SOCIAL MEDIA - HOW DO WE USE IT?

This is a good time to be involved in social media. Isn't it? I'm a newbie and don't mind saying so. I finally made a commitment to myself this past year to work steadily on my WIP until it's finished. Great you say and I agree. Well to reinforce my commitment, I first chose a pseudonym to enable me to be more free to express myself (Is that cowardly?). Next, I added a Facebook Author Page. That rocked along for a few weeks and I thought - Blog. Yes that's what I needed to do next. I pondered that and took the time to tackle setting that up with the help of my pioneering author friend and critique partner, Lyn Horner, http://texasdruids.blogspot.com. In my estimation the woman is fearless in her endeavor to epublish and self-promote.

So, blog up and running on Blogspot, I start thinking - Wordpress. How hard can that be right? Holy-moly, that just about ate my lunch! That one's been in the creation phase for about six weeks and I'm still not happy or confident that it's ready to really be out there.

OK, so that covers Facebook, Blogspot and Wordpress and I start thinking - Twitter. My good friend and former critique partner, Sharla Rae, blogging at, http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com, said I should really do that to get my name out there. Great! It's done, yea! So easy, and I already have forty-two followers. It's all so exciting and yet so confusing at the same time. I ask you, what the heck is a hashtag? And how do I use them?? What's the etiquette, the dos and don'ts? I sincerely don't know, but I can tell you one thing, I'm in need of someone who knows what they're doing.

Thank the heavens for Kristen Lamb! I found her blog through a post she had this past week on Writers in the Storm Blog, Http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com, The Doctor is in the House - Novel Diagnostics by Kristen Lamb. This post was wonderful in it's own right, but finding her website and blog was even more helpful. Her blog titled, 10 Ways to Improve Your "Likability Quotient", is great in that she tell us how to interact with the social medias; the dos and don'ts. The following is an excerpt from that post with a hyperlink to visit and read the entire article. It's excellent, enjoy!

10 Ways to Improve Your "Likability Quotient" by Kristen Lamb
A couple weeks ago, I had a post about how to sell fiction. We explored the WHY behind the BUY. The same tools that will sell car insurance or bank accounts won’t work for selling books. Fiction is emotional, and often we will purchase based off feelings. This is why likability on social media is so crucial to marketing. We are no longer selling stories…we are selling ourselves, which just confirms for me that writers really are the oldest profession in the world. But that’s another topic entirely .

Often we will judge a book by its cover author. If interacting with the author is a pleasant experience, we feel better about purchasing their books and even promoting them to our network of connections. Conversely, if an author is self-centered, self-promotes non-stop, spams everyone in sight, takes without giving in return and acts like an equestrian derriere, we would sooner suck nails through a straw than part with .99 that would benefit the jerk writer. A few of you were concerned, however, about how to be “liked.” No need to panic. Today’s post is here to help. Connecting with others is so simple that we frequently make it harder than it needs to be. Being likable doesn’t mean we need to be phoney.
There are a lot of different ways to do social media. My WANA... http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/

Included in the post are the Top 10 Ways to raise your L.Q.  They give us a road map, if you will, as to how we should communicate with all the folks out there who can help us by way of us helping them.

Well, that about does it for today. In no time, we should all feel like Sally Field. I hope. You like me, don't you? That said, I really need to go write - after I check Facebook, stats on blogs, Twitter, email...

Reach: Kristen Lamb - http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com
            Sharla Rae      - http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com
            Lyn Horner     - http://texasdruids.blogspot.com