Literary Quote of the Month

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Sunday, March 20, 2016

The Sunday Salon and... Are We the Sum of Our Tweets? Connecting via Social Media


Welcome to The Sunday Salon and The Sunday Post! It's that day of the week bloggers from all over the internet get together virtually in a large gathering place called The Sunday Salon and talk books!  And at The Sunday Post, which is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, in which more bloggers share their bookish news!!

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I was thinking the other day about Twitter and those short inspired tweets that we put out there for people to read. And it's just not any people, it's the people who have chosen to listen to you. Of course, I'm a blogger and I blog about books, so most of my followers are bookish people. Do they know me just from my tweets?! Are we the sum of our tweets? Now we mix in other social media, such as Facebook, which somehow through the glory of whoever, now tweets what I post there, which has become more "personal" through time. Originally I started my Facebook account as a way to connect with my readers from Chick with Books. But of course, Facebook is a place to connect with friends and relatives, my non-reader peeps. (Okay, yes, everyone is obligated to read Chick with Books even if they are friends and relatives, probably more so actually) In any case, a friend of mine tweeted me and said I need to post some photos on Facebook. Why?! It's my book thing, not my personal thing. Well, okay, I post a photo... and with that one photo I start to connect with people in an entirely different way. There is a face behind the "Chick with Books". Now, every once in a while I post about, dare I say, personal things... and eventually over the last few years, there is more to me than just my Tweets. And there is more to me than just books.


Facebook is the place to connect. Pinterest is the place to pin. Linkedln is the place for the professionals. Meetup, Tumblr, Reddit, Myspace (I can't believe this still exists!) all are social media places that welcome you with open arms... but do you have time for all this socializing in front of your computer screen... or phone... or iPad... or whatever that connects you to the World Wide Web?!

I have to admit that I have enjoyed reconnecting with people I've lost while growing up, and meeting people who share my bookish passions, and I've even indulged in watching a few cute kitten videos. My only wish would be that instead of the "virtual reality" we have with all our social media outlets, we could have more "reality" places to say hello.

Please keep the tweets coming, and the photos and the links and the sharing of your daily lives. Because we are more than our tweets! And I have enjoyed getting to know all of you!

Question? What social media outlets do you use? And do you get "personal" or go strickly by the book (no pun intended)?

13 comments:

Harvee Lau - Book Dilettante said...

Would be nice to meet all our virtual friends in person. We would all be surprised, pleasantly too!

Suzanne Yester said...

I totally agree with you Harvee!

Greg said...

It can almost seem at times like there are too MANY social media outlets- it can be hard to keep track of them all. I mainly use just Twitter but am often not even good with that- I should use it more. :) Fascinating topic though, and I agree. It is nice to reconnect with old friends, and make new ones.

I use Facebook mainly for catching up with relatives/ old school friends, etc like I think a lot of people do. Although I use it less and less as I blog more and more. I did connect my blog to my FB for a while but stopped, I just wanted to kind of keep them separate.

Suzanne Yester said...

Hi Greg!
Yes, I use to use mainly Twitter, but when I signed up for Facebook, my twitter account became neglected because I just didn't have time for both. Although, I did decide to make my Facebook account more of a "personal" account in the last year or so and shifted my "book" posts to the bookish groups on Facebook. I started back with Twitter and am remembering how fun those short little posts could be.

Thanks for joining in on the conversation!

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

I try to keep my social media book related. Oddly, my dil, a journalist, said she is encouraged to post personal things on FB, too. I find that interesting.

Suzanne Yester said...

Hi Deb,
Yes, funny how some people encourage you to open up a bit more. My encouragement was from friends who weren't my intended "audience" when I started using Facebook. I still like to keep the blog book related for the most part.

Thanks for stopping by!

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

I can't believe that all I once had was a My Space page...but I ended up deleting it, as it was horrible to navigate. Then I started on Facebook. I had one blog by then. All the rest sort of fell into place.

We are definitely social networking creatures!

Thanks for sharing...and for visiting my blog.

Books on the Table said...

I have very mixed feelings about social media, especially Facebook. I've noticed when I post something personal on FB -- a family picture, for example -- which I do quite rarely, I get lots of likes and comments. But when I post links to my blog posts, the silence is deafening. Not sure what this means -- maybe that my friends aren't interested in bookish things -- but the result is that, basically, FB makes me feel bad, especially since I make an effort to engage with my friends' posts. The result is that I don't post much on FB.

Suzanne Yester said...

I can relate to your posting links to your blog and no comments. I chalk it up to our family and friends aren't really our readers. I do have friends talk to me about what I post about sometimes, but that's about it. Thanks for sharing and thanks for stopping by!

Suzanne Yester said...

We are definitely social networking creatures, Laurel! And I admire ALL the blogs you keep going! I can barely handle this one!

Thanks for stopping by!

Vasilly said...

I mostly use Twitter to promote my blog, but it's been years since I've really had the time to be on Twitter and just have conversations. Facebook was strictly a "personal" thing until I started becoming friends with my blogging buddies. It's still personal, but now my blogging buddies are almost family in a way. :)

Suzanne Yester said...

Hi Vasilly,
Yes, I just started to go back to twitter after not being on for what seems to be years. Twitter was always "business", and Facebook turned more personal for me too. Maybe, Twitter doesn't get too personal because we are limited in our conversations there.

Thanks for stopping by! And thanks for being a Facebook friend!

Elizabeth said...

I just do book stuff on Twitter and Facebook. I sometimes do personal stuff on Facebook.

I actually can never find my posts once they get lost among all of the other ones on both Twitter and Facebook. :)

Have a wonderful day.

Have you started reading IN ANOTHER LIFE?

Elizabeth
Silver's Reviews


my read shelf:
Suzanne's book recommendations, favorite quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)
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