People talk a lot about New Year’s resolutions, and I made one myself this year: I’m going to take ownership of my social media. Okay, in a way that sounds silly because who else do my Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc. belong to? But up until now I’ve just been doing things in a state of being semi-overwhelmed–throwing mud on the virtual wall and hoping it sticks. My blog is the only element that has had actual planning.
I’d like to up my game, and like everyone else, I have no temporal fairy who will come and wave her wand, gifting me with more hours every day. I can’t work much harder, not consistently. I have to prioritize and work smarter. I figure everyone else out there is in a similar boat.
Many of you are writers, and like me, you have books to launch into the world. And we’d all rather they didn’t land with a splat. Even if you’re just in this for the blogging, it would be nice to have more people come and read your words. You work hard putting these posts together. You’d like folks to read what you have to say.
There’s no lack of conferences, both online and at hotels and such, that claim they can teach you how to do this, and all of them cost. But most of us have to watch our money as well as our time.
So I figure, let’s do it ourselves on our blogs. We’re all going to blog anyway, and this could be something of real value we can add to the blogosphere. Social media wasn’t set up to be difficult. It couldn’t be popular if it was. We have a lot of talent and experience between us. We can make it a real conference, with valuable lessons learned and shared, if we pool our talents and experience.
I thought we’d start with a meet and greet, an excellent idea I got from chape (https://chapeblog.com/2017/02/17/meet-and-greet-3/), who’s got a terrific blog focused on fitness. It’s a good place for us tending-to-be-sedentary writing types to nip by and do some of the simple exercises to keep our muscles from turning into jelly.
Subsequent weeks will focus on Twitter, Facebook, goodreads, Pinterest, and blogging.
So I’m going to ask everyone to leave their names, sites, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest–whatever you’ve got–here in the comments. We can all make sure we’re connected to everyone we’ve met blogging on other social media platforms. I figure that would be a good place to start for everyone. Even if you don’t want to participate in the rest of the series, please feel free to join in for this part. There will be no social media police banging on your website door to question you as to your whereabouts for subsequent sections.
I’ll close the comments next week on Tuesday, and then I’ll post on Wednesday. And I’ll try to follow this pattern until we finish the series. Hopefully this will help us to all become a little more efficient about how we use our time on social media.
So please post your info in the comments, plus maybe a few lines of bio and a focus for your blog, if you have one. (It’s okay if you’re still searching for one–this series is all about trying to figure this stuff out.) Please email me a headshot or other graphic later if it’s not too much trouble, using my contact button in the sidebar. And I’ll post them all neatly in a week’s time. That should get us off and running.
I’m looking forward to learning from you all and sharing what I know. 🙂
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Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.
Cathleen Townsend 
Thank you so much for the shout out 😀
I think we all struggle with some social platform but, like you said, it should be easy 🙂
Well, my name is David, and my website http://www.chape.es
There you´ll find links to all my social media channels 😉
Big hug!
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Well, thanks for the idea of the meet and greet. Glad to help spread the word. 🙂
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Great initiative!
My blog Fictionspawn Monsters on https://fictionspawn.com/ is basically my collection of my illustrated flash fiction, some commentaries and some reblogs. The illustrations are mostly hand made, coloured with liquid ink. The stories are, as the name indicates, based on monsters. Some in a direct way, others are more metaphoric.
I publish on three social media. I have most activity on Twitter, where I, besides publishing things from my blog, retweet a lot and make some tweets, some micro fiction and others philosophical/political/ethical commentaries.
I publish my illustrations on Instagram, and I have a Facebook page where I publish links to each of my blogpost and the illustrations for people to share if wanted.
All three can be found searching for @fictionspawn.
Thank you very much for this, it is a very good way for all of us to get in contact with interesting people.
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I’m in! These are my social platforms:
http://www.elizabethstokkebye.com (blog)
http://www.mysticstrings.com
@elizabethstokke (twitter)
@elizannstok and @mysticstrings (Instagram)
http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.stokkebye
I’m a writer AND a painter. I love storytelling, theater and fairy tales. My master degree is in Scandinavian Languages and Literature. I’m from Denmark, where I grew up and have lived in California for over thirty years.
I’m on many platforms and have tried to organize myself with one main blog site (elizabethstokkebye) and a sub blog site (mysticstrings) to put my writing there. I like to use twitter for informational stuff for writers and I love Instagram for images of my visual art.
