What do you use social media for? And what platform do you prefer?

[Lysmata Debelius]

The imminent demise of G+ has made me reevaluate how I use social media. I'm also trying out some new platforms like Mewe and Pluspora although, honestly, I'm not feeling all that enthusiastic about spending time and energy on social media.

What motivates you to use social media? What do you look for when choosing where you hang out?

For me, it's entertainment and social interaction (I work from home and get quite isolated)

I also use it to have some kind of online presence that potential readers can check out to find out what kind of person I am. I do post about my books every now and then, when I have a launch etc.

To a much lesser extent, to keep up with the news.

I am on Twitter but have been avoiding it as I can't take the constant drama and find it quite toxic. It seems to be designed for people to misunderstand one another.

Facebook, ugh, I would like to avoid it but I have some good friends who aren't anywhere else, and I don't want to lose touch with them.

G+ used to be a good place to find interesting discussions but now that's going away.

What do you use social media for? What platform works best for you?

[Jeff Tanyard]

No Twitter or Facebook for me.  Just forums like this one.   

[Jo]

I use Twitter, but not very extensively. I'm not very keen on social media.

[TimothyEllis]

The imminent demise of G+ has made me reevaluate how I use social media. I'm also trying out some new platforms like Mewe and Pluspora although

I've never heard of any of them.

I use Facebook for general connections and fan interaction, and I sometimes use Instagram.

But wont and never will twit. No idea what else is out there, and never been motivated to find out.

[VanessaC]

I've been thinking about this quite a bit.  For me, it's a question of what I'm familiar with, and using my limited time as effectively as possible.

Basically I use Facebook for almost all social media interaction both personally and for readers - it's familiar and reasonably easy to navigate, interaction is easy. Very occasionally I'll look up something on Twitter, but I never really got to grips with it so I don't use it.

I also have a website for readers to find me, but I haven't worked out how to add a comment function so it's basically information for readers.

For writing stuff, I come here. 

[Simon Haynes]

I post on twitter and my FB page every couple of days. About 2000 followers on each, I think. I've had both for years.

I love twitter for the immediacy, and the easy way to follow others I'm interested in. My feed contains more news and info I care about than any newspaper, and it's updated quicker, too. For example, I'm a fan of Formula One, which is practically invisible in mainstream media.

I post about specials on my books, odd thoughts and so on.

I use my FB page for news about my WIP, cover reveals and updates on the progress of various works.

The newsletter/mailing list is more formal. Mostly I use it to stay in touch with alpha/beta readers and reviewers, but I do send out a collection of news and info once a month.

[anauthor]

I post on FB to my page and a reader group. That's the social media that the demographics of my readership will most likely be. I also do some Instagram and Pinterest, but more because I like both of those platforms than because my readership might be there.

[cecilia_writer]

I have a writer page on FB where I interact with some readers and announce new releases etc. (I rarely mention writing on my personal account, it's mainly for friends and family) I sometimes do boosted posts on FB and had quite good results with a recent one.
I am on Twitter under my pen-name but that's more random and as well as tweeting about writing stuff I interact with museum colleagues about my day job and argue about politics.
I like Pinterest for saving sets of pictures to do with things I'm writing, and actually I think with a little more effort it could be very useful in terms of interacting with readers.
That's about it - I am also on LinkedIn but haven't discerned much use for it, certainly not as a writer! Again there is sometimes interesting museum stuff on it so it's more for the day job.

[JRTomlin]

I too love Twitter for its immediacy. I have two twitter accounts as I am trying to post less about politics on my author account. But if I want news, that is where I go. If I want to discuss news that is where I post.

I never liked posting on FB. Then the FB interference in the political process and its involvement with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal caused me to delete my FB account. I recently made a new account there, but am considering deleting it again.

[Tom Wood]

I have a presence on FB, Twitter, Reddit and Goodreads, but I don't get a lot of personal joy out of them.

Is there an anti-social network? 

