking platforms and if you are really keen on connecting online, take a look at Quantcast, www.Quantcast.com for a list and their general demographics, or see ToMuse, www.ToMuse.com for a look at the smartest, weathiest networkers and choose a number of them.
But, the problem with these very general demographics, is that they don’t take into account your niche market community. In my experience, there are more Canadian publishers, authors, and avid readers on Facebook than the other sites, despite the younger skew of the general demographics. So, if you are looking to try one tool, start with Facebook. Your correspondents will steer you in another direction if your niche community is making a bigger presence elsewhere.
If you are a real keener add MySpace and LinkedIn.
Here`s a video that explains how to get set up on Facebook, http://tinyurl.com/5jso56. Check the related videos underneath the window to see if you want further assistance. I must confess that when I was first invited to join Facebook, I was very surprised. In my mind it was something that teenagers wasted too much time on. However, my long, lost friend had gone to some trouble to track me down through the internet and made a compelling argument for me to stay in touch with her in this way. At first I accepted almost every invitation and gift and gadget until I found a way to really make use of Facebook. Don`t get me wrong, it was usually fun, it`s just that I`m extremely busy, and I engaged in a certain amount of time-wasting - because I went in believing it was a time-wasting activity.
So, get started with a serious plan and objective. Ask yourself who you want to be connected with and why. Once you`ve signed up, set up your profile and selected all of the settings to your satisfaction, go to the search box at the top right corner of the page for organizations in which you have membership or wish you did, and other interest groups whose members should know about your books and join. If appropriate, check out the group first, introduce yourself and your book or your latest undertakings.
You can set your notifications so that you receive few or even no email. But make a little time to connect. You can build an audience for your blog, find out about writing groups, conferences, calls for submissions, and build a launch invite list for your next event. Devote a few hours to do your initial set up. After that, you could decide to spend a mere 10 minutes over Sunday coffee to keep up.
Here are some great suggestions from Sachi Studios about how authors can develop their Facebook strategy - http://tinyurl.com/5jso56
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