I’m not quite a Luddite, but close to it. I wasn’t always this way. Time was, I was considered a leader in computer and Internet usage. I posted on Yahoo groups with the best of them to promote my books, and could make Outlook, Word and Excel sing. Then I took a break.
When I came back into writing and using the computer had changed. I prefer email, but really, does anyone use email any more? It seems that everyone is DMing (it took me a heck of a long time to figure out what DM meant. Use your words, people!) on Twitter, Messaging on Facebook, and whatever they call it on LinkedIn. Ironically, I receive a message in my Outlook Inbox telling me I have a message on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Couldn’t people just email me to begin with??
How to receive messages was only the beginning. In order to promote our work, we now need to post daily—more often would be infinitely better, I’m told—on all of those. I don’t have Instagram or Pinterest accounts or I 
would be spending even more time at the keyboard. And that doesn’t include blogging or managing a newsletter. By the time I create blog posts, both for those appearing on the Nomad Authors blog and for when I appear on the blog sites of others, I’m pooped.
Hubby used to complain that I spent so much time posting on Yahoo that I decreased my writing time significantly. He could say the same now about social media promoting. Truthfully, I never noticed any changes in sales when I used Yahoo, and I wonder if there are sales changes with all of this other promoting. I have been told point blank that we can promote 24×7 on social media and there would be no difference in sales or exposure. But who is willing to take that chance? Not me.
So is social media a friend or foe? Like most things in life, we have to do whatever we think works as well as what we enjoy, plus a bit of what we don’t enjoy, just because…well, because. I really enjoy Twitter and I don’t mind LinkedIn. I’m not a fan of Facebook but recognize that it’s expected for us to use. And I have to admit, I really enjoy blogging and our newsletter, Aussie to Yank (subscribe here). So I will keep on and hope you will keep on reading, retweeting, commenting.
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Dee
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