What Your Facebook Followers Really Want From You

Be a good host and you’ll get more followers — even without ads

I‘ve been promoting my children‘s book on social media for over four months. At the start, I chose email marketing, Facebook, and Instagram for my promotion channels.

I’d already written about how to create a content marketing strategy as an author:

And how to plan and organize what you promote with a content compass and social media calendar:

As I created a Facebook page, I took a look at other authors’ pages to see how they do their content promotion.

Although I haven’t been in it for long, as a reader and an author I can see room for improvement on other authors’ SM profiles. So hear me out — my intentions are good.

Here are my insights about what works and what doesn’t on Facebook:

Create a Facebook Page That Belongs to Someone Alive

If you want to be seen as a decent person, act like one on social networks as well.

Some authors just have their private Facebook profiles to communicate with their friends and family only. They don’t have any Facebook pages. No wonder, maintaining a nice page can take a lot of time. But common Medium followers may think you are not so special after all because you don’t have your Facebook audience. And most people outside of Medium don’t know about your Medium stats.

Other authors use their profiles to publish their posts only. This is much less work than having a separate page, but it looks too self-promotional and self-absorbed, unless you are a Nobel laureate.

I am sure there are a few things you can use to improve the quality of your Facebook page or profile, whichever you choose for the promotion.

Check them out below.

Find Your Mission First

Then you will get your tribe.

Simon Sinek says you will succeed if you show other people what you believe in (the famous Golden Circle and the core question, Why are you doing it?). They will recognize your beliefs and feel more connected with you. People have a need to grow, and they appreciate the communication within the group.

I created my Facebook page to promote my children’s book. My main target is the mom of schoolchildren.

On the page, I show my own values, which other mothers recognize: a child’s development, a healthy environment, well-being, and a healthy lifestyle. I also post scientific facts. My take on life is realistic, and many moms identify with it.

Note: I started my Facebook page just to learn the ropes. I didn’t want to promote it with ads but to raise the number of followers organically. Hence the small number of followers (154, only a quarter of whom are my acquaintances) but a good percentage of engagement.

When you have found your mission, remember you are not a hero.

Be a Good Host, Don‘t Have a Napoleon Complex

I often see writers and vloggers posting just their own content. I understand. It takes time to post regularly by putting other people’s stuff as well. And they don’t want their audience to stray away from their page. But I already said what I think of such pages.

You are not Hemingway’s publisher. Or Hemingway himself. No one is interested in you. People want a connection or to have fun. Try to be a good host instead.

Suggestion:

Post Something That Doesn‘t Belong to You

At least write a comment about somebody else’s work or a piece of news.

Quote credible sources. You don’t have to put their link below the story if you don’t want to, but at least put the name of the source.

For companies, it’s advisable to apply the 5:3:2 rule to what to post on social media: five pieces of other people’s content, your three pieces that aren’t too sales-y, and your two pieces of personal fun content. I loosened this up a bit. Still, I post other people’s content — I’m a real person who believes in those ideas. Credible sources are a nice way not to look too pompous.

I also mix my translation skills with a marketer’s storytelling. For example, I retell a text from a British or American source into Serbian as the hero‘s journey. Speaking of which…

Tell SHORT Stories

Short.

You don’t need anything more.

Present them in an easily digestible way. This can be quite difficult and an opportunity to exercise your copywriting skills. Cut every extra word, make the paragraphs short and clear.

Use a plot and characters to make a point. Someone solves a problem or is transformed by some experience.

Stories always go better than numbers. Statistics don’t mean anything to people, they need something emotional they can relate to. And everything can be presented with a story.

Mix Educational and Entertaining

I posted a comment on the Guardian’s article about how much pollution comes from buying new clothes. I added emojis and a beautiful picture.

At that time, I had about 100 Facebook followers. I shared the post on a local Zero Waste group. Take a look at the numbers for Engagement and Share below. This thing goes well.

Spice It Up With Emojis, but Don‘t Overdo It

They make your posts more attractive and easily digestible. Sprinkle them through the text. One or two emojis per paragraph is enough.

Cut the Fluff

People rarely read big chunks of text. Two or three lines per paragraph are enough. Remember — white space.

