Thanks to all of you who joined in the first annual Writer’s Worth Day! It was a great start to what I hope is a group effort to raise awareness, offer more support, and bring more value to our industry.
Onto other things… I read the Word Wrangler’s rant about the proliferation of social networks and posts on how to capitalize on each one. He asked, very wisely, just how much is too much? I ask something a bit different – just how much time can one waste before one realizes that social networks are not much more than time sinks?
I don’t Twitter. I have no idea what a Squidoo looks like. I have a Facebook page because my kid put it up for me. Same with My Space. I should go there sometime. I don’t. And I still have a career. Go figure.
I do belong to two networks. One offers an array of professionals, and it seems to be the standard for business people. I’ve connected with other professionals and have used a few folks’ comments in articles. I joined only after four contacts/clients invited me. The other is a female-only network, and it’s just nice to be connected with other successful women. But I can count on one hand the number of hours per month I spend on either of these networks. Why? Because I think the time is better spent connecting directly with potential or existing clients.
The problem I see is there are more social networks to choose from, so folks are choosing them all. How exactly is that smart? If you belong to say 5 networks and spend about 15 minutes a day on each one, do the math. That’s time you could spend calling or emailing clients, or sending out proposals or queries for actual work. So I ask you – are you applying any kind of vetting process in your search for the social network that best suits you?
Networks are fun. They’re a great way to reconnect or to meet new people. But in my humble opinion, they are not a fantastic place to find work. From my view, most people on social networking sites are looking for work. Not too many are hiring. I left one social network because it was rife with people marketing the bejeezuz out of their companies or services, and there wasn’t a lot of connecting going on beyond that. In effect, it was a waste of time and bandwidth.
I totally agree. Twitter annoys me because I don’t want to “follow” what someone’s doing, I want interaction.
I’ve gotten some good connections on MySpace, mostly interviews and stuff, but that’s the extent of it.
There’s too much bitching, moaning, and bullying on most of those sites and not enough genuine interaction. I don’t want to be marketed to all the live-long day.
Wow! Devon hit this one on the head with “genuine interaction”. I have sort of been searching for the words that I feel every time I waste time with these sudo-tools. Thanks Devon!
For some reason, these ‘social tools’ tend to be more anti-social in nature. People are too busy telling what they are doing and not participating in conversation. I mean, if the intent is to become more social, why aren’t they doing it? Now I could just have a bad set of followers, but in retrospect I have reached out to others who should have similar talents, beliefs, and interest to no avail.
I’ll stick around a bit longer, I do see some promise and purpose for the tools, but think it will also take time to properly mature.