Want to Build Your Brand? Part 1 – Think Facebook

Sherri Coner is a client who is an author as you probably already know. Whitesides Words has published two of her women’s fiction books ( Loving Me(n) and Lies & Legacy: Frankie’s Story) on Kindle and print copies are also available at Amazon.com. The third book, a wonderful novel called In a Moon Smile, is set to release on October 22. There’s lots of exciting things going on but one of the most exciting is that we set up a Facebook fan page for Sherri.

Whitesides Words is helping Sherri build her brand and get her wonderful stories out into the hands of readers. We’re sharing her story with the world – and it’s pretty incredible what’s happening. It may be that you could benefit from her story…

We launched Laugh with Sherri Coner on September 20. By October 1, 10 days later, she had 142 fans. When we look at the analytics, we find that most of her posts have about 28 people engaged – that means they either liked the post, commented or shared it.

We also discovered that in that first 10-day period, she touched 898 unique readers.

With the ripple effect and the wave in place, as of October 1, she had the potential to reach 31,578 people from her Facebook fan page.

And that’s just in the first 10 days of the page’s existence…

Pretty remarkable, huh?

Now, the purpose of giving you this information is not necessarily to push you into creating a fan page for your business, but I do want you to consider it. For Sherri, Whitesides Words is employing an organized content strategy. However, I do want to share a few little tidbits we learned along the way:

• Setting up a fan page is pretty darn easy. It takes less than an hour to get you going. Add a picture and a little information and you are ready to go.
• Sherri started letting people on her personal page know she had a fan page and then started to post in both places.
• Sherri has a target market in mind and publishes posts that would appeal to that target market. However, others do come along and have started following her because of the next point…
• Sherri talks with her followers like she’s looking at them eye-to-eye across the back fence. And you know what, they talk back to her the same way. There are conversations going back and forth and everyone chimes in.
• Sherri’s posts range from lighthearted banter to serious insights to rants – in a word, when you visit Sherri’s page, you visit Sherri, the real person.

Now you may say, that’s all well and fine for someone who is a techie – well, let me tell you, Sherri is definitely NOT a techie – as she will attest to herself. But she is a person who wants to connect with people. She does that face-to-face. She does that online. She does that in her books. She’s authentic and you can tell that from the very first time you visit.

But she also wants people to know about her books and read them – and share them with their friends. Her Facebook fan page is growing her following and building her brand – in spades!

Now that her Sherriconer.com website is live, we are starting to connect her fans on her Facebook page with the website. I’ll let you know the impact of that after it’s been breathing and stretching for at least a week.

We will continue to share what happens next week and over the first month. So far, the power of Facebook by itself is well illustrated. We will take you along for the ride through the Twitter-sphere, her website and blog (Stories from the Other Side!) as well. If you want your brand and business to grow and prosper, keep an eye on Sherri Coner and her fan page, you might find a friend – and someone to emulate.

Just think about it

Elaine