Social Media

Today it is said that if a person doesn't employ one or more of the social media formats they are committing electronic suicide.

There are so many media formats to choose from: Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, GoodReads and the list continues on.

As a writer if you aren't promoting yourself out there, you are literally driving into a dead end.

I currently am on all of the above media formats.  I spend way too much time on them.  In fact, I have discovered that almost my whole day is spent trying to keep up and my writing is suffering.  Contrary to popular belief - there is a social life beyond the electronic world and one must make time for it.  If you are married, there is the spouse; if you have kids, there are their needs; and obviously you have co-workers and friends who want to see your pasty-white face from time to time.  Yes, there is a sun, there is wind, rain, snow, and a plethora of other outside delights.  There is even social media called movies, nightclubs and restaurants.

I attempted to allow myself one hour of Facebook, an hour of Twitter, and hour of ... well, you see the format.  I listed seven media formats -- at an hour each, that is pretty much a day's job.  I'm retired and don't have a boss craning his head over my cubicle wall to see what I'm doing but if I did, it would mean I am only dedicating about an hour to working at my real job.  Not good.

There are days that an hour on Facebook just isn't enough and if the truth be told, that can be so with each of the other social sites if you really want to keep up with all your 'friends' out there in cyberworld. I was told to use my time wisely and actually only allow 15 mins to each of them.  Still, that equals almost 2 hours and with Twitter alone, I have new peeps joining which I feel I must personally thank for following me.  Doing that once a day sort of cheats them.

But, here comes the clincher.

How many of your followers are the same on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, GoodReads, etc?  Pinterest was the most current social media for me to join.  As I worked through the registration, it connected with Facebook and the next thing I knew, I was following thirty-some Facebook friends on Pinterest.  And, slowly, they are starting to follow me.

Hmm?  I'm suppose to be promoting myself but I'm discovering that most of the people I am following on these different social media sites are the same people.  Oh, there are new ones in each site but, in general, they are the same basic group of people.  Basically, other writers.

For marketing purposes I have discovered a flaw.  I want to know other authors but to sell myself, I need to 'hustle' myself to the readers of the world.

Now my question.  Anyone got an idea of how to do that?  How do I find the readers?  I don't know their names, their emails, etc so how do I get connected to them?

Until next I ramble on...