Sharing my Facebook social media tips this #WeekendCoffeeShare

If we were having coffee….

Hey, nice of you to join us here. I haven’t been back to Moonwinks since the start of my first job here in Michigan. Back then, we weren’t into coffee, just sweet flavored coffee drinks, and the lattes didn’t impress us. Today, we wanted to go someplace new after my Saturday workshift, and this place is on the way home.

Do you like Zingerman’s coffee? I don’t, which makes me even more a pariah around here. Everybody near Ann Arbor and beyond loves everything about Zingerman’s. My husband and I, we don’t get the fascination. The coffee is all orange-floraly, the bread is a bit chewy and just there, the brownies are chocolately but a bit dry and the overall menu is entirely too expensive for what you get. The espresso blend here isn’t bad, kind of round and not tart at all, so my Americano was a good choice. I recommend that, unless you like summer-y coffees.

It’s been a week for me: not good, not bad, just a lot of running around, not writing and lack of sleep. I was incredible productive at the start of the week. I’m excited to finally figure out a social media plan and to put that in my Happy Planner and actually use it all as intended. After Tuesday, however, it all fell through.

My goal is to maintain a regular schedule per my Round 3 ROW80 goal #4 which means a daily presence somewhere.

Why? It’s a bit selfish; I want people to know and love me and buy my future books, thus making me that world-famous author I am destined to be. It’s a bit selfless because I like being social, connecting with people and making friends. A part is the productivity, meaning if I’m writing something then I’m writing something. It’s good practice, be it a blogposts or a Tweet.

So I started my schedule with the media I dislike most: Facebook. I randomly posted on my Author Page that I was going to Book Expo America. My page got engagement noted by Facebook analytics or whatever, and I got 2-3 more Page Likes. That was encouraging. I posted something again and *poof!* more people. To paraphrase, “If you post it, they will come.”

I needed a regular schedule so that my fans or readers will know when to expect something from me. I’m a private person in public, so I don’t open Facebook or email on my laptop anytime I’m out in public. I’m out writing Mondays, Wednesdays and most Fridays, so Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only regular days I expect to be home to post. I scrolled through my phone calendar and noted that I had more doctor and household appointments, car repairs and business errands on Thursdays, so Tuesdays made sense. Turns out that’s a day I post my Tuesday Tree Update on Instagram, so I went with that.

Tuesdays are a good day in general. It’s the beginning of the week, but it’s not Monday. Never schedule meetings on Mondays. I learned that from my admin days. Mondays are when people catch up on work from the previous week, firefighting disasters that occurred over the weekend or they’re planning and catching up on the first day back after vacation. Mondays are volatile days. People relax on Tuesdays and can take guilt-free social media breaks. Tuesdays are a good day to post news from my weekend just passed or share news for the upcoming weekend, thus giving folks the opportunity to fit all my book signings, streaming interviews and personal appearances into their calendars. Tuesdays are a day I see my friends active on FB, so that’s a good way to start with a built-in audience. I also see them posting on Friday evenings, so I created my Fave Book Friday feature for that day. Two dedicated posting days, with an optional Sunday, is a doable schedule for me. I have finally controlled FB; it does not control me.

I’ve done that for two months now, and it’s actually been enjoyable. I’ve slipped on Fave Book Fridays because I tried the scheduling feature and I didn’t work it correctly. Yesterday, I packed up and set up scrapbooking items for the Baker’s Studio yard sale, and I was so exhausted from it that I didn’t check the Facebook scheduling thing again.

I’m working on some draft blog posts–my ROW80 Goal #1–but the rest of my goals were a no-show:

2–-Deal with 10 emails/day: 5 new and 5 old.
3–-Deal with the photos on my phone.
5–-Keep in touch with friends and family through phone calls and letters.

We’re going to see Star Trek Beyond on Sunday, and I should have time and energy to get some of the other stuff done. Monday afternoon, that’s my beautiful chunk of time where I review last week and plan this upcoming week.

How about you? What’s been going on in your life?