The readers in my Facebook group love when my characters, Ian “Boss-man” Sawyer, T. Carter, and Mistress China, stop in to chat with them. They love Ian’s sarcasm, Carter’s playfulness, and Mistress China’s protective nature. How do my readers interact with them? It’s very easy!
Author Ellie Masters gave me the idea for making FB pages for some of my characters, then linking them to my group. Once that was done, I could choose which character I wanted to be when interacting with the group. I can even have my characters tease or argue with each other. It’s a lot of fun and my members really enjoy it!
First thing you need to do is decide which character your readers would like to interact with the most and create a Facebook page (not a profile) for them. Choose “Public Figure,” then enter your character’s name. For category, there is no fictional character option, so choose Book or Book Series. Upload photos for a banner and page image–book covers, what you think the character looks like, etc. (make sure you have the rights to the images). Write a description of your character, what book(s) they are from, and links to buy the books or anything else you want to add!
Once your page is up and running, go to the menu on the left side of the page and click on “Groups.”
Click on “Link Your Group.” A list of groups you are an admin for will come up. Select the one you want to link to the page.
Now go over to your group. In the upper left corner, next to the banner, you’ll see a button that says “Interacting As Yourself.” Click on that and you’ll get a pop-up of the pages you can interact as.
Choose who you want to post/comment as and you’re all set! See? Easy-peasy!
Note: Under the character name, you’ll see it says “Admin Published by Samantha A. Cole” – only the admins will be able to see that.
A few things to mention:
1. Once you switch over to interacting as a page, you will keep interacting as them until you switch back.
2. For some unknown reason, you can’t post/comment a gif or video and have it auto play. It will show as the link only.
3. Anyone who is an admin on both the page and in the group will be able to interact as the page. It is best to make a friend or relative you trust as admins on both in case your profile gets thrown in FB jail or suspended.
4. This is a great opportunity to interact with your reader group! I ended up making a novella that included questions my reader group asked my characters and their answers! So have fun and enjoy!
Samantha that was cool how that all works. Back in the day when I did a blog with Sue-Ellen her characters used to do blog take-overs and one character in particular was a regular. Our dogs used to get in on the act as well.
LOL Maybe I’ll get Beau, FUBAR, and Spanky their own pages.