I think social networks can be extremely helpful especially for writers. I like Facebook actually more than Twitter. Twitter makes me feel silly sometimes. I mean I like other people's tweets, but rarely my own. I feel foolish saying things like 'I'm going to sleep now, beddy byes' or quoting something that sounds as if it's come out of a fortune cookie.
I'll tell you what I don't like, particularly about Twitter. I hate when someone starts to follow me, I usually follow them back unless they tweet every five minutes about something they are pushing--too spammy.
What I positively detest is getting a direct message which says: CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE. DON'T MISS MY BLOG THIS WEEK, IT'S ABOUT WRITERS!
Well hello! I'm a writer too, a very hard working one and, please give me the courtesy of not hard selling yourself. I'll get there, on my own time in my own way. I love to re-tweet things too. Just Mr. and Mrs. Followers, please don't come on like gangbusters.
Facebook I love, it's a great diversion. I have made friends there that I genuinely like. I have a profile and an official author page. The author page permits me to promote my writing. I never like sending a message out to a zillion people to get them to buy something I've written, too hard sell for my taste. I like people to join my page on their own and to read my blog posts if it interests them.
Privacy issues got way out of hand when Ning was free. A lot of spammers used it for their purposes. Personally, I would gladly shoot to kill any and all spammers from 'why doncha see me on web cam' to 'buy canadian meds!' 'To my name is Gunga Bunga and I have been reading your profile. I think we can be great friends...'
I always think the next breath would be 'my father works in the bank of Whatta Lotta Noiyve' but he had a heart attack and cannot withdraw the 900 billion dollars he saved--so could you, (yada yada)...!
Privacy issues can be issues! You can make your profile private but when you're like me, trying to interest the entire planet in your novel, you don't and will run into annoying people.
So that's it really, yes I do think social networks work. I think though we should be discerning about them, exerting caution as in all things.
