If I were a superhero, with the ability to soar through the sky (bad knees, so nope), the strength of Hercules (going to physio for tennis elbow, so that’s out too), and a gift for precognition (never would have predicted this as one of my powers, tbh…), I’d – of course – have to have a tragic flaw. And I know exactly what it would be.
Gary’s Achille’s heel: self-promotion on social media.
Wait. No need to even be that specific. My weakness is social media, plain and simple.
Now, I’m not a troglodyte (I assert to myself regularly), but I am in that particular age bracket that straddles two eras: pre-social media and… well, social media.
I was in university when UNIX-based emailing was just beginning, and I was all over that like a cheap suit.
But after that, something… stalled.
My path, and the evolution of social media diverged.
Social Media – I Missed the Memo
MySpace came along in 2003 (I know, cuz I looked it up), then Facebook in 2006 (ditto). But I missed the boat. Actually, no – I never even knew there was a boat to begin with.
I only grew peripherally aware of the existence of these and other platforms as years went by. Had you asked me back then, “Gary, what’s this Facebook thing?” I’d have given you a belligerent stare, then stopped returning your telephone calls to my land line.
How Not to Be a Luddite
Perhaps not surprisingly, being a teacher of high school students has helped keep me ‘connected’ (I use that term very loosely) to our evolving virtual world. Via sometimes-confusing, peripheral indoctrination, I have managed to catch on to the ‘what’, if not entirely the ‘why’ of apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and most recently TikTok.
Choosing to become an author has also drawn me forward out of the Meghalayan Era. I force-fed myself WordPress a few years back, to create this website, and even ventured onto LinkedIn and Twitter, finally delving into Wix for my ghostwriting site.
Using Social Media Effectively
So that brings us to the present. I get social media now, I do. At least the ‘what’ and the ‘why’.
But the ‘how’? Ugh.
My first book (under a pseudonym) came out last week. Yay! What could I have done better throughout that process? The marketing. The self-promotion. The ‘how’ to use social media to forward my career.
And that’s where I am right now. I could be writing the next chapter of my current science-fiction manuscript right now. Instead, I’m fretting over how many times per day to tweet… not to mention what I should tweet about (seriously – who honestly cares what my thoughts are regarding the Florida woman hit by a flying turtle the other day??).
(for the record, I haven’t lost any sleep over it yet.)
I know I’m not the only one worrying about this stuff. Thank goodness for posts like this one from NY Book Editors. Social media self promotion doesn’t have to be a dirty word (phrase?), nor does it have to be that onerous.
So, take five minutes (and a deep breath) and do your requisite daily tweeting. Then get right back to the fun stuff (writing)! 😉
~CONSTRUCTION UPDATE~
My standing desk is here, as promised. If my books wrote themselves as easily as this desk built itself, I’d have a dozen published novels under my belt…!
In any case, here are the pics. Check my previous posts here and here that detail the evolution of my desk project.
