Fire Star Press: Big Brother

As authors, we're expected to use social media to interact with readers and market our books. Unfortunately, the rules keep changing and rarely are those changes to our benefit. The newest Facebook changes are no different.

Facebook wants to make user interactions more "intimate." As such, groups are becoming more important and are what Facebook's almighty algorithms will begin focusing on. If you are an author (like me) who doesn't have a Facebook group for your readers, you need to consider setting one up ASAP. However, once you do this, as the group administrator YOU are responsible for everything in the group so you'll need to set it up so you have to approve all memberships requests and all posts. Why? Because Facebook is watching. If Big Brother sees anything in your group that they feel violates their Terms of Service (ToS), they have the option of shutting down not only your group but your author page AND your personal page and you will have no recourse, no way to request a trial by a jury of your peers. Sounds fun, right?

Okay, so now you have created your group and allowed members into its hallowed electrons. You begin making witty posts and members begin giving them the old "Thumbs up." That's a good thing, right? HAHAHAHA Don't be silly. Liking a post means absolutely nothing to the Facebook algorithms. Love, Shock, and Laughing interactions mean the algorithms will allow more people to see your posts. There's an easy fix for that right? You'll just tell your readers to be sure to use those options when reacting to posts. No, you won't. You see, Facebook will consider that to be click-bait and is one of the many reasons they can potentially shut you down. So, you'll need to be more creative with your wording.

And if your members give posts Mad or Sad reactions? Well, that implies negativity and Facebook can't have that. Negativity reflects poorly on you as the group administrator and once again - say it with me now - can result in you losing everything.

This is just scratching the surface. There are videos online going into more detail. If you need me, I'll be over here alternately pounding my head on my desk and crying.