AHHH!
There are so MANY social networks out there and although some of your friends may already be on the one(s) you're on, some are on different ones and how do you keep up with all of them when they're all over the place?
Well there has to be a limit. I'm on Myspace, Facebook, Shelfari, Goodreads (although I only know how to get to my account there through my Facebook), Yahoo 360, Flixster (connected to family only), Gather (although I haven't been there in forever), LibraryThing, and there are likely others I've forgotten by now. I also recently joined Twitter. Why? Because John Kremer told me to.
No, I don't always follow orders from experts who say "you have to do this to market," and I put it off for some time after Mr. Kremer insisted it's a book marketing necessity, but ... I'm at Twitter. Find me there and everywhere else by searching LK Hunsaker (no punctuation, although I apparently like parentheses). You know what? I like Twitter although my first thought when I heard about it was somewhere along the lines of rolling my eyes, which I very well did. How can I not like it? I "followed" Keith Urban and he's following me back! Granted, most of the big names don't bother to follow you back and I know Mr. Urban has more to do than to actually read my twitterings (yes, I think that is an actual word now) but still, when you decide to stalk someone who decides to stalk you in return, it's flattering. Uh, I mean follow, not stalk. I think.
Much of it feels like stalking, though, with some of the stuff people put on there. I finally stopped following an author who every two minutes informed all of us about how her refrigerator cleaning was going with more description than I wanted, thanks anyway. So Twitter away, go for it, but leave the frig cleaning and such in private, please. I don't want five minute updates about what you're doing unless it's actually interesting. Hey, if you're backstage with Bon Jovi getting to see the roadies at work and the band at play, by all means, let us know. Or if you're on your way to London from the States and getting stopped by security although you're a big name, let us know that, too (a nod to Rob Thomas -- sorry, had to laugh about that one). I like finding new blog entries and new happenings and reading successes and struggles along career paths. I like nature/spiritual quotes. I like some of the regular daily stuff as long as it's not overdone, or gross. I do appreciate those who keep the language PG rated since you never know what age group is following you.
Today Steve Weber decided to follow me. Of course he's looking for writers to follow him in return and I'll be glad to do so, but that means my name is getting out there as being a writer. That's a good thing. It's also getting out that I'm music-obsessed and appreciate the meditative quality of nature since those into Yoga are following me.
It doesn't even take much time, which is a good thing when your schedule is busy as most of us can say. I run through now and then to see what others are up to, sometimes sending return comments, and post what I'm doing or thinking. Um, I don't post about what I'm cleaning. That's even boring to me. Why would I share the boredom? Of course, some may think my nature appreciation posts are boring, so I don't do them often. Variety is good. I do some marketing posts but I prefer simply to chat with people. I might have to find something interesting to be in the midst of so I'll have something more interesting to post. Because ... while editing may be brain-filling and intense, it's boring to read about. Hmmm... what I can think of to tell people today?
Oh, I have these blog posts linking automatically to Facebook. Now if I could do that with every other site and make this my main hub of communication, how grand would that be?
Now for the minor marketing insert... I have a new short story free to read: a very short romantic comedy about two dogs and sneakers. Go to Smashwords to check it out. While you're there, peruse my other free stories! It won't bother me if you decide to check out my novels in Ebook format, either. ;-)
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5 comments:
I'm on Twitter and love it. You don't have to read the tweets if you don't want to,but sometimes they're fun to read. I don't like it if I get like 6-7 from one person in a row, then I usually drop them because they're taking up space. I've been known to send out about 4 tweets sometimes in a row about blogs I know about, but I try to wait a bit so they get further down the line. Otherwise, it does get annoying. I tweet about other things besides my blogs, but not as often.
Over the weekend I have to cleanout the ones I'm following to go with the ones who are following me, because it turns out that you can only follow 2000, though more can follow you. I reached 2000 and couldn't figure out why I couldn't follow people until I heard the rule. There's lots more people I want to follow that are following me, so I do need to get that done.
Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/morganmandel
You make a good point about Twitter. I know it's good for exposure, but I almost feel like I'm getting swallowed up by all of these social networking sites. I haven't got my brain wrapped around Twitter yet. I may have to try harder to get into it. :-)
Morgan, thanks for the warning, not that I'm close to that but it's good to know for the future. ;-)
Kimberly, yes it gets to the point where you're doing more networking than working. I hit that and am pulling back now, but will run through Twitter enough to keep it working for me. What's nice is you can spend only 30 seconds there when you have no more time than that and go back whenever you do have.
Don't you think Mr. Urban has a ghost writer? I think all but a handful of those types have a ghost writer. I'm following Alison Krauss, and she's following me too but I doubt she's her own tweeter. Oh, and I'm now following you too; I didn't know that you were following me, sorry. (I've got an idea, lets all follow the leader!)
Oh, I imagine he does. And I used to do the much the same for a musical artist. He likely has a whole team of people doing the social network stuff. Still, many actually do Tweet themselves. They probably don't read other tweets or responses, though.
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