Keeping Up With Social Media

I have to admit that keeping up with social media is harder than Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I barely have time to finish my day job during the day let alone come up with witty tweets and conversational topics on Facebook. But oh how I try!

This week I got feedback from two different people on my social media efforts. On the + side, my personal tweets are looking A-okay and so is my professional efforts on FB. I have to thank author and teacher IJ Schecter for providing the feedback for my personal social media accounts. This is the part that made me =) :

“Your short, snappy bits work great as tweets because they’re thoughtful, provocative, optimistic and very real, in contrast to a lot of the empty or aimless prattle that one finds on Twitter.”

But I still got tons of things to improve on. And ack it’s a little overwhelming. On some days, I want to just tune it all out, erase my accounts and live in la-la-land where I used to before I announced who I was in the internet.

Why I Won’t Quit

But I won’t. Mainly because of all the unexpected good that’s come out of my efforts. A friend once told me, “I just don’t get Twitter.” I told her I understood. From the outside looking in, all it is a stream of unconscious thoughts and marketing links from cyberspace and who has the time to filter through all of that?

I certainly don’t. But from the very beginning when I self-consciously began tweeting, I connected with people on what felt like a very real level. I met other writers (even one in person) and a few were able to connect with on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. That connection was vital to my career. It’s what kept me going. In fact, back then it was a lot easier to maintain my accounts. I had less work to do. And had a lot less people I was following. The messages were clear, honest and content worthy.

Today, it’s a lot harder. But it’s still worth it. Just a few weeks ago, a blogger started following me on Twitter. I clicked on her blog and was instantly enamored. I read her whole blog, a year’s worth of entries in a few weeks. After that I contacted her and was pleasantly surprised. She was a genuinely kind, helpful and as sweet as she was on her blog. Since then, she’s e-introduced me to a friend to provide even more help and support.

I honestly can’t believe that I’ve gotten that kind of response from a computer program. But I guess that’s what life today is about. Instead of meeting at a coffee shop, at a book club or at the grocery store, we’re finding ways to connect the internet.

I may not be able to keep up with social media the way I’d like to, but it’s a work-in-progress and one I feel is well-worth the effort.

What do you think?

Would you give social media sites a thumbs up or thumbs down?