How Many Baskets?

Social media is one of the elephants in the room, the monkeys on the back, the metaphors still in the forming of being a self-published writer. Pretty much everything that needs to be or can be said has been said - and will probably keep on being said for years to come. I'm as guilty as anyone of contributing to the noise - for more than two years I've been writing a column on using social media for Words With Jam magazine.

I was writing this piece anyway, but then I came across Jane Friedman's article on platform on the Self-publishing Advice blog. She advocates
"Producing a body of work on your own platform—e.g. blog, e-mail newsletter, social network, podcast, video, digital downloads, etc.—that gathers quality followers. This is usually a long-term process."
Now absolutely this is very sound advice, especially that last bit about the long term.

But it got me thinking - and asking (though I have yet to see an answer - note to anyone out there contributing guest blogs - answering comments is rule number 1 for guest blogging) what this means. There are so many forms of social media and "platform" sites it's easy to get totally flummoxated both knowing where to start and knowing where to stop! And there's the secondary problem that most of us don't set out from a standing start to build a community around our work. Many of us will already be on Facebook, or have a blog, or be on twitter at the least, and because we've only just thought about building our communities we probably didn't give "branding" much thought.

Which I suppose is tip one - if you can, use the same distinctive username everywhere. That's very much a case of do as I say not do as I do. Before I proceed any further, this is a sample of my sites that will show you what I mean:

I'm on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/lastmanoutofeden/videos

here's one of the videos I have there - it's a site I use for putting up poetry readings I do



And here's my tumblr - look, it has the same username! Huzzah!
http://lastmanoutofeden.tumblr.com/
here's my twitter - er, wait, that's not Farmer Barleymow
http://twitter.com/agnieszkasshoes
My main website at least has my name on it
http://danholloway.wordpress.com
as does my Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/DanHollowayWriter
but my other blog is back to its old tricks
http://agnieszkasshoes.blogspot.co.uk/

And then, of course, I write articles across the web, and I'm part of a couple of great collectives like Authors Electric, the Alliance of Independent Authors, and the League of Extraordinary Authors.

And the list goes on. In other words, my internet presence is somewhat hit and miss - in fact the only place where you can get to everything I do is on my website.

Which leads to two questions.
1. Should this worry me?
and
2. What should you do?

This is a series that will run to many episodes, and I'll tackle each website separately (I originally thought of my social media contribution to Words With Jam as a single article. Two and a half years later I'm just getting started!), but I want to do some thinking around teh first question today that will hep with the second - I also want to open the floor for thoughts and tips.

Common sense tells me absolutely, yes, I should be very worried. I've done it wrong. I've not branded myself consistently. The single greatest danger this poses, as I see it, is that someone sees something I do and is desperate to know more, to find a book, to purchase it - yippee!! But wait, there is no click-through. We are told again and again that one-click is everything. And, yes, that's right.

Only...

we are looking here at commuity-building, at creating a group of "true fans", people who really want to know what you're up to, to be part of the conversation with you. Yes, they may start as browsers, they may stumble across you, but if, having done so they are still at the stage of casual interest, they will probably never be part ofthat core community. I have no interest in parting people from their money on a one-off basis. I want people to buy my books because they are desperate to see what I've written, because they are so engaged with what I say and what I do. The absence of a single omnipotent click is not such a disaster.

In fact, go back to what Jane says about the long term. She's absolutely right. What people who coordinate their tweets with their Facebook with their linked-in pinterested tumbling don't get is that a great online platform-building site is great precisely because it does something specific. And you use it best if you use it for that specificity (if you, as it were, enter its narrative community to bring Wittgenstein in again). So whilst, yes, I wouldn't say go out of your way to hide your identity and make each platform you use an utterly discrete parcel, I think the main thing is to treat each separately, on its own terms, using it for what it does best and using it because it fits with what you are trying to do as a whole.

Over time, and without harping on that really is the key, each tendril you send out into the ether will strengthen and send out its own branches, and each of those will gradually converge so that each community you build aruond yourself will begin to blur at the edges with others. Don't worry if there always remain large sections that overlap nowhere - different "true fans" of yours will engage with different sides of you. Remember this:

The only reason to keep all your fans in the same place is to make your life simpler - and how is that related to the central artistic principle of giving?

So, use platforms judiciously (though by all means play aroudn to see what works rather than just taking my word for it over the coming weeks - after all, you can only know a conversation from the inside...) and don't worry if you are part of separate conversations. What matters is the integrity and your commitment to each of them. Perhaps, just perhaps, you could, even should, just stick to one...