Oh, the horror, the shock, the outrageous nature of what my first Facebook ad has unleashed upon some Facebook users who have called me nasty names because their news feed included...
I'd never paid for a Facebook ad, or boost, for one of my books until last Saturday. That was when I decided to fashion a Brian Hines, Author Facebook page.
Once the page was live, I made posts for three of my books that featured links to the Amazon listing. Then I forked out $100 to Facebook to boost the post for Break Free of Dogma, with the intended audience being atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers in the United States.
Since, I've gotten some really nasty comments on that post. They weren't substantive, devoted religious people arguing against my anti-dogma book.
No, these people were outraged that my supposed "spam" had infected their news feed. Which is beyond ridiculous.
Facebook revenues were $70.7 billion in 2019, mostly from digital advertising. Those ads aren't spam. They're how Facebook makes money. Lots of it.
My $100 ad doesn't deserve the title, "drop in the bucket." It's more like a tiny molecule in a drop of the Olympic sized swimming pool filled with $70.7 billion worth of Facebook ads.
In my own news feed I scroll past lots of ads, sponsored posts, every day. A few interest me. Most don't. This is exactly the same as the ads in the daily newspaper I read each day, and the ads in the magazines I subscribe to.
Well, except for the fact that I don't pay Facebook for being able to use it, while I do have to pay for our newspaper and magazines. So that's more justification, not less, for Facebook ads.
Yet the outraged people who are calling me a spammer don't seem to realize that ads, for better or worse, are what keep Facebook free.
I've been deleting the nasty comments, but here's an example that just came in.
Dave Benoit, I get it. You don't like ads. But they're a fact of life. And I readily admit that sometimes I click on Facebook ads to learn more about the product being advertised, because it looks interesting to me. Sometimes I even end up buying the product.
An ad isn't spam.
Nor is it a scam, unless what's being advertised doesn't actually exist, or doesn't do what is claimed. Dave, you can click on my ad and be led to the Amazon listing for my book, Break Free of Dogma. It's a real book, all 307 pages of it. You can use the Look Inside feature to read some sample pages.
Not a scam.
Lastly, Dave, and others like you who call my ad spam or a scam, you should know that I'm just a guy in Oregon who has made very little money from the four books I've written. Those books are a labor of love, a love of writing.
Yes, I enjoy it when people read my books. But I don't expect to make much from them. I paid $100 for the Facebook ad because I'd like more people to learn about Break Free of Dogma. Most won't want to buy the book. A few will. And that will please me.
"Just say NO" to Facebook.
Posted by: Skyline | May 13, 2020 at 09:59 AM
Wow. I haven't done a FB ad but have done boosts for a post on my author page and never got anything mean like that. I think the ones who resent ads are foolish as why can it be free without some revenue. We've had some good results from Amazon ads and the cost was less.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | May 13, 2020 at 02:45 PM