I have been told that in order to keep up with the twenty-first century I must be active on today’s social networking sites. That fact was reinforced by almost every TV program I watch, particularly the news program CNN. I cannot tell you how many times I heard that if I wanted to know more about any subject the anchorman talked about, I must go to their URL on Twitter and/or Facebook and/or My Space. Often the programs end with: “Follow me on Twitter, or Facebook, etc. etc.”
Since I am not quite ready for the rocking chair just yet, I joined three of these sites, namely Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn which I was told was a bit more “prfessional.” It’s been an interesting experience. On Twitter I read tweets about people putting their kids to bed, baking a birthday cake for a husband, and needing to buy a suit for an interview. I tried to be a bit more discriminating by following people with whom I had a little more in common. That’s when I read a bunch of tweets from people who were trying to sell me their services, such as editing, publishing, ghost writing, etc. I decided to spend more time on Facebook.
After registering on that site, I was excited to find a few friends who posted bits about their social calendar, including pictures. Nice. I like pictures. But then, BINGO! My grandchildren are on Facebook. I learned who they are dating, even saw pictures of their girl friends. There were pictures of them at parties. I started worrying about how much time they were spending away from their studies, not to mention how much they were drinking. I now go to Facebook in order to keep up with my friends and family, while being careful not to disclose too much about myself.
Yesterday, while I was catching up on all my e-mails, I came across an article written by Pew Internet and American Life Project that really struck home with me, especially the line that called most of the tweets on Twitter “pointless babble.” They talked about the statistics that had been gathered in regards to all these sites, which I found most interesting. I’ll share: “One in five Americans use Twitter or a similar service.” “Only 8% of businesses thought Twitter was useful for marketing.” “The median age of a Twitter user is 31 years, My Space is 26 years, Facebook is 33 years, and the clear winner is LinkedIn at 39 years.”
Since you already know that I have young adult grandchildren, you must also know that I am a bit lost on all these sites. The exception is LinkedIn which in fact is more “professional” and where I have learned quite a bit and made some excellent connections. That also goes for some other sites that are more closely aligned with my purpose, namely marketing Becoming Alice, and writing the my next work. Those sites are Goodreads, Shelfari, Librarything, SheWrites, and, of course, WordPress. As a matter of fact if these sites and writing blogs didn’t keep me so busy, perhaps I could find the time to start my next work.
I’m 100% with you!
Alice, so on target. Like you, my stated goal of social networking is to market my non-fiction book.
But I’ve just finished a whole day of re-designing my future though and realize that actually my overall goal is to influence others to be productive and happy.
Here is my experience:
Overall – Google loves social networking and everything I write online ends up on Google, sometimes within hours. If more Google mentions translates into more sold books, I’d be a rich woman today. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case…
Facebook – scares the heck out of me. I’m on it I think but anyone can post anything there and I fear loss of my online reputation. I’ve had no benefit professionally of which I’m aware. I did get “re-discovered” by some old friends which is nice.
Twitter – mixed feelings. Like you I get a lot of stuff that doesn’t interest me and I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings by “unfollowing” them so I rarely read it anymore. It’s just too overwhelming.
I do love posting my haiku and reading others’ haiku there. And I got a high-powered author to review my book because I responded to his request for read and review. But see below…
LinkedIn – incredible! I’ve made friends with people who are experiencing life much the same way I am because we share common goals. Interestingly, the ones I have become closest too tend to be the same age. I say interesting because this is a media in which we don’t congregate by age but my interests.
Anyway, this site has been personally and professionally gratifying. I believe it is largely responsible for the increase I’ve gotten in blog readership.
How:
- Group members give me content and feedback on my blog and, God luv ‘em, they actually comment on my blog.
- By combining each others’ social media strategies we drive readership for both of us. Ex. a member does a guest blog for me. I announce it on Twitter before and after with a link to her blog one time and mine the next. So does she. Then we add links to each others’ blogs on our blogs. It works.
Frankly, I’ve realized that a lot of my efforts end up being directed at fellow authors because of the way that I’m networking. Great people but not necessarily my target market.
So my next set of marketing strategies are very different than my current ones and more targeted to my niche marketing – dating singles. But I think this has been a good first phase.
Do these activities translate into book sales? Not sure. Not sure at all.
Kat Bourgeois
Author of What Could You Possibly Be Thinking?!! How ordinary people answered your questions about love, dating, and relationships, available on Amazon
Hi Alice an excellent post. I have a problem with most of the social networking sites. I can understand that keeping up with freinds and family is important, but as far as promoting my book I not sure if this is the way to go. I belong to Twitter which is think is a complete waste of time. Facebook is comprised of too many games and not too much substance. On MySpace several younger members of the family are friends and this helps me to keep up with them. I belong to BooK Marketing Network, but I rarely post anything to it, however it has some ideas for marketing a book. For my blog, I use Blogger and try to post about once a week. I have only three followers and seldom does anyone make a comment. Does this look bad for a an author who has worldwide distribution to have only three followers? My sister has told me that following my blog is not user friendly???
So I’ve come to the conclusion that I will not spend too much time on the social networking sites for I would like to spend more time on writing. I will continue to post to my blog once a week in hopes that eventually it catches on.
Elizabeth, I hope your library has my book. If not, tell them to buy it. It’s available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, iUniverse.com. Best to you.