00:25:05 Anastasia Soroko: how much do you generally spend on boosting an event? 00:29:39 Kathy - Brain Lair Books: What percent of your followers were engaged with the posts? 00:30:01 Kathy - Brain Lair Books: What do you consider a success in using boosting $? 00:30:34 Bob Dobrow: Can you talk a little more on how you target a specific audience for posts. 00:30:54 Jamie Southern - Bookmarks: Ditto to Bob's question. Thanks! 00:31:17 alana haley: Boosted posts anywhere from $5 to 25 00:32:06 alana haley: We gauge success by reach and engagement for posts and by tickets sold for events. 00:32:20 Kathy - Brain Lair Books: Thanks 00:34:46 Cathy Fiebach: What kind of audiences do you target? How has it changed for virtual events? 00:38:13 alana haley: We target by genre. Once you enter a few target words to describe the audience Facebook will also make suggestions for you and show you how many potential people you can reach. 00:45:39 Kim Childress: Really great information. 00:46:24 Sarah Pishko: is it best to manage fb boosts and ppc on computer instead of mobile device? 00:46:43 Jordan B: Its easier to manage (in my opinion) from a desktop computer 00:46:45 Jordan B: BUT 00:46:50 Jordan B: you'll want to cross-check in mobile 00:46:56 Jordan B: since that is how most of your ads will be consumed. 00:47:17 Jordan B: (Desktop or laptop / larger screen device) 00:47:49 Kim Childress: Agree knowing your audience and building and have had success with targeted facebook boosts--for a low cost--which have been successful. Then, at the same time, I "piggy-back" market the facebook boosts by sharing the posts across my social media. This is for www.childressink.com, not my bookstore--still in soft launch. 00:47:55 Amanda Qassar: When it comes to targeting audiences for a boost, is it better to concentrate on a smaller geographic area, or cast the broader geographic net since it's a more virtual world anyway? 00:51:16 Bob Dobrow: What is “carousel” and “conversion” ad campaigns? 00:52:06 Kim Childress: I always target library and books, family friendly. for local events target toward the area and library and books when possible, but have to be sure to post "correctly," which facebook helps with when you get it wrong, and you just have to resubmit under a different category or "audience" to be sure you are not discriminating in any way. In those situations, I usually go with facebooks default suggested audience. And literally, you can boost for $5. Small boosts on minor review for example, larger boosts ($60ish-$120ish depending on budget), on larger hosted events, visting authors, a roundup or theme of your personal picks, for examples. 00:55:03 Amanda Qassar: Also a question for Alana - you said all your events are through Eventbrite - does that mean all your events have a ticket fee? We've been doing a lot of FB Live events, but haven't seen many sales from that - we don't want to necessarily want to try forcing people to buy the book - and also to everyone else: if you're doing FB live events, are you actively trying to get people to "RSVP"? We've been playing with the FB function of creating the TB live video link in advance, but then that prevents people from going to our event page on our store site and buying the book... 00:55:11 Kim Childress: also, in children's publishing, the children's book community (SCBWI, ALA...) have really joined together with authors and publishers to create FREE RESOURCES FOR PARENTS FOR KIDS, so getting people in with FREE CONTENT. 00:56:28 alana haley: Almost all of our events are free. We’ve only had two where a book purchase was the ticket price. 00:57:01 alana haley: We use all of our content across many different vehicles and platforms. 00:57:32 Amanda Qassar: Are you seeing a lot of book sales from your free events, Alana? 00:58:18 Kelly Justice: Also seeking answer to Amanda’s question to Alana. 00:59:38 Kim Childress: Amanda, been able to create events on Eventbrite "with tickets," but there is a "free" selection, you can choose an RSVP, which I've done and gained followers and customers in that way. In Eventbrite, sometimes I've had to insert number of tiks avail., and I just put in 10000000 ;) then can connect to facebook automatically, and can create a "calendar" to appear on your "bookstore homepage." Quirks, yes, I had to play around in Eventbrite--made mistakes where I had to take content down ;) but there are people there to help 00:59:42 alana haley: We see some, but not as much as when events were in store. We are looking at events as a way to give customers the experience of being in store while they can’t right now. 01:00:05 Kim Childress: Yes, virtual events! 