Cathleen, I applaud you for this initiative and will reblog on my main site.
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Reblogged this on Elizabeth Stokkebye and commented:
Re-blogging for Cathleen who is setting up a Meet and Greet forum on Social Media.
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Thanks for the reblog, Elizabeth, and I’m glad to see you on board, fictionspawn. 🙂
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I’m in! I’m on Facebook as Jan Flynn (Jan Teter) and also have an author page at Jan M Flynn Author. Twitter = @JanMFlynnAuthor Website/blog = JanMFlynn.net
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Hurray! You know, I had a bad moment after posting. One of those “what if nobody wants to do this with me and I look dumb” sort of things. I decided I’d post everything I knew even if nobody else sung along, but I’m so glad to be doing it with others. 🙂
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Hi, An introduction on me is under “About” of my site: http://www.manningtreearchive.com
and for Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsebastine
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Glad to have you join us. 🙂
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So glad you decided to do this, Cathleen!
I set up my blog for the purpose of providing interesting, informative and entertaining reports about the Earth and the creatures on it.
Or so I thought.
Turns out that I actually set it up to ramble, sometimes in in the form of aforementioned reports, sometimes in the form of flash fiction, or poetry, or photographs. My blog is therefore a window to my soul. Sometimes people come along and peer into it… the pervs!
Blog: https://theurbanspaceman.net/
Twitt: @MrUrbanSpaceman
I will attempt to get a picture over to you this weekend, as I’m away for much of next week. I’m not much of a social media person, but am looking forward to seeing what you and others come up with.
TTFN!
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I’m so happy to have you with us. 🙂
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Thanks for doing this Cathleen! My blog is: https://muddlingthroughmymiddleage.com.
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And thank you for joining in. This is definitely a case of the more, the merrier. 🙂
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Thanks for removing the other link, too! I tried, but couldn’t do it.
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I think this will be fun! Thanks for organizing this! Here is my blog https://secondwindleisure.com/ I write about having a balanced leisure lifestyle, share lots of photography (I even have a public sharing file for free photos). I have an eBook on using photos on your blog.
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Terrific! I’m looking forward to it. 🙂
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I’m in! I have three blogs at the moment, some of which get updated more frequently than others. I have tried many different types of posts and haven’t really found my perfect format yet. I am also on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Here are my accounts:
http://loca-for-crafts.blogspot.com – a blog focused on my art and crafts
http://locaforlanguage.blogspot.com – a blog focused on my reading and writing
http://newrecipeproject.blogspot.com – a rarely updated blog about cooking and food
@lalocadesigns on both Instagram and Twitter
Looking forward to this!
Lisa
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I’m looking forward to it, too! I’m so pleased to have you join us. 🙂
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Cathleen, what a wonderful idea this is.
I write a blog (no other social media) about writing, mostly things I’ve learned from reading published work by talented writers and by paying attention to writing class instructions. Blog site, Sharon Bonin-Pratt’s Ink Flare / Sparked by Words:
I am such a techie-computer doofus that I didn’t even do that correctly. Boy, do I need this conference though I have little to contribute. I’m going to be the one in the corner of the room, feverishly taking notes and trying to figure out what the rest of you are describing.
I write novels, mostly historically based, mostly women’s literary fiction. It is not chick-lit a la sex and fashion and romance, (though a bit of all make their appearances) but few men are interested in the stories I write. I’m interested in how world events impact our lives, how and why we miscommunicate and when we correct our relationships – or don’t succeed.
Not sure I can figure out how to post a photo of me, but the turquoise face is a self-portrait.
Thanks for encouraging our participation.
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I can work with the lovely self-portrait. 🙂 And I hope there will be lots to benefit you from this thing. I want to focus on streamlining social media.
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Hi everyone, I’m Debbie from Deb’s World http://www.debs-world.com I’m on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram and link can be found on my blog’s About Me and Social media pages. I blog about travels, books, running and love sharing photos of moments. Thanks for having me 🙂
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It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Debbie. I hope to get to know you better over the course of our little conference. 🙂
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Thanks so much.
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I’m in–thanks for curating this:
My writing blog
My Twitter: @worddreams
My Facebook
Looking forward to getting to know everyone!
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I’m so pleased to have you with us, Jacqui! 🙂
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I’m closing the comments now on this post. But feel free to add your info at the bottom of the post titled Meet and Greet. 🙂
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