Social media is the one thing that consistently creates headaches in any business. One item that always surfaces is asking authors within both my membership group and my free group how to create interaction on their author's social media channels. Your approach depends on the social media platform you are using. During this blog post, we are going to look at those powered by Meta which include Facebook and Instagram. Specifically focussing on the use of Meta Business Suite to your advantage.
What is Meta Business Suite?
Meta business suite is a free tool that centralises Facebook, Instagram, and messaging tools in one place. This is available on both the browser and as an app that can be downloaded to your devices. This tool can help save time, create connections with more people relevant to your business and get much better results for your business. This tool was launched in 2020 and is a complete social media management for both Instagram and Facebook.
Why use Meta Business Suite and not just the standard Facebook app?
Personally, this tool has allowed me to post consistent messaging to my audience and track the progress and reach throughout the month. It also allows me to save time as I can schedule in advance and it will post to both social media platforms instead of me having to manually transfer posts over to the other platforms. Since using this tool my reach and insights have grown by over 100% and have increased sales as an overall result.
Both social media channels for myself have grown excessively and have saved me time and increased my productivity. The Meta Business suite allows you to plan your content way in advance, it allows you to create adverts, gives you access to your insights, and even set yourself monthly goals to aim for so you can physically monitor your progress from month to month, follow your business feed ( this for me has a number of authors who I interact with from my business account as well as book bloggers), create events to run as my Facebook page and manage my shop products ( although managing shop products can only be done via the browser and not the app).
Planning Social Media Content.
Each month I spend time with a social media expert, Amy Downes. She runs monthly planning workshops to help plan your social media so that you have a clear plan for that month on what you are selling and which audience you are targeting.
One of the main things I suggest to all my authors is that your readers want to connect with you as a person and although sharing personal things can make us feel vulnerable at times, your readers truly want to connect with you on a personal level because every time they read a story they are reading a part of you. In some way, you put in your own experiences, be that how you felt when you lost your very first school love. Your writing has connections of experience throughout your life even if your book is crazy. A character may be based on a friend you knew through school or even a teacher you had.
I know as a woman, I want to connect with authors on a deeper level. I want to understand who they are as people. When you make these personal connections with them they are more likely to want to support your venture, read your stories, and share your releases. So it really is important to connect with your followers. I’m not saying you need to open your heart and tell them your deepest darkest secrets but it’s always worth giving them a little look into your world, it could be as simple as sharing your favourite foods, films, TV Series, or even when your sit there having a morning coffee post about how caffeine helps you get through your day and what coffees you enjoy, asking them what they like best.
Having a balance of posts keeps you current and consistent, be sure to include at least one post a week with a direct call to action be that a sales post with your link on or sign up to your mailing list; something that requires an action from them, then mix it up with current affairs, reviews, character counts, teasers, videos, sharing other authors work that is similar to that of your own material and giveaways. All these help create a consistent posting and then at the end of each month check your insights to see what posts have been your most popular, and what is gaining interaction and being seen by your following.
Meta Business Suite allows you to schedule your posts as far in advance as your wish. I tend to focus weekly so I will spend a little time each week scheduling my content for the following week, I make connections with certain days based on things that are trending via social media for example 14th November 2022 is Anti-bullying Awareness week so I have shared a personal story about bullying but also connected it into a positive way about the author world, I have asked everyone to celebrate their uniqueness that it's ok to different. Having a plan and knowing what things are likely to trend on social media it gives me a headstart for the week. The lovely Amy is part of our membership throughout November and is helping the ladies organise their social media, she is giving the ladies access to the special dates in advance and I know she gives these at each of her monthly planning workshops to help you prepare what content you wish to share.
If you select the planner on your Meta Business Suite it will literally allow you to create a post, story, or advert for any date, you can select whether you would like it posted to Facebook, to Instagram, or to both platforms, remember that Instagram does not allow links so if you are posting a link it will automatically not post to Instagram but you will be notified.
Understanding Hashtags on Meta Business Suite
Meta Business Suite will allow you to save hashtag groups, saving you time when posting similar types of content, it also saves your recently used hashtags. Hashtags are so hard to get right and ensure that they match whatever message you are trying to get across. I highly recommend using hashtags that have a lower following, for one, it will mean that your competition is lower so you are more likely to get seen within that category. The meta business suite allows you to see how many posts are on both Instagram and Facebook with that hashtag, making your job even easier. I tend to mix it up; I will use ones that have a higher ranking but then some of the lower-level key hashtags, see below:
As you can see above #bookcoverdesign has 110,000 posts on Facebook and 512,000 posts on Instagram where as #bookcoverdesigner has 22,000 posts on Facebook and 75,000 posts on Instagram so you see competition is lower just by using designer instead of design.
Setting Insight Goals using Meta Business Suite
This is a personal favourite of mine because it really allows me to see the progress I am making on my social media and allows me to set myself little challenges each month with increasing my overall reach. If you reach your goal before the end of the 30 days it allows you to increase that goal and set yourself a new one constantly allowing you to push yourself and gain better reach.
The insights on the Meta Business suite also allow you to check the trends on both your Facebook page and Instagram account, it gives you the reach of both channels, page visits from both channels, and likes / follows from both channels. The insights also gives you information on content, it allows you to see the reach, reactions, comments and shares from each individual post as well as give you insight on the top performers from the last 28 days.
The Takeaway
Meta Business suite will save you time!
Create regular content and schedule via Meta Business Suite so that it will post on both platforms.
Set yourself monthly Social media goals.
Create different types of content, the more people engage with you the more they will be shown content from both your Facebook page and Instagram accounts.
Be sure to reply to comments and messages as this too will also help grow engagement.
Save your Hashtags into groups to allow you to save time when posting.
Carefully consider your hashtags for each post and regularly see which ones are helping and which are creating more spam for your page.
If you would like to learn more about ways in which social media can help build your brand stay tuned for more blog posts, you can do so by joining My Wix or signing up to my newsletter below, where you will also be sent a FREE .pdf as a virtual book launch checklist to help ensure your book launch is ready to go!