01:00:26 Kim Childress: Bigger and bigger fan of virtual events--like this one. ;) 01:01:01 Amanda Qassar: It's hard to wrap my brain around the best ways to direct people back to ordering from us - I'm concerned they're just closing up the virtual event we toiled over so hard and just ordering it from the Bezos in the Sky! 01:01:48 alana haley: We are also looking at virtual events as a way to cement our relationship with our customers who are afraid to go out just now. We love how we can promote them for all stores all across the bottom of Michigan. We are seeing terrific turnouts that might bring in a much smaller audience if held in store. 01:02:13 Scott Naugle: Is there a firm or professional who is familiar with bookstores and can be hired to assist with all of this? 01:02:39 Serena Wyckoff: What Scott said. 01:02:44 alana haley: There is an agency that the ABA works with. Can’t think of their name just now. Maybe Lauren knows? 01:03:39 Kim Childress: I do believe virtual events are key for bookstore futures, and it is a matter of deciding what is best target for you, and it is a learning process, I would love to hire a full-time online bookstore manager, but that's not a reality right now, so I have played and learned over time (years ;) I love facebook analytics! 01:03:39 Kelly Justice: Scott, we’ve used Sarah Benoit at JB Media Group. She was helpful and familiar with bookstores. 01:04:12 suzanne droppert: We were lucky to be chosen to be the Indie bookstore for Stephenie Meyer’s event at a local Drive in theater, all done thru eventbrite, book purchase required to attend. Driven theaters are still good in this day of covid. 01:04:26 alana haley: I loved the idea of that event! 01:04:27 Kim Childress: love 01:04:40 Amanda Qassar: I'm wondering, too, how short copy should be on boosted FB ads - and does FB "prefer" posts that stay within FB or does it not matter if we direct people to our website? 01:04:59 alana haley: Keep as tight as possible. There typical is a character requirement. 01:05:02 Kim Childress: nope, you can direct anywhere! 01:05:22 Amanda Qassar: I've also heard of a "four hour rule" when it comes to posting anything on FB - that there's an implication that if you post more often than every four hours posts are "suppressed" 01:05:30 Amanda Qassar: I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS 01:09:38 alana haley: The four I will say that our demographic is older. More like 50/50 mobile to desktop/tablet. So it is important to know your audience. This holds across web and social analytics.hour rule doesn’t always 01:10:02 alana haley: Apply these days. We can do a post at 10am, a live story time at 11am, and neither suffers. 01:10:18 Kim Childress: QUESTION: I am frequently asked about hashtags and their purpose, could you please weigh in/advise/tips/explain hashtags? :) 01:10:49 Amanda Qassar: Thanks all! 01:10:58 alana haley: We use hashtags on Instagram only. It does help to get new followers. 01:11:19 Kelly Justice: I have seen that 01:11:19 Amanda Qassar: Is it even a thing? 01:11:37 Jordan B: Facebook primarily focuses on engagement in how it highlights content in its timeline. 01:11:54 Jordan B: IF you post a lot of content, all with low engagement, you're going to get suppressed 01:12:05 Jordan B: IF you post a lot of content with good engagement, you won't be. 01:12:54 Serena Wyckoff: This is so helpful - you all could talk another hour! 01:13:16 Kim Childress: Really really interesting information! Thank you all! 01:13:33 Kelly Justice: Very helpful. Thank you, Everyone. 01:13:37 alana haley: I love to share this stuff! 01:13:37 Sarah Pishko: when will this be available to watch again later? 01:14:32 Kim Childress: yes! thanks 01:15:16 Kim Childress: tagging is key 01:15:46 Jhoanna Belfer @belcantobooks: Absolutely agree with tagging! Some authors have then reposted our posts when we’ve tagged them - introducing us to their audiences. 01:16:04 Kim Childress: yes! 01:16:18 Jordan B: Hashtags also create a semantic relationship between your content and an interest topic (Both in Instagram and Facebook). Its primarily used by real users in Instagram although it also plays a role in their machine learning algorithms. 01:16:25 alana haley: Most authors are terrific about reposting! 01:16:30 Kelly Justice: In the SIBA region if you tag ReaderMeetWriter, they will help promote on Facebook. 01:16:43 Kim Childress: thanks! excellent 01:16:55 suzanne droppert: It is helpful to me to follow all the indie bookstores, I’d love everyone else to do that as well. 01:16:56 Eileen McGervey: Thank you! Fantastic 01:17:04 Cathy Fiebach: Thank you all so much 01:17:05 Keryl Hausmann: Very helpful! Thanks! 01:17:08 Sandi Cararo: thank you, this was great 01:17:08 alana haley: Thank you for having me! 01:17:12 Kelly Justice: Thanks again!