Use Hashtags Below the Text to Attract New People

I‘m having a great time on my Facebook page. Moms don’t read only about parenting, so I write posts about health, diet, and interesting trivia. In other words: air pollution, the connection between high IQ and mental problems, why wellness is fake, how much stool donors can earn for their “work,” etc.

Nevertheless, I focus on what my potential customers care about. I also post what can be in tune with my main message:

Life is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and rewarding.

If you analyze hashtags of different posts, you will see they are often the same: #psychology, #parenting, #growingup, #health, #woman, etc.

Speaking of having fun…

Be Careful Not to Spend 2–3 Hours on One Facebook Post

Like me. If I had time, I would turn this into a portal. It’s fun.

I translate a post, turn it into a story, find the right picture, polish the text into perfection, and wrap it up with emojis and hashtags. It looks awesome. But I have to chill a bit with it.

I mean, look:

Everything to please them…

A piece of advice: Know your limits and what your page is for.

They Don‘t Care About You if You‘re Not Useful to Them

I see a mom vlogger talking about how her son is growing up so fast every day. She takes pictures of him and occasionally throws a quick recipe.

What makes her different from the most successful mom vloggers is that she doesn’t have the phrase to help or entertain others in her head. She just knows she has to post regularly and put a CTA question in the end: “And what do you think?”

Unfortunately, her son is special only to her, her friends, and her family.

This mom could be useful, even in the parenting niche. She can write about her challenges, what motivates and angers her, how she has overcome problems her followers have now…

Readers’ respect and appreciation come with time. You really have to bring value and gain trust first. Post useful.

Be Creative, Play With the Network, and Post in Different Formats to Get More Engagement

• Post your photos — Show who you are and why you care about your cause. Also, images grab people’s attention while scrolling more than text does.
• Share your Instagram stories on Facebook — They have a big open rate.
• Use quotations — Your readers want to look smart in front of others, so they are more likely to click Like. Just don’t write those that everybody knows.
• Post short videos — A social video gets 1,200% more shares than text and images combined, according to crackitt.com. If you don’t have one, share somebody else’s, if it’s according to your values.
• Post a music video in tune with your message. I posted Sia’s “Snowman” in December.
• Create a GIF in Canva and post it. Use something of yours. I inserted a static picture of the bird from my book and combined it with movable pieces.

Again, Don‘t Ever Forget About Your Buyer Persona‘s Interest

You’ll be tempted.

My most popular post was about biodegradable shopping bags. I shared it in a Zero Waste local community and it went viral. It reached over 26,000 people, engaged more than 6,000 of them, had 100 shares, and got me 30–40 new followers when I had only 80 of them.

However, I started thinking more and more about publishing zero-waste posts and then decided to stop it. Not all moms are zero waste, not all zero-waste followers are parents of schoolchildren.

Don’t stray away from your main course. And present it well.

You Don’t Have to Ask a Moronic “What Do You Think?” Just to Have a CTA

If people find the post engaging, they will respond anyway.

See what works, and then comment on newspaper articles and other people’s art. Give your personal impressions about the latest news. Someone will react or say something without the “What do you think?” question.

Real interaction comes with your effort.

Don‘t Chase Numbers. Quality Wins Over Time

As I said in my most popular post on how to write on Medium, I don’t believe in 100K followers and churning content because it’s often drab and low-quality. And I want the audience who knows how to think for themselves.

Content creation is like long-distance running. And content is everywhere around you.

Use Current Events to Give a Personal Touch

It was the end of December, and I made a zero-waste Christmas tree. It was a hit! 3,642 people reached, 418 engagements, and 16 likes.

Here it is:

I wrote about how to explain to your child that Santa doesn’t exist. Many people read it.

I told you content is everywhere.

You Never Know What Goes Well

I opened a Facebook group “Belgrade mama” and hesitated for six months to invite my friends to join. I neither did anything similar nor did I want to bother my friends with my promotion.

Now I’m still surprised by how well people respond to a post of mine. And how they don’t to another one.

And it amazes me that among the most popular ones are my articles.

These are my insights into what works on Facebook after four months on my author’s page.

Facebook followers want a small house party or dinner with friends. Or a good piece of advice. Acting like a good host is the best way to engage them.

Have I missed something? Do you have a Facebook page? What works for you?

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