I have edits and an art fact sheet awaiting me, but I wanted to share some quick things about social media services I use and why.
We all know that the internet is a powerful tool. Tools can be good or bad, it depends on the user and the use. For every person saying the internet is the answer to your career woes, there’s another person saying get off it and go save your career. (Both sides have a point, IMO.) For me, it comes down to the question, does this activity enhance my life or detract from it?
1. Flickr. I started using Flickr last year, and found it so useful and wonderful that I upgraded to the pro account. Flickr makes it easy for me to share digital photos and organize them. You can control who sees what, making some things private if you choose, but my feeling is pretty much “if you want it private, don’t put it online”. Flickr enhances my creative life and helps me show the relatives and friends at a distance what’s going on in my part of the world.
2. Facebook. I was very on the fence about Facebook for quite a while, but I’d set it up to get updates from Twitter and my blog, so I figured it didn’t really take my time even if it didn’t give me anything. However, Facebook has turned out to be a good way to keep in touch with people who don’t visit my website. I have a lot of friends and family, particularly international, who prefer to stay in touch via Facebook instead of my professional author site, and it enhances my life to stay in contact with these people. So, Facebook is now a plus in my book instead of something I stare at in suspicion.*
*Edited to add: Facebook apps are a bane. I avoid them all because of the risk of virus infection and malware.
3. Twitter. Twitter is fun, it’s a very easy way to touch base with the people I work with, my peers, my friends, and to share links or items of interest. I often learn things via Twitter that do, yes, enhance my life. I don’t auto-follow because I don’t want to drown in posts or miss things from people I know, but I do check @ replies so that if a reader I’m not following says something to me there, I can catch it.
4. Goodreads. I signed up for this in 2008 and did nothing with it, feeling pretty much like it was another thing I didn’t know what to do with. However, Kristopher Reisz has inspired me to get on the stick and use it to track my own reading in 2010. Every year, I know I’ve read a lot of books in a lot of genres but I couldn’t tell you what they were. So this year I’m trying to track my reading. I may or may not post my thoughts on what I read, but at least I’m tracking it. I think this will enhance my life by helping me track trends in my own reading; what works for me as a reader has a lot of cues for me as a writer, so it’s important information I should pay attention to.
I would never attempt to do every form of social media out there; I don’t have the mental bandwidth, or the time. But I do think that choosing wisely and using wisely can make these tools both career and life enhancing. The internet gives us more ways to interact and connect, and I think trying to stay totally unplugged is as unreasonable as plugging in 24/7.
PS You can also feed ur blog to Goodreads (and videos too!!!!) AND you can connect Goodreads to Facebook!!! AND you can do free book giveaways to Goodreads (yes I love them in part because the giveaways require little effort on my part–I just send them the info, confirm and then mail books to the winner(s) they send me….VOILA!).
Also….not sure if you use/can use plugins like on WordPress but there is a Sociable plugin that will feed ur blog posts to Twitter, Facebook (which if you’re using Facebooks Blog App you don’t need) and Myspace–I’ve reached the point I rarely get on Myspace anymore so it’s nice to know I don’t have to duplicate or go in and post the links all over the place, yes?
I love Facebook because it has allowed me to connect w/friends etc that I haven’t seen or spoken with since HS but, like Myspace, it’s not as user-friendly as I’d like (IE those game apps *eyeroll).
I should update to add a note about FB apps; I don’t use any of them because they’ve become such a virus magnet.
I didn’t know you could blogfeed to Goodreads. I may take a look at that. And good to know their book giveaways are easy on the author.
I need to use my flikr account more, and my facebook games less. I’ve got a lifetime account for LibraryThing, but might look into adding Goodreads- it’d be good to have someplace to keep track of what I read. I still think I’m going to hold off on twitter, for now anyway.
I love my Flickr account. Goodreads is easy to use, and I think it’s going to be very helpful for tracking my reads.
I use Twitter and FB and they are both great for keeping up with people but are huge time sucks. I really have to develop more discipline when using them.
The key for me with FB and Twitter is how and when I use them. I don’t try to read updates from everybody I have in my friend or follow lists. That would take all day. I scan through replies and respond, I post something I have on my mind. I do a quick scan of what other people are up to, and that’s it. And I do it during time I couldn’t spend doing “real” writing anyway.
Just thinking about all the social networks makes me break out in hives. I find it very difficult to wrap my head around technology. I’m learning, but I’m always about two years behind everyone else. LOL I’m thinking about Facebook. I may give it a try and see what happens.
NJ, when you have twitter update to facebook, and your blog update to twitter, it’s a very low-impact way to branch out a little.