Millions of people visit Facebook every day, making it one of the best viral marketing opportunities for authors online. It’s easy to set up and maintain pages specifically for your book, you can find lots of traffic for your blog or web site, and it’s free, at least for now. Consider these five tips to establish your book’s Facebook presence.

Millions of people visit Facebook every day, making it one of the best viral marketing opportunities for authors online. It's easy to set up and maintain pages specifically for your book, you can find lots of traffic for your blog or web site, and it's free, at least for now. (I've heard they're thinking about charging.) Plus, Facebook pages get ranked in search engine results, making it an ideal tool to add to your book marketing strategy.

Consider the following tips to establish your book's Facebook presence.

1. Complete Your Profile Page
If you already have a personal profile on Facebook, you can create a fan page just for your book. (If you don't already have a profile, you'll need to create one to get the page.) Why the fan page? Facebook limits the number of friends you can have to 5,000. But you can have an unlimited number of fans. Plus, you can use an image of your book cover, write a blurb about the book, track visitors, and add other features that you might not want to do on a personal profile. You can extra tabs and add testimonials from readers, links to sales pages on Amazon and other online bookstores, and even offer your fans a free downloadable sample of your book. Make sure you take advantage of everything the fan page has to offer.

2. Get Fans
Once your fan page is set up, you need to get fans. Unlike the personal profile page, you can't just search for people and ask them to become your fan. But you can ask your friends from your personal page to become a fan and ask them to help you get the word out by suggesting their friends become fans as well. You'll also want to promote your fan page as much as possible, adding a link to your e-mail signature, putting a badge on your blog and web site, and placing a link on all your book-marketing pieces. One other way to get fans is with Facebook ads. These are the small ads that show up on the right-hand side of the site, and although they aren't free, you only have to pay when someone clicks.

3. Use Your Fan Page to Promote Book Signings, Readings, and Events
Facebook can help you find fans across the globe, but it's also a great way to promote book signings, readings, speaking engagements, and any other events that you're holding in your local area. Within your fan page administration panel, you can create events and invite all your fans. Then when they reply that they're attending, all their friends will see it, which means viral exposure for your events.

4. Start Conversations
The beauty of social media is the ability to interact, and Facebook is no different. It makes you more accessible and allows your readers to connect with you on a personal level. So in addition to promoting your book and events, start conversations, show your readers what you're really like, and give them information that interests them. And make sure you respond to comments and wall posts from fans. They'll love hearing from you just as much as you'll love hearing from them.

Putting Your Book on Facebook
Facebook is a powerful marketing tool for authors, and it's a lot of fun. So if you haven't already, give it a try. Put up a page for your book, and start attracting readers!