Facebook Advertising: It Didn't Work for Me.

Here are my results.

I started a Facebook ad campaign to get "Page Likes" for my author page. I planned to pay up to $2.50 per day for ads to bring people to my page and get a "Like". I ran the ad for four weeks, and this is what I got.

I muddied the purity of my study by a getting a 'wild hare' and boosted a post, right in the middle of this campaign and paid an additional $60.

I started the campaign with 22 page likes, which had remained unchanged since I first started my author page and sent out "like requests" to all my friends on my regular facebook page. I tried to add a comment to my author page everyday, but probably ended up posting once every two to three days.

After 28 days, here's what I got:

Paying up to $2.50 per day, I spent $68.27 on this specific campaign and they say I got 84 page likes from it, costing me $0.81 each.
From the 'wild hare page boost' I got 123 page likes for that specific page.
I now have 136 page likes for my author page.
During this time period I had 2 organic page likes from people I met on twitter, so there were 15 pages likes from other sources--possibly secondary to the 'wild hare boost' or from posts on twitter.
During this time period I had one (1) conversation with a person on Facebook from these new page likes. I cannot say that I have sold any more books as a result of either of the advertisements. I have had a hand full of Kindle Unlimited downloads and cash sales. If all of these were from the facebook ads, they would have a value of about $5.

So, I got one conversation and (maybe) $5 in sales from an investment of $128.27. Was that worth it? It depends on whether those page likes will read further posts, repost them, and/or buy my books.

Going forward. I will be interested to see if I continue to get any Author Page likes. My hope, all along was that this would build a momentum that would carry on a consistent page like increase. We'll see.

pec

My Dad has a Barn--Let's Put on a Book Tour.

To all my imaginary "regular followers": You know I am experimenting with different ways of developing my "platform" and establishing myself as a successful and productive author. 

My latest attempt has been to join a book tour. I've seen ads to have books promoted through such a tour, but haven't had the courage to put up the cash yet--considering the lack of success I got from the money paid to "Free And Discount Books" for my launch of "Shooting Stars". For the $60 is shelled out, I can't see that I got a "Red Cent" worth of promotion from it.

So, this time I saw a tweet about reading a book and reviewing it on my blog for a book tour organized by www.elitebookpromotions.com. The book is, "Reporting Lives". I read the book, wrote my review and will have it posted next week. (Right here for your nonexistent eyes to peruse.)

pec

Am I a copy cat?I

I realize that writing a blog should be more of my writing and not just posting what other people have written, but why should I try writing something that someone else has already said, when I can just point you to it?

I just found this on Google+ and thought it makes a lot of sense. You can read it and see what you think. It mainly says that not liking something is not saying it's bad and when it comes to writing a review we should make sure that's clear in our discussion of the book. I think this goes well with the "Open Letter...." I linked to yesterday.

http://albuscorvus.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/dislike-isnt-the-same-thing-as-bad/