Social Media Anxiety

I always intended to create social media channels to advertise my writing and projects. Many artists have used this method to get word to fans and to potential fans. It was easy, while writing, to plan out the schedule of when and where to set up announcements. The problem was, the accounts I set up and played with became too personalized. Too much private information connecting family and friends with the outside world was available via those channels.

Those who know me well will recognize this is a self-portrait.

The solution was to take a good hard look at what I had done and what I had done wrong when I first worked through these things. Google+, Facebook, Twitter—I had set them up the wrong way and used them incorrectly. Albeit, I had set up a couple of them before I really began to look at them for promotional purposes. The concept was correct, but my implementation was all messed up.

In the business of writing, your name is your brand. J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, Robert Heinlein, J.K. Rowling—mention any of these authors and most people will recognize them instantly. While I knew that, I didn’t properly set up my communications with that in mind. As a result, I didn’t have my branding set up correctly. It’s akin to hanging your laundry in the lobby of an office building.

I had to go back to square one and start all over again.

It took three tries before I got Twitter right. My first Twitter account was definitely a private thing. The name on the account wasn’t even my own. The best thing it was used for was learning how to use Twitter. I let that one sink into the swamp. The second Twitter account I created was a bit better, but didn’t use my brand name. I created it before I gave it some thought and realized the mistake I made. So that one burned and then sank into the swamp. But the third one stuck! You can find it here. (Now, all I need are some curtains for the windows in the tower…)

I made the same mistake with Google+ as I did with Facebook. As I said above, I began using them more for personal communications. Good for learning how to use them, bad for commercial use.

The new Google+ page is here. If you do a Google search, of course the old G+ site comes right to the top. I figure with time, that will fade and the new one will be at the top. Think of the former as an archeological curiosity and look to the new one for information on my writing.

Last and certainly not least, is the new Facebook page. I had created a page for Aggadeh Chronicles, but I barely touched it while I was buried in the writing and editing. I admit, it will probably not be used as much as it should. At some point, I may delete it and make sure everything on FB points to the new author page.

By creating the commercial page, I can now advertise more freely. I was really uncomfortable with the thought of pushing out announcements that would only be seen by friends and family. You can only put out commercials so many times before people start turning it off. With the commercial pages, I can now put the announcements there, separated from private and personal communications among family and friends. Friends can get the daily life messages through the private page and fans of my book can get news and announcements via the public commercial page. One has to maintain duel personalities, one for the public and one for private. It sucks when friends are getting bombarded with the public persona and communication mixed in with the personal stuff. Hopefully I can keep the two properly separated.

Now all I need to do is get over this issue with telling people what I’m doing and actually advertise. “A man who doesn’t advertise is like a man who is winking in the dark. He knows what he is doing, but nobody else does.”

So starts the new chapter…

Oh, yeah: and buy Nobody!