Who, me? Waste time on Facebook? You bet!

Since my writing projects are on hold, I decided to tackle Pinterest tonight. When I first discovered it. I spent too many hours scrolling through. I created duplicate boards. I mean, really, what’s the difference between Judy’s Bookshelf and My Bookshelf? Both became a mixture of my own books, other books I liked, and clever quotes about the world of books. But mostly I found recipes—oh, I pinned and copied like a mad fool. And then one day I decided this wasn’t at all an avenue for marketing my books, and I dropped it.

But I read about authors who created boards for each book, using Pinterest almost as a way of keeping notes. I envied their ambition and went on my way. There’s only so much one can do with social media, I told myself, a sentiment echoed by other authors on various lists.

Facebook? When others scorn it and rant because they keep changing the rules, I am an unabashed fan. Sure I use it to tell people when I have a new book, but it is so much more—I post my blogs on it, I comment on other people’s posts, I make observations of my own, sometimes political. My morning ritual consists of reading emails, followed by the newspaper on the days I take it, and then by Facebook. I can easily spend an hour on Facebook and then wonder where the morning went. But Facebook is often the place I learn about breaking news; it’s where I read a lot about politics and politicians—although some of my family will howl, I’m pretty judicious about what columnists, etc. I follow. And friends—I’ve made so many new friends, kept in better touch with acquaintances, reignited old friendships. If I’m going to spend time on social media, Facebook is it.

Twitter not so much, although once in a fit of creativity, I fixed it so my Facebook posts go to Twitter—I have a son-in-law who does it the opposite, so that his FB posts are usually incomprehensible to me. But other than occasionally retweeting, I don’t do it. Linked In is, to me, for people who want to advance their careers in the professional world, and I don’t know about Google+ though I always follow back. Same with Goodreads. Instagram? What’s that?

Now I read that Pinterest is second only to Facebook in terms of traffic generation and way ahead of Twitter or Google+. So that’s why my concentration on Pinterest tonight. I did post a couple of new book covers but the main thing I got was a recipe for smoked salmon dip with bacon and jalapeno. I posted it to Potluck with Judy.

I don’t think I’ll ever master social media, but who really does?