[The Doctor]

I had Facebook, but got rid of it. I'm on Twitter but had to have time out due to the incessant Brexit and Trump tweets, despite blocking those words from my feed. I was supposed to start tweeting again when Doctor Who started last week but, to be honest, I'm not really missing it and haven't really been on there. I think it helps that I deleted the app from my phone.

I also have an Instagram account which I rarely use.

I'm kind of enjoying not using social media, apart from forums like this, to be honest.

[Simon Haynes]

I had Facebook, but got rid of it. I'm on Twitter but had to have time out due to the incessant Brexit and Trump tweets, despite blocking those words from my feed. I was supposed to start tweeting again when Doctor Who started last week but, to be honest, I'm not really missing it and haven't really been on there. I think it helps that I deleted the app from my phone.

Coincidence - I'm watching Shada at the moment (the 2017 repair job).  The fourth doc and Romana were always my favourites.

[Wonder]

I deleted all my Facebook-affiliated accounts after Cambridge Analytica. No more FB, Insta, or WhatsApp for me. I’d always been uneasy about their practices, anyway. I have a Twitter account for book announcements and blog posts.

I run paid promos, and those promo sites have their own social media accounts. I have an author website, a blog, and a newsletter.

If someone wants to stay in touch with me I encourage them to subscribe to my email newsletter.

My strategy is:
Paid promos to find new readers.
Newsletter to engage with fans.
Blog posts to lift SEO and provide newsletter content.

I’m increasingly skeptical of social media’s value, both personally and professionally. I think my time is better spent writing more books! 🙂

Wonder

[Tonyonline]

I too love Twitter for its immediacy.

Me too, but that said I don't use it much and don't use any other social media. I'd rather spend any free time I have on a forum like this.

[wearywanderer64]

I use FB for interactions with a writer's group and to speak to family and friends. All my students use Instagram, though I don't see why. It looks a bit clunky compared to FB. We need an online presence, but I'm slowly whittling that down to the sites that matter.  I agree about Twitter's immediacy.

[guest642]

I only have Facebook, and I rarely post on that except to announce new releases and maybe the odd innocuous post. Very, very innocuous posts. I like to keep a line between myself and the readers. Sometimes, in today's world, being too "friendly" with your customers can lead to bad situations.

I steer well clear of places like Twitter or any other social media that allows immediacy. I think that immediacy is a big, big problem. It's cost so many people their jobs because they can just jump on the phone and type something dumb without thinking about it. Before you know it, an innocent joke between "friends" blows up because someone, somewhere took offense.

As authors, let's face it, we depend on the good will of readers to buy our books and to spread the word. More so as indies. I always shake my head when I see authors purposefully alienate an entire half of their audience by taking a political stand over something, usually the political argument du jour that will be forgotten in a week or month. Congrats, by making that post or tweet you got a nice pat on the back from the 50% that agrees with you. What about the 50% that don't? Chances are you might have just lost their business.

My author name is my business. I make too much money at this to think of it as anything less. It doesn't matter if you think you're posting as an individual or as "the author," it's still your name, and the offended won't give a hoot. No one is bulletproof when the mob comes for you.

[Vijaya]

I have a web/blog and 2 yrs ago I joined FB (worst time ever--I never knew people could be so mean to each other). I do like all the pictures that family and friends post and there's a small writing group I'm part of on a private FB group. I just discovered KB and WS this summer but I've been part of the kidlit writing community for 15 yrs on another board that started just like this but now is part of SCBWI. I enjoy the interactions with other writers.

[Anarchist]

I don't do Facebook or Twitter.

I have an Instagram account, but mostly to stare at meat porn (example below):

[Tom Wood]

[Simon Haynes]

2.30am here, and now I want to have a bbq.

[The Doctor]

I had Facebook, but got rid of it. I'm on Twitter but had to have time out due to the incessant Brexit and Trump tweets, despite blocking those words from my feed. I was supposed to start tweeting again when Doctor Who started last week but, to be honest, I'm not really missing it and haven't really been on there. I think it helps that I deleted the app from my phone.

Coincidence - I'm watching Shada at the moment (the 2017 repair job).  The fourth doc and Romana were always my favourites.

