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Facebook for localized book ads: You won’t ‘meet’ Sy Solomon on FB unless you’re Geographically Desirable
June 4, 2009 | 11:23 pm
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By David Rothman
Tried Facebook to advertise an e-book or p-book? If so, what kind of results have you gotten? I’m giving Facebook a shot right now to promote The Solomon Scandals, my D.C. newspaper novel that Twilight Times Books is publishing in both formats.
You won’t see the Facebook ad unless you live within 25 miles of D.C. and are of prime buying age for Scandals. In addition I’ve targeted such keywords as “editor,” “fiction,” “journalism,” “newspapers,” “novels,” “reporter,” “staff writer” and “suspense.” No offense to non-DC-area residents or nonwriters. The idea is simply to optimize the buy rate among those who do click through. According to Facebook, I’ve got several thousand prospective clickers.
Facebook’s software estimated that I would pay 55-61 cents a click in bidding. I asked the site to limit my spending to no more than $3.05 a day. If I don’t get results—I send the clickers to mini-profiles of Scandals’ characters and the names of some bookstores, including the Trover Shop on Capitol Hill—I’ll cancel. Even if I do succeed, I’m not sure if it’s the most efficient way to advertise, and I also suspect that word of mouth is far, far more effective than advertising. Still, as a quick experiment, this one was too tempting to overlook. Suggestions welcome.
Related: Free audio of ‘Scandals’ start is now online for everyone.
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Comments:
Keep us posted on how that works. Sounds like a fairly expensive per-click option.
Rob Preece
Will do, Rob–thanks very much for your interest. As noted, I agree this isn’t the most efficient use of money, but I’m keeping the expense down. David
We use Facebook to specify undergraduate science students driving them to a website, http://www.nature.com/scitable. It has been very effective. You are correct word of mouth is the best viral method and using Facebook has helped in that regard as well. It is a combination of marketing efforts that best supports any product.
Thanks, Robin. Nice site you have.
Based on results so far, I’m abandoning the geographical approach for now, but I have some other tricks up my sleeve and am sticking with Facebook.
If nothing else, given ease of tweaking ads, it’s a good way to experiment to see what works.
Meanwhile I’m grateful that I can pay by click.
Additional Facebook observations and tips welcome from you and others.
Thanks for checking in!
David
P.S. Turns out that I may have been appealing to interests separately from geography. The Facebook interface is a little confusing about “and” vs. “or.” No harm done.