Facebook "likes" vs. actual sales

Facebook 'Likes' in no way correlate to sales.

It does get your name out there a little bit, and as long as your Facebook page doesn't get stagnant, you may convince a few people to dig deeper and actually go pick up your books, but there's really no way to tell where those purchases came from unless the people that bought it come out and say it.

I wouldn't use an entire Facebook campaign, but when I'm posting on my page about a sale, I might throw a quick $5 at boosting the post if I can squeeze it out. Then I make sure my post includes a link, a picture, and emphasizes the words FREE or SALE. Even then, I more smirk at the number of views the post gets over anything else.

Kevin, I've found Facebook helpful for letting existing readers of my books know about new releases. I have made sales as a result, but it's usually someone who's already familiar with me.

One down side to having a fan page is that Facebook doesn't really promote posts unless you pay to "boost" them to guarantee that your fans see what you've shared. I've done this a couple of times, spending $5 each time to ensure that all or most of my followers see an important post. Other than that, my FB author page is more of a landing page for someone who happens to search it out.

I wish I could be more helpful. Hopefully you'll see a few sales. On the bright side, you're not spending a huge amount of money on your promotion.

kevinwaynewilliams said:

I turned on a Facebook campaign ($15/day max) to bring people to my Facebook page. I'm starting to see likes, but it's very clear that the likes aren't converting into sales.

Do Facebook "likes" actually do anything for book sales? Or am I just pouring money down a rat hole?

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You're just pouring money down a rat hole.

Completely unrelated, but I dug into realtor conversion rates on Facebook. $20 got 30 visits and 1 like. For most realtors, a high soft conversion would be 10% (10% of all web visitors subscribe to an email list) and 1% of those email list people then ask for hard conversion (help me sell my house or help me buy a house).

So... doing some EXTREMELY fuzzy math, a Realtor could pay about $666 for one good lead if their website conversion was top of the line.


On another note, I just tried out a "Boost" on a blog post of mine and $5 got me 9 visits. Not really worth it. (Though maybe worth blogging about?)

kevinwaynewilliams said:

I turned on a Facebook campaign ($15/day max) to bring people to my Facebook page. I'm starting to see likes, but it's very clear that the likes aren't converting into sales.

Do Facebook "likes" actually do anything for book sales? Or am I just pouring money down a rat hole?

Click to expand...

I read an article recently (entrepreneur magazine sometime in July) that a lot of these so called links are from fake FB accounts. I'm not sure where the magazine got their data from but I do know when I boosted posts, etc., it did nothing for my bottom line other than sucking money out of my wallet.

There was this viral video going around by Veritasium talking about the problem of fake Facebook likes. There were some counter arguments made that the methodology used in the critique of Facebook was not sound, but the overall point made about fake likes seems to have some merit.

Has anyone tried Twitter for ads?

Let me give you one piece of advice that I've learned:

Facebook does not work for authors.

Any sales I get come from doing KDP Select book giveaways, Twitter and Reddit. FB has nuked the fridge for offering exposure that translates into sales for any business - even George Takei complained about how his FB posts have to be 'boosted' in order for them to reach everyone who likes his page.

I wouldn't waste your time or money on FB - there are cheaper and more effective ways to boost your sales.