This is a post where I’m really counting on some audience participation. I started this social media conference to share the tips I’ve managed to glean, and I hoped to gather wisdom from my readers as well.
One of my issues is that for me, social media usually needs to take a back seat to the actual writing, and I have the same twenty-four hours as everyone else. Like many others, I have a scary laundry list of commitments, both literary and real life. I can barely keep up, and the irony is that I actually like Twitter. I look back fondly on the period when I had time to get into some epic conversations. I’ve come up with some compromises like I outlined in my post How to Use Twitter Effectively Without Having to Actually Reading Your Twitter Feed, although I do make time to post the odd comment on both Twitter and Facebook.
I read a criticism of this idea on someone else’s blog, that it was too automated and mechanical. And I’ve read in other places that if you’re on social media and not consistently joining in conversations, the attitude is basically “shame on you.” I don’t feel it’s appropriate to engage in arguing on someone else’s blog, but here, in my own place, I think it’s okay to respond, at least to the idea.
From my point of view, say I’ve got a hypothetical blog reader. They like a lot of my articles on writing craft and social media, but they outgrew fairy tales back when they were nine years old. They don’t mind reading my short stories, but they aren’t interested in an entire novel’s worth. Nonetheless, they routinely comment on and tweet my posts and occasionally share them on Facebook as well.
I love this person, even though I just made them up. I wish I knew a bunch more like them. All I want out of social media is for my work to spread, so that the people who are excited by what I write can find it. And if I join in promoting others and we find our audiences together, this feeling of affection, of knowing that we helped each other succeed with this literary dream, would make me consider them true friends.
Now to fine-tune this idea, I’ve had to consider the differences inherent in Facebook and Twitter. On Twitter, it’s perfectly okay to tweet an entire inbox with sixty-three reciprocal visits. And I’ve been trying to do that, with the caveat that I don’t share anything political or that conflicts with my religious beliefs.
But Facebook is different. I shared every post I visited on Facebook for one full inbox, and then I read that I really shouldn’t do that. I’m overwhelming other people’s profiles with my stuff, and they won’t appreciate that. Okay, that makes sense. So then I tried limiting myself to six or eight, with the idea of rotating them around. *shakes head at self* I still hit ten, so I’ll have to be more careful if that’s excessive.
However, I need to know: is this appropriate? How do you feel about potentially finding eight or so articles that I shared showing up on your Facebook profile? Is that too many? Should I limit myself further? And am I way off base using Facebook mostly to cross-promote? If it’s counterproductive, I’ll quit doing it.
Please let me know how you feel in the comments. 🙂
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Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.
Cathleen Townsend 
Thanks for another thought provoking article, Cathleen.
I won’t be able to provide any feedback because I am yet to use fb but looking forward to reading other reader responses.
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I don’t use Facebook in the way many people do myself. I only wrote about my dog when his focus on fetching sticks became a metaphor for writing, and I don’t feel a need to share my vacations and such.
When it comes to my personal life, everything I want to share is already on my blog. I usually do it in the form of flash memoirs.
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I would love to read the flash memoirs! 🙂
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They’re on my about me page. One more is going out to my newsletter list next month, and then I’ll post it on my blog later. I figure there’s no point in being on my email list if you don’t get something out of it. 🙂
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Oh thanks for pointing me to your About Me page 🙂
Email lists, newsletters… I think you really know how to keep the readers engaged!
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Hmm..difficult. Myself, I always prefer to read original posts rather than shares, unless the share is something of monumental interest. And i certainly agree that I don’t welcome a deluge of posts from one user – less is more. I have actually unfollowed 2 people on Facebook who were flooding my inbox with posts. That’s my take on it, Cathleen, I hope you get a lot more feedback.
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Thanks, Mick. I’ll restrict myself to six shares on Facebook at a time, then.
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It’s very much a personal thing, of course. All of us are a bit different.
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I agree with Mick – less is more. But with they way the fb algorithm works, unless a user is on “recent posts” for their news feed, they’ll only see the most engaging posts anyway.
Personally, I share a few things per day on my author page and fewer than that on my personal page. I only share things I’m fairly certain will spark engagement.
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Well, in that case, should I share less than six at a time? I’d like to cross-promote, but I don’t want to bother people. That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to achieve. 🙂
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Eh…it’s hard to say if you should share less. If the posts are engaging, the number shared isn’t much of a concern.
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Kind of like what Allision commented, having your own blog page that people will “like” means you can share your own and others’ posts in that feed rather than your personal feed. Once in a while I will share my own posts or others if I feel they are relevant to friends and family on my main FB page.
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Thanks,Terri. 🙂
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I used to Tweet and share on FB the posts I thought worth sharing. Sounds that’s not effective according to the comments here. It’s all so confusing. Share. Share. Share. But don’t do this or don’t do that. It’s confusing. Either you reblog the posts you come across and everyone feels overwhelmed or you share on FB instead and the same result. I’ve been sharing on Twitter and gain new followers here and there but have no idea if I’m Tweeting too much or too often.
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