Not seen that version. But I do enjoy the 8th Doctor/Romana audio remake that was done a few years back.

[Simon Haynes]

I had Facebook, but got rid of it. I'm on Twitter but had to have time out due to the incessant Brexit and Trump tweets, despite blocking those words from my feed. I was supposed to start tweeting again when Doctor Who started last week but, to be honest, I'm not really missing it and haven't really been on there. I think it helps that I deleted the app from my phone.

Coincidence - I'm watching Shada at the moment (the 2017 repair job).  The fourth doc and Romana were always my favourites.

Not seen that version. But I do enjoy the 8th Doctor/Romana audio remake that was done a few years back.

I just found it on ABC Iview (australia). Certainly takes me back to my youth.

[Kay Inglis]

I've never had a Facebook account or used any social media much, except Twitter, which I have been on and off for a few years now.

I'll confess that Twitter and the way it is used and abused fascinates me - so much so that it takes a role in one of my post-apocalypse stories.

As far as I see it, you can choose how you use Twitter, and if you follow like-minded people (other writers, for example) and just post nice pictures and "like" nice comments or stick to family and friends, it can be quite a pleasant environment.

Venture out into controversial issues and it can be a bear pit.

It is certainly also used by campaigners on a range of issues, but I think more and more people just mentally or literally filter this out now.

But I also find news stories will break on Twitter before they reach the MSM, and that can be interesting too.

I recently started on Instagram, but only so as to follow a few people I know.

[oganalp]

Facebook and Instagram, and sometimes Twitter.

Facebook works for discussions over things you want to share regarding your business. If you interact (not just post, but talk to people under your posts), it works. Otherwise, it is just a time loss. One of my music projects has 6.5k or so followers, and the interaction (from likes to shares to comments) is around 5% whenever I post something. That is a good number, considering that most translate into 1%. However, the dynamics of a music crowd is different than of a reader crowd. You have more audio-visual content to stimulate people.

Instagram, on the other hand, works better to reach out unknown people through #hashtags. Of course, it creates the necessity of taking pictures of me, or my surroundings, or some stuff that I like on a constant basis to create content, especially about writing as it is not a very "visual" art. I don't like taking pictures, so it is a challenge.

I need to hire a marketer for myself, and an assistant. Yes.

[SCapsuto]

For nonfiction, I find that content marketing on Twitter works better than the other approaches I've tried. (You can see my feed here: Twitter - Between Wanderings Jewish History: https://twitter.com/BWJewishHistory.)

I post material on the topic about which I publish, so there will be eyes on my account on the rare occasions when I actively plug the Between Wanderings books. A tweet announcing the current titles is pinned to the top of the Twitter feed, where new followers will see it. The Facebook page for my imprint uses a similar content-marketing approach.

Finally, I maintain a blog on the same subject, and post links to it on Twitter and Facebook. About a quarter of the blog posts have some direct connection to one of the books and end with a sales link.

[Tom Wood]

If you use TweetDeck then you can surgically filter Twitter to the useful stuff. I follow hashtags and people. Even then I have to regularly block accounts that spam the hashtags. For example, #vr has news about the virtual reality market, but gets spammed by the vr porn producers. So I block them without a thought.

[Post-Crisis D]

Here's the ones I have accounts on and my impressions of each.

digg - Have an account.  If it's still around.  Is it still around?  Used to be moderately useful but haven't used it in years.

Facebook - Have an account.  Don't use it much.  Will probably end up deleting it but then again there's a couple people I know that can only be reached through Facebook.  Ugh.  They have eMail but don't always respond, yet they seem to be on Facebook 24/7.  Ugh.  Check your eMail.  Oh, and then Facebook sends those annoying eMails about so-and-so updating their status like it's some major deal.  It's not.  Someone posts a picture of their lunch and Facebook is all like, did you see so-and-so updated their status?  No, Facebook.  I am ignoring those status update messages because I grew tired of checking them only to discover it was something so mindlessly stupid and you wasted my time just so I'd visit the site and you could count the ads I completely ignored as impressions.  Ugh.  Facebook has done to the blogging community what Barnes & Noble did to independent booksellers.  I can only hope that an Amazon will come along and do to Facebook what Amazon did to B&N.  I wish people would find places other than Facebook (or Google) to host their groups; I am in a couple Facebook groups but since they are on Facebook, I don't participate much.  I might if they were elsewhere.  I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon but Facebook is a garbage site.  I look forward to the day someone finally takes out the trash and Facebook goes the way of all the other sites that used to be popular but have long since gone away and I can no longer remember.

