quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
Welp. Here's a report on possible business impacts of leaving Facebook.

I posted the cover of my new book on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram yesterday.

I have roughly the same number of followers on my FB author page and my Twitter account. I've got about half as many on my personal FB page. I have barely even gone to Instagram, so I only have 10% of the following I've got on my author page and Twitter. There's some overlap among the followers of the different accounts, but not a lot.

I had about 7% engagement on my personal page, which is pretty good but perhaps not a valid test since a lot of them are my friends. It's especially good since I'm sure FB didn't show the post to everybody, but the number they showed it to is apparently a state secret.

On my author page, they only showed the post to 16% of my followers, but 13% of them engaged with the post, which I think is excellent. If I want more of the people who specifically said they wanted to see my posts to actually see them, I have to cross FB's palm with silver.

On Instagram, where I never ever go, I had engagement of 16% of my entire account. Methinks I need to spend more time on Instagram. Does this make sense? Isn't Instagram for people who look at pictures, whereas I'm trying to promote something to read? I don't know, but the people who do the marketing for my publisher are very high on Instagram.

On Twitter, where I've spent a lot of time lately and made great professional contacts for my academic job, I had 0.35% engagement. I enjoy Twitter, but I'm wasting my time there as a novelist.

I have now crossed FB's palm with a tiny amount of silver. I probably will do the same on IG. If the results are interesting, I will let you know but, in short, I'm making Zuckerberg richer and I hate it.