Comments on: Social Media Fatigue

By: Joleene Naylor

Joleene Naylor — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 10:18:44 +0000

The problem is so many people will convince you – whether you’re a writer, artist, musician, you name it – that you MUST facebook and you MUST tweet and that without them you can’t possibly sell a single book. trouble is at least 50% (and probably far more) of people in the self employed-let’s-advertise-on-facebook also work a a day job. then they come home, clean the house, cook dinner, take care of kids/spouse/pets/parents and THEN they try to draw/write/practice music etc and THEN they have to spend hours on social media… only so many hours in a day. The main people who have time to connect and engage tend to be people who have the free time to do it in – maybe they don’t have that day job, or maybe they don’t have those kids/spouse/family to take care of every night etc etc. but everyone else is already overloaded and then social media is force fed as the “only reliable way” to make sales so automation and fast, nugget sized quips become the norm. As for images there was a very interesting marketing study done that found that user respond much better to images than just word posts – and I’ve noticed it in my own stream. the posts that get shares, like and comments are images, however, how does posting these and engaging people to share/like/comment on – for example – a cartoon bat sell my books? A person might have 600 FB likes, but that doesn’t mean sales, and it doesn’t mean those people are even seeing your posts. I recently broke down and made a FB author page and frankly I can’t say it’s increased sales any. That’s a study I would be interested in seeing done, though, whether social media really does impact sales or not. Alas between everything else, I don’t even have time to contemplate it.

By: Niki Savage

Niki Savage — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 15:20:31 +0000

I share your feelings on social media, Derek. I don’t do FB at all, I am on Twitter but have completely lost interest in my timeline which seems to be just one long promotional parade. I send one or two tweets every couple of days promoting my free book and it seems to be enough. It is far more important to me to get the next book out than to spend hours on promotion. I think it is better to rely on word of mouth from people who have enjoyed by books. Just my humble opinion.

By: Derek Haines

Derek Haines — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:24:51 +0000

In reply to Darlene Jones. It's a real Catch 22 Darlene and one I don't have an answer for. But it's impractical to be spending 24/7 on social media when there are stories to write. And I hope you enjoy Louis!

By: Darlene Jones

Darlene Jones — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:36:32 +0000

When I first started all this about 10 months ago, I spent hours on the computer with Twitter and Facebook. Got to the point where I was losing track of friends and not writing at all, so I took a huge step back, reviewed the situation and decided to stay on FB, Twitter and Triberr, but limit my time daily to an hour for all three. I don’t see how we can get a name for ourselves and entice people to at least try our books without social media so unless someone comes up with a brilliant alternative, I guess we’re stuck.
PS. Derek, I’m reading Louis now.