On Social Media

I pretty much began my writing journey two years ago when I attended the 2011 LDS Storymakers in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time, everybody kept saying that if you want to be a writer, you need a social presence. Specifically, get a blog, be active on Facebook, and become one with Twitter.

But most of all, blog.

So, I became a blogger, having no idea what I was doing. Well... let's be honest, I still have no idea.

Fast forward a year, and I had noticed that the fever to open blogs had toned down a bit. I still heard a lot about getting an online presence, so I kept active on Facebook and Twitter. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed this blog, too, which is why the posts still come, though not regularly.

Every few months, I take inventory of my time and look for ways to cut back. I cancelled cable, watching less TV, and playing less video games. I even reduced my obsession with the news, an emotional investment I've bee fond of for 15 years. I've also adjusted to waking up a o'dark thirty in the morning to write. But a week ago, I started looking at social media. Is the time worth it? I've pitched to two agents, and neither of them asked how active I was online.

When I went to Storymakers this year, I went contemplating an abandonment of my social media presence. I ran into a couple of people who got me thinking.

I had David Powers King (DPK) on the podcast and I asked him if blogging is still a good thing. His answer: it works for him. He has kept a loyal following after finding how he wanted to blog and being consistent with it.

DPK, The King of Blogging

Another author I had on my show, Abel Keogh, said he has written four books because the people on his blog strong-armed him into writing it. Again, another example of how blogging worked. He still blogs regularly and has a loyal following.

Abel Keogh

Side note: I rarely see DPK and Keogh on Facebook.

I met an author who taught a class on marketing. She mostly pushed social media, because it is "free." While DPK suggests blogging 2-3 times per week, she stated you should be posting 4-5 times per week. Holy Mamma!!!

She then went on to say she gets most of her traffic from LinkedIn.

LinkedIn? You mean the site with the resume I haven't updated in nearly 6 years? That place?

Apparently, she spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, and it is now her biggest source of finding purchasers for her books. How interesting...

Chas Hathaway

While interviewing DPK, fellow podcaster and friend Chas Hathaway mentioned that when he posts something on his blog, he will post the link on Facebook and get few to no comments on his blog, but a conversation will start flourish on Facebook.

So, wait, what is going on here? What should I take from this?

I have a theory. Well, since I'm very opinionated, I have two theories (actually, I have more, but I'll stop myself)...

1) You will reap the most reward depending where you focus your online presence. If I focus on my blog, I'll get a strong following here. Same for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or standing on a busy street corner in my tighty-whities strumming with a banjo. If people expect to find you somewhere consistently, you'll pick up a following.

For the ladies. Seriously though... mock him if you want, but he's on Wikipedia and I'm not.

The key word here is consistently!

I'm pretty consistent on Facebook and Twitter. A little less so on Google+. As far as Blogger goes, I don't think I'm cut out for consistent. I enjoy it, but having a set time every day/week/whatever is not for me. All I can promise is "when I have time for it." Sorry.

My suggestion for you is to focus on what you enjoy. Where you sow the most seeds is where most of your fruit will grow. I'd avoid the shotgun approach of hitting everything because 1) you'll spread yourself too thin, and 2) you'll never/rarely find the time to write.

Which brings me to...

2) As much as people proclaim social media, I think a writer's time is best spent (are you sitting down?) WRITING! That's right, BICHOK (Butt in chair, hands on keyboard).

I challenge you to find a successful writer who spends his entire day chillin' on Facebook and Twitter. Dedicating hours per day to online activity is only going to take you away from writing. And writers get paid when their writing is done, not when the Facebook status, tweet, or blog post is published.

Don't get me wrong, I think social activity is a good thing, but it isn't the best thing. Why settle for good, when the BEST thing you can do is write?

So what am I saying? Am I quitting social media? Is this website going away?

No. I'm just cutting back on the great time suck that is Facebook, et al. But I'll still be around, having fun, saying stupid stuff, and responding to interactions. Since blogging is closer to writing, I'll keep at it. Posting might even become more consistent. I'll re-evaluate in a few months on whether I need to cut back more.

Agree? Disagree? What are you thoughts?

So, off I go... to write!

My Take on the Death of Google Reader

For those who don't know, I work with computers as my day job. There is a saying in my field: the only constant in computers is change. I'm sure that also applies to life, and it is certainly a current reality with the writing industry.

There were two recent changes that kind of took me by surprise. I was going to share my reaction to both the death of Google Reader and Amazon acquiring Goodreads, but I'll save the latter for later since the former topic is getting pretty long.

Google Kills Google Reader and Google Friend Connect

A few weeks ago, Google announced that Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1st as part of their spring cleaning.

Bye-bye, Reader

My first thought, and I suspect I'm not alone, is how I'll be able to keep up with all of the blogs that I commonly read. A few replacements have stepped up to the plate, and one of them caught my eye since it seemed well developed and (most importantly now) supported. So I've converted to Feedly, which allowed me to import my feeds list and my favorites.

Hello, Feedly. Thanks for saving the day!

I'm a big fan of Evernote, so I'm slowly going through my favorites and storing the posts I really want to keep in Evernote. This will make these posts more accessible to me, and take away my reliance on maintaining favorites.

Okay, with that squared away, I then thought of the other side of the coin. What is going to happen to my followers? As of this writing, I have 209 followers, which is managed by the Google Friend Connect. Will they disappear with Google Reader? Sure enough, Friend Connect is also going the way of the dodo bird. I don't know if most bloggers realize this is headed their way. I had to dig around to confirm it's eminent departure since it isn't receiving the publicity and reaction that Google Reader's death has received.

And what of RSS in general? Some say that the death of Google Reader and Friend Connect, which made RSS management easy, could be the final nail in RSS's coffin. I'm inclined to agree. As great as I'm finding Feedly to be, I don't think it is enough to save RSS.

Why? It all comes back to why Google Reader is being shut down to begin with. Google says that usage is down and that social media is what drives people to your content, not Google Reader. And... I think they're right. If I make a blog post and don't mention it on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, I'm most likely to receive a small handful of hits, comments, and other social interactions.

In fact, I'll test that with this post... I'll not advertise on my social connections and see what kind of response I get for 24 hours. Then I'll hit the social networks as I usually do and see what that does. If I were to put money on it, driving people to my blogs via social media is going to be a lot more effective than waiting for my followers to catch me through their RSS feeds.

A side effect is that I'm going to have to change my blog around. I won't bore you with the details, but pardon the dust while this blog goes through some changes. I've already done some behind-the-scenes testing and changes and I look forward to pushing out my new look and feel. Soon. It is part of why I plastered my face all over a recent blog post.

So, what do you guys think? Are you going to miss Google reader? Are you ready for the disappearance of Google Friend Connect? What have you done to prepare for July 1st?

Update 1:

I went about a day and a half to see what my buddy list did. I got 32 visits and five comments, though one of those comments were mine and two of the comments was from the same person. Now, I'll make mention of it on social media and see what that does.

Update 2:

Well, another day and a half (roughly) has gone by, and I threw things up on Twitter, G+, and Facebook. The number of people who visited rose to 70 and I got one more comment.

I know, this isn't scientific, but I now think Google has got it wrong. Google Friend Connect does help drive people to my blog, and it seems to do a better job of driving people willing to comment. I'm wondering how this will impact Google themselves, since Google Friend Connect drives people to Blogger, which is owned by Google.

Conclusion: Nobody wins.