Fark - Have an account.  They don't let you delete accounts otherwise I would have long ago.  Don't even remember why I have an account.  Probably somebody said "you must be on this site too!" or something.

LinkedIn - Ugh.  Wish I hadn't.  Next to useless.  Have to jump through hoops to delete your account so I haven't done that yet.

MySpace - Used to be popular.  Used to get some traffic from there, I think.  Then it went downhill, then celebrities or something bought it and it went downhill further, in my opinion.

Reddit - Had an account.  Didn't use it much.  Deleted it four years ago.  Haven't missed it.  I do occasionally read discussions there but nothing compelling enough to encourage me to re-join.

Twitter - Used to be fun.  Used to be good for meeting people, driving traffic to your blog or website, getting customers, having online parties and so on.  Then Ashton Kutcher was on Oprah and promoted it and all the celebrities started getting on and Twitter management went star crazy and it turned more into a platform to follow celebrities than a place for ordinary people to socialize.  In my opinion, that's when it went downhill to the point where today it's largely for learning the daily outrage in celebrity world and not so much about socializing with ordinary people.

[Lorri Moulton]

I love Facebook!  Twitter is fun and I'd do more with Instagram, but my cell phone doesn't work at home.  If they ever allow posts from a computer, I'm there!

Facebook has been very good to me, but I don't do anything political and I mainly talk about non-book related things.  However, I don't use it for friends/family posts.  I have some Facebook groups (the most popular is the tea group) because I like building relationships with potential readers.  Even if they never read my book, maybe they'll recommend my stories to a friend.

I'm in this for the LOOOONG game.  I rarely pay for advertising, so social media is how I connect with readers, authors...well, just about everyone. 

[dgcasey]

Facebook and Instagram, and sometimes Twitter.

Facebook and Instagram, but rarely Twitter. I have Twitter set as an automatic in my Wordpress blogs, so a tweet goes out whenever I post to my blog, but that's about all I do there.

I use FB simply because I have a lot of friends there from the pre-internet days and that's how I keep up with them. I used to say it was to keep up with my kids, but lately, they haven't used it much at all. I can't remember the last time I saw anything from my son on there.

Instagram is a whole 'nother story. I am just now looking into it, but I am at a loss for how some things work there. Case in point, last night I posted about one of my books and I've got about 25+ hashtags at the bottom of the post. Almost immediately I find my post in the Top Posts of #horrorbookstagram. This morning it is gone from there. Now, I understand that they only have so many spaces set aside for the Top Posts and mine isn't going to stay there forever. But, it wasn't in the More Recent posts either. I looked at some of the other hashtags and couldn't find it anywhere, even in the hashtags that only had 20-50K posts. I found it in a couple of the hashtags, but not in most of them. I don't know why it would show in a handful of them, but in the majority, nada.

Anyway, I'm trying to follow Bexa's instructions from her interview with Mark Dawson and also her free Instagram challenge, so maybe I'll get it figured out.

[dgcasey]

I love Facebook!  Twitter is fun and I'd do more with Instagram, but my cell phone doesn't work at home.  If they ever allow posts from a computer, I'm there!

There is a way to post from your desktop, but I'm only speaking from a Windows based system. I don't know what system you're on and if it's Apple, I don't know if it will work.

[Angela Haddon]

After trying all of the big ones for a while (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Google+), I'm choosing to focus on Facebook, which is a HUGE deal for me, because I've been avoiding Facebook for years. I've recently started a Facebook Group, which has been a really pleasant experience because it's more close-knit, with more one-on-one interactions with authors (something that's been lacking with my FB