Are You Making This Common Marketing Mistake?
EPISODE EIGHT
Jenn has a nightmare scenario with a client who has put all of his eggs in his "social media basket" which jeopardized the connection with his audience. There's one thing you can do to make sure you don't find yourself in this situation.
Links
Report a problem with your Facebook Page ➞
Report a problem on Instagram ➞
Transcript
JENN: Hello. I am Jenn Hanson dePaula.
MARCUS: And this is Marcus dePaula.
JENN: And welcome to episode eight of the Book Marketing Simplified podcast.
MARCUS: This past week you had something happen to one of your clients that is probably one of our worst nightmares. What happened?
JENN: Well, last week, I got a very panicked call from a consulting client that we've had for a long time and he told me that his Facebook Page had been hacked. And he has well over - I think it's like 280,000 followers.
MARCUS: So you say it was hacked? What actually happened?
JENN: Well, he had some people message him saying that they were surprised that he posted something like this. I don't even know what the post was because I had been blocked from seeing that post.
He got this notice. And so I started looking into seeing what had actually happened and I'm an administrator on his page. So I went in and I noticed that there were these two very strange names that had been added. I think they were added as editors of the page and they were not added by me, by our client, or by anyone that we knew.
So I knew that these people had to have somehow hacked into his page. And so I went in to try to remove their access and it said that us removing them and deleting them from the page had been denied. I've never seen. That happened before. Usually because I'm an administrator, I can cut them out for those duties.
I called up the client and I told him what had happened and just a mere few hours later, when I went to check back in to see what else was going on, I had been removed as an administrator. And so had our client. They had no control of their page.
MARCUS: How many followers did they have on the page?
JENN: They have, well over 280,000 followers, but they also have a Facebook group that has - I think it's 10,000 followers.
MARCUS: Controlled by that page.
JENN: Yes. So we're talking hundreds of thousands of people. The hackers started spamming this page asking for donations.
MARCUS: Phishing scam essentially.
JENN: Absolutely. It was a huge panic. Thankfully, we had some people that were very active that posted on the page that it's been hacked.
MARCUS: Don't click on anything.
JENN: Yes. Stay away. I don't know if anyone did donate money.
MARCUS: Hopefully not. So how did you gain access back to it?
JENN: Well, you have the ability to report.
MARCUS: Normal users, that's all they can do is just report it.
JENN: Yes. We'll have those links in the show notes of how you can report a hack or spam or something that's going wrong with your Facebook Page.
MARCUS: And it's basically just a web form. It's not like you can pick up the phone or go to an office.
JENN: That's right. Sometimes they act quickly. Sometimes they don't. And so that's pretty much. The only thing that we can do. But this client of mine happened to be signed to one of the main publishers who has a direct contact at Facebook.
MARCUS: It was totally out of your hands. You said, "Call your publisher. I can't do anything else."
JENN: Yes. People who don't necessarily have a huge following, you're just kind of stuck if something like this happens to you.
MARCUS: So how long was his page out of his control for?
JENN: It happened initially on a Saturday and it did not come back until Wednesday.
MARCUS: Wow.
So he had hundreds of thousands of followers that he had spent all this time...
JENN: And money.
MARCUS: And money building up on Facebook, paying you to help him. What would have happened if he wasn't able to get control back?
JENN: You might just have to completely delete your page.
MARCUS: Wow. So all the work, all the effort, all the money would have just gone out the window, but fortunately that didn't happen to him. But it could have.
JENN: Very easily, especially if he didn't have that connection with his publisher.
MARCUS: And he doesn't have as big a following on Instagram or Twitter, but Facebook is where he lives online.
JENN: Yeah. They put all of their eggs in this one basket and that's the danger.
MARCUS: There's something that you've been encouraging him to do for a long time. And hopefully now they will start doing it. But what can our listeners do to help make sure this doesn't bite them?
JENN: Sadly, this is how some people are scared into. Making this very important change.
MARCUS: And let me point out too: what we're going to recommend right now is something that so many people tune out. As soon as you start talking about it and it's not sexy at all.
JENN: No. It's not.
MARCUS: But it is the one thing that you can do to make sure that you have complete ownership of your online presence.
JENN: Yes. And it's not just me saying this. There is not one marketing professional that I know and respect that does not recommend this. What I have been telling this client to do for a very, very long time is to focus on his newsletter.
Any time I post anything about newsletters on our social media or, you know, I write a blog post, those are the least clicked on, read. Which boggles my mind because they work and they are your safety net. I can, without a doubt say if all of our social media outlets went away - if we lost control of them, I'd be sad. I'd be disappointed because there are connections there that we're still fostering and still developing.
MARCUS: But it would take you no time to just send an email out to our thousands of subscribers and get them on whatever new platform it is that you want to engage with them on.
JENN: We have that safety net there.
MARCUS: So the safety comes in that you actually have a database of contact information that people have given you permission to use. On social media as the owner of that profile or page, you don't have any way of reaching out to those followers except on that platform.
JENN: I'm a huge fan of social media. I love the connection that we can have with it, but the danger is when people use social media as their one place where they hold everything.
It's a false front, honestly. Just because you might have 200,000 followers on Facebook or on Instagram or whatever doesn't mean that you have 200,000 buyers. They are not as committed as a newsletter subscriber. And I've gotten feedback from so many authors saying, well, my newsletter followers, there aren't as many there. And it's like, yeah, you're filtering out those people that are just window shopping to those that you actually have their attention. They are interested in hearing what you have to say. And they are one step away from buying from you. And that is what you want. The newsletter subscribers are a much truer vision of who your core audience is.
And that is why it is so important with Instagram or with Facebook. Those people, aren't going to see everything that you post. With a newsletter, whether it be weekly or bimonthly or monthly, you are staying in front of them. They see your email pop up in their inbox. You're helping them set you at the front of their mind.
Even though not every single person might open up your email. It's still making an impression. That's what you are trying to do. You're trying to stay at the front of their mind. So when they are ready to buy from you, they will know where to go. Because just because we're ready to sell doesn't mean that your reader is ready to buy.
There are many hesitations that people have with newsletters that we're absolutely going to talk about in upcoming episodes. But the biggest hurdle to get over is just to actually know, okay I have to get serious about my newsletter.
MARCUS: And I feel like so many of our clients just kind of moan at doing a newsletter because it seems so labor intensive.
JENN: It does take a while to build up a list. Especially if you're just starting out with social media. You are still getting people to know, like, and trust you on social media. And if you're having a slow go at growing your newsletter, stay consistent with it and focus on quality content. And what is going to turn a mere follower on social media into a newsletter subscriber is focusing on your content. When you know who your ideal reader is, you will know exactly what kind of content they're looking for, what kind of content they respond to. So you can post those things on social media to drive them to your website. And then having a newsletter in sign up incentive.
We have a list of 25 newsletter incentives for fiction writers that you can use. And then I also have a blog post on what to share with your newsletter subscribers, because that's something that many people are hung up on. "What do I actually write about?"
MARCUS: And we'll share links to those in the show notes.
JENN: Yes.
MARCUS: We've talked about parts of this process before. You're basically using social media as the way to make the initial connection with people. You're driving them to your website. And then you're giving them a reason to give you their email address that you will then use to communicate with them on a consistent basis - at least once a month, hopefully more.
All right. So the takeaway from this is don't put your eggs all in one basket. If you're focusing your entire online presence, and if you're even using your Facebook page as your website, which I know some people do - please don't do that.
JENN: Please don't.
MARCUS: Make sure that you're prepared in case one of your social media accounts -God forbid - does actually get hacked. Make sure you're prepared by having an email list that you're feeding valuable information, valuable content on a consistent basis.
JENN: Yes.
MARCUS: So what is the make it happen moment for this episode?
JENN: This make it happen moment is going to be very simple because I think that is the biggest hurdle for authors to get over.
And that is being open to the idea of having a newsletter and using that as your main marketing tool. Go to our website at mixtusmedia.com. In the show notes, we are going to have links that will lay it out for you that will provide you with the information that you need. But if you do have a hesitation, let us know in the comments or let me know on social media, you can email us. Let me know what those hesitations are. Let's talk about it because it is something that I want to help walk you through.
MARCUS: And we've been there.
JENN: Absolutely. That is one of my biggest regrets. When we first started, our company is not starting our newsletter sooner. And newsletter marketing is not dead by any means.
MARCUS: Email is not dead.
JENN: No. It is alive and kicking. This needs to be a central tool in your book marketing.
MARCUS: So if you want to check out all the blog posts, go to bookmarketing,simplified.com/8.
JENN: Stop by and let us know how you're doing. And if you have questions and how we can help you. Let me know what your hesitations are.
So until next time,
MARCUS: Thanks for listening.