Facebook Removing Fake “Likes”

Issue #909 April 21, 2015
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

Facebook Removing Fake “Likes”
Obnoxious Hashtags
Trick to Sell More Kindle Books
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

I about broke my back working in the garden all weekend and what do I see this morning? Deer tracks. Everywhere! They’re salivating, just waiting for the tulips to bloom. My only weapon is a bottle of Messina Wildlife’s Animal Stopper, an organic repellent made with mint, rosemary and cinnamon oils. It comes with a 100 percent guarantee, and it won’t wash off in the rain. The battle has begun.

1. Facebook Removing Fake “Likes”

It can be mighty tempting to pay 10 or 20 bucks to have someone create hundreds or even thousands of “Likes” for your Facebook page.

It makes you look more popular, right? Don’t waste your money.

Facebook is cracking down on fake “Likes” that companies are selling for a flat fee. It claims it has even put some of those companies out of business.

In the last six months, it has removed bogus “Likes” from 200,000 pages even before they reached those pages.

Read the details.

Notice all the complaints in the Comments section. The fact remains: You don’t own your Facebook page. Facebook owns it.

If you want full control over your content, start a blog at WordPress.org and choose your favorite hosting company. I use Net10.net and love their lightning fast customer service.

Can’t think of enough topics to blog about? Patsi Krakoff collaborated with me on a cheat sheet of “101 Ways to Find Content for Your Blog.” It’s in the giant bonus package that comes with the audio recording or the electronic transcript of our teleseminar on “Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging.” See what other goodies you get when you buy the training program from my shop.

2. Obnoxious Hashtags

Send me a tweet that includes more than three or four hashtags, and you’ve lost me. Like this one, which I found in my Twitter stream yesterday:

INNOCENCE new from The Queen of #99cents #romance #asmsg #ian1 #iartg http://spangaloo.com/books.php?bid=71 … #spub #kindle

Trying to wade through that mess is painful. So I don’t even bother. I just leave.

Others do too. It’s just like spamming. And it’s obnoxious.

So is stealing other people’s popular hashtags and adopting them for your own unrelated content.

Hashtags can be one the most powerful tools you use to call attention to content you’re sharing, especially in a publicity campaign. But only if you use them sparingly and respectfully.

The video replay of my webinar on “How to Use Hashtags, the New Search Tool” explains all the opportunities to create, use and share hashtags that will help brand your business and your valuable content. It includes best practices, mistakes that will render your hashtag useless, and tips for creating a branded hashtag for your business.

3. Trick to Sell More Kindle Books

If you publish on Kindle, consider a series of books on the same topic, each with its own set of keywords.

But don’t leave it up to readers to find all the related titles themselves. If you have the entire series finished, go to the back of each book and include a list of all the other books in the series with a short description.

That’s just one way to sell more Kindle books.

You’ll learn about many others when Steve Harrison hosts a free webinar at 2 and 7 p.m. Eastern Time this Thursday, April 23, on “How to Make the Most of Amazon: 7 Strategies Most Authors Don’t Know to Write Books Faster, Get Published Quickly, Create Passive Income and Tap the Power of the world’s Largest Bookstore to Sell a Lot More Books.”

His guests are Jay Boyer and John Rhodes, two authors who have published more than 140 books, sold more than 50,000 copies, hit the Amazon best-seller list more than a dozen times and earned six figures in royalties.

They’ll explain why 8 out of 10 authors have their Amazon author profiles set up incorrectly, how to make 70 percent royalties on ebooks if you meet certain pricing guidelines and how to blast your Kindle ebook to a #1 Bestseller 48 hours after you publish it.

There’s a lot that Amazon doesn’t want you to know about the future of Kindle publishing, and the authors will tell you what it is on this call.

You’ll also hear about the 7 essential ingredients any first-time Kindle author must use for a successful book launch, and much more.

Full Disclosure: I’m one of Steve’s affiliates and may earn a commission if you buy anything from him down the road.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Thanks to Publicity Hound BL Ochman of PawFun.com for this 20-second video of a shelter dog that found a loving home and made up its mind that it never wants to eat alone again. Watch what he does when his owner gives him a dish of food.

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