A few weeks back I had a person like one of the pages I admin and leave a message ‘I liked your page, please like me back!’ Now I’ve been a part of the Indie Community for a little over five years now (wow!) and I know this was the status quo back then but I have to admit that I was a bit shocked to see this.
When I first entered this crazy Facebook fueled world, I jumped head first into every ‘share and follow back’ post I could find faster than you could blink. I wanted to reach new readers and help out other Indie authors any possible way that I could. Plus, the increasing number of people clicking the like button didn’t hurt either.
Then I noticed something. While yes, my numbers were climbing, the majority of those clicking had zero interaction with my page. I had the followers but what did that matter if no one looked at, liked or commented on my page? Then I looked even deeper and -I’m not going to lie- I wasn’t interacting with most of the pages I liked either.
This made me sit back and evaluate the whole process... Shouldn’t we be sharing our pages to those that have an interest in what we write/do? Are numbers more important than forging an actual relationship with our fans?
Once I made the decision that I only wanted people that WANTED to hear from me from on my page, I stopped participating in the posts that asked everyone to follow each other. I would share my page link with the disclaimer ‘if you are a fan of YA sci-fiction and/or paranormal romance, please consider following’. This may be why my sales suck but I don’t feel like I’m coaxing anyone into liking me just for the like.
And it worked! My posts are getting more notice, I was able to forge real relationships with fans and I was able to share other pages similar to mine since I knew what my followers were interested in.