Lost in the Social Media Labyrinth

As I move towards a full-time author career, I’ve been dutifully tackling social media, trying to anyway. But I think the only thing I’ve learned for sure is that I don’t get it. And you know, Jane Austen didn’t have to worry about this and she got along just fine. And I’d just love to see Mark Twain tweeting away on Twitter. Yeah, he just thought he was so smart…on second thought, he’d probably be great at this and have better tweets than anybody!

First, I hate political correctness. I’m for openness and honesty, but should there still be a line, and where should it be? Then, there’s article directories. I read that I should submit my articles to a dozen directories. Yep, been doing that. Then I read, NO, don’t do that. Only do one, and submit to the directory first, then afterwards, put a revised version on your own blog. Then comes Expert #241 saying, for pete’s sakes, your own blog comes first. Post there, then submit a lamer version of the article to the directory. (Do I really want lamer stuff out there with my name on it??)

Then somebody says social bookmarking sites are the way to go to build a following and attract traffic to your site. Excellent! I sign up with a few of those and post a link to my blog, and am promptly met with a string of rude, disrespectful comments about my really stupid article. Ah, but wait. Only posting links to your own site is bad; you must link to other articles about nine times out of ten. All right, no problem. I link to a few articles that I find interesting, but apparently no one else thinks so and I get so many thumbs down that the site won’t let me post again for a while (I guess I was supposed to be standing in the corner or something). At least I think that’s why I couldn’t post. I’m not sure. The message said something like, “Either you’re new to (dumb social bookmarking site), or you’re not well-liked.” Well, at least they were open and honest about it. Although I did get a significant bump in traffic to my site, I think we can conclude those were pretty useless clicks. I feel like I’m on the wrong playground, so I pick up my toys, delete the social bookmarking accounts, and go.

Now due to my OCDness, I meticulously record everything I do (c’mon, you have to do that to remember stuff, right?). But I change social media plans of what I’m going to do “from now on” and save the files so often I think I’m blowing fuses at Carbonite…wherever they are.

And after all this, you know what? I think I’d really rather just write!