Sunday, May 31, 2009

On the verge...

So, when I started this blog, I really had no other reason for doing so except that I wanted to self-publish something I had written. This, mainly because I made the decision, that, by George, if no one was reading the short stories I had in my drawer and if my novel was going to take 200 years to finish, somebody had to know I was a writer. So it might as well be the internet. Even if I only got about 5 readers...well...those 5 readers would know what's what. And I'm proud to say that those 5 glorious readers do! Right? At least humor me, people.

All the while, Gary Vaynerchuk was telling me that personal branding is the most important thing on the planet and proving it by getting a 10 book deal, then proclaiming he can't even write a sentence. Tyler was joining twitter and gaining approximately 2 million dedicated followers. And The Pioneer Woman was becoming one of my favorite writers without ever taking a pen to paper. And I stepped back and told myself, DUDE...this whole social media thing...I get it.

Well, it turns out I didn't really get it. I didn't really get it until Friday night when Tyler dragged me to the Book Expo America (BEA) Tweetup. I rolled my eyes and listened to a bunch of strange people yell nerdy things like The power of twitter! or I'm @Crazyface and I want your hashtag. OK nobody really said that, but they DID introduce themselves by their twitter name. Swear. But as the night went on and I was introduced to a few trusted bloggers in Tyler's massive network, I got it. Because everyone in that room had one common interest: Books. And one common thing brought them together in the same room: Social media.

While I'm not quite sure I really understand how to be a part of the micoblogging/blogging community. And I'm not really certain how it can best benefit me or anyone else. I'm pretty sure that just having a voice on a blog allows me to be a part of it in some small way. And I'm pretty sure that as I go along, I'm going to learn a lot more. Much too late of course. But I'll learn it :-)

Oh. By the way. I was also pretty sure I coined the term social medialite on Friday night. And I was pretty sure it was genius. And it was. 5 years ago when someone first uttered it.

Yes folks, it's a slow process. But I'll get there...

4 comments:

  1. The book blogging community is awesome. I love it! They're generally very engaged and love to discuss...books! What's better than talking about books all day every day? Okay, don't answer that.

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  2. Thanks for adding me on Twitter, Melissa!

    I completely understand your conundrum with Twitter, blogging, and the whole self-branding effort. Since starting my own site, I’ve gradually been building my “brand”, adding a Twitter page here, more frequent updates there and rounding everything out with the all-important quirky business card.

    Things were pretty quiet until a few weeks ago when, seemingly without any specific advertising effort on my part, people in various spheres of the kids media industry in the U.S. started following me on Twitter, and consequently my blog readership has increased. This has been fantastic, I’ve been able to reach out and talk to all kinds of people with the same interest as me and read the fascinating things they have to say.

    What confuses me is where I fit in. Churning out blog posts and tweets seems to take as much time as creating actual children’s content, but if I focus on one more than the other am I going to be as well noticed, or have the credibility to be taken seriously? It’s a vicious circle.

    Right now I’m in the same boat as you – just happy to be connected. As Mr. Vaynerchuk espouses, being passionate about something is half the battle... We just have the learn the rest along the way.

    Shane
    imaginaryeric.com

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  4. Trish- there's not much that's better than good book conversation!

    Shane- I hear you. It seems to take just as much time to 'promote' what you do as it does to actually do it. But it seems that the people who are not getting connected in some way are going to get left behind. Glad to connect with you on here. What's funny is that I work in kids media but this blog barely touches on that! Looking forward to continuing a dialogue with you through the blogosphere. :-)

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