VIRAL JUICE! #3 Facebook Chat as promotional tool?
Promote wisely (i.e. without Facebook Chat)
There are a lot of ways to use Facebook to promote yourself. Set up a product page for your book, run some polls, post some cool photos, arrange an event, interact with your fans. But Facebook Chat is an awful way to reach out. First of all, it’s unreliable. Secondly, few people use it on their computer to chat in real-time (though mobile is picking up speed). Most people (who know better) set themselves to invisible which means all chats are sent to the Message box. That may be fine for a quick ping. But if you catch someone online and try to chat up your new book with them they probably won’t appreciate it. The ambiance of Facebook is still one of arms-length. Even if you spend a lot of time on it, and feel fulfilled by it, most people use it to interact, but with some distance. Chat is too immediate for Facebook. I expect it will become even less prominent on their website as time goes on.
