Social Networks

I’ve been trying to promote myself on various social networks, or even if I’m not promoting myself, I’m on them. I figured my experience may help others figure out which networks are a good fit for them.

mobile-phone-426559_640DeviantART: I use my secret identity on here. It’s my favorite social network and the one I’ve found most useful for making friends and social connections. It’s not a very good place to promote writing, or at least not for me, but if you’re a good artist, it seems very easy to promote yourself.

Facebook: This is the one I can’t leave because pretty much everyone is on it, but I don’t really care for it. (I only have a personal account, not an author’s page.)  If you say something to a friend on Facebook, your other friends, even the non-stalker ones, are likely to see what you said. It’s really useful if you want to stalk people.

G+: It’s too quiet, so I tend to neglect it. I have friends on there who aren’t on Facebook. It’s one of those networks that I have to promote my blog, but I don’t do much else on it.

Goodreads: Yet another one under my secret identity. A few of my friends are on this one. I mostly use it for documenting every book I read. I don’t think I’m missing many books on there. I used to be on Shelfari, but that’s closing down and merging with Goodreads.

Pinterest: A bit to image-centered for my tastes. I keep forgetting to check it. It has promotional stuff mixed in with stuff from my friends, so it gets annoying.

Tumblr: It’s much like Pinterest, but a bit easier to scroll through stuff. I don’t like that I can’t comment on stuff without my followers seeing the comment, so there’s no real social experience unless one wants to be really public or PM someone. The community there feels a bit more like the DeviantART community, but there seems to be a dark undercurrent on Tumblr. A few of my friends are on there so I keep up with things, but it’s not a very good place to follow me.

Twitter: I hate character limits and have trouble figuring out what to say. I have a few friends on there, but the Twitter culture annoys me. I don’t like being somewhere where people follow you because they want you to follow them back. Following someone you have no interest in just seems rude to me.

Wattpad: I tried this one. I haven’t had any luck promoting stuff on it. My fanfic is much more popular than my original stuff. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like non-romance stories have a hard time going anywhere.

Camp NaNoWriMo: I use my secret identity. This one isn’t really a social network, but it is quite a bit of fun to talk to ones cabin. I did a long post about Camp last year.

Forums and chat rooms: I was on a forum that had a chat room. I really enjoyed it when it was alive. Forums are a great place to build community, and it’s also the place I’ve made the most long lasting friendships. I’ve even met many of my online friends in person.

What social networks do you use? Which ones have you found the most effective? 

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About Jessi L. Roberts

I live and work on my family’s cattle ranch in eastern Montana. I have a flock of chickens, a hyper golden retriever, some cows, and a few horses. I enjoy fantasy and science fiction and my head is full of wild sci-fi story ideas, some involving apocalypses and others involving aliens. I have been published twice in Havok Magazine, an imprint of Splickity.
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6 Responses to Social Networks

  1. Caiti Marie says:

    Of those you mentioned, I think the most effective one for socializing is forums—though they require a lot of time and effort, and don’t work terribly well for self-promotion. I’m on Google+ and Facebook, though I never post simply because I have nothing to say. I was on Tumblr for a while, but I found the format strange, and that dark undercurrent you mentioned finally led me to delete my account.

    As an audience (rather than an author), I find that generating interesting content on a blog is more likely to make me interested in an author—and then Facebook or Google+ is nice for keeping up with them after I’m familiar with their work.

    Like

    • What’s interesting is when I got on DeviantART, I thought there’d be a dark undercurrent on it, but I quickly learned, that, as a general rule, if you avoid antagonizing people and the circles they run in, it’s a really great community.
      I think Tumblr’s dark undercurrent may be closer to the surface, possibly because people (a large percentage of which are immature) tend to use it for political activism.
      True. I think I actually use Facebook, G+, and Twitter more for keeping up with an author I like as a writer, not a person, and I use blogs more for people I like as a person, if that makes sense.

      Like

  2. Cool post! I don’t really use a lot of social networks, though I’m trying to–albeit VERY SLOWLY–grow my presence on them. I only have a personal facebook page, but I also use goodreads and pinterest for both personal and promotional purposes. And I have a fanfiction.net account, but that’s obviously only for fanfiction.

    Alexa
    thessalexa.blogspot.com
    verbositybookreviews.wordpress.com

    Like

    • Thanks! I think part of the reason I haven’t managed to grow a lot of my networks is because I’m only on them for promotion, so I don’t interact enough. I need to figure out which ones I should interact on and which ones to drop.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Sounds smart. I’ve been trying to do that more with my goodreads account, interact more, rather than just posting book reviews and expecting people to come and read them.

        Like

      • Good idea. Part of my problem is I don’t care to comment on someone’s stuff unless I’m really interested in that person. I think that’s why DeviantART works best for me. I see art I like, then I get interested in the person doing the art.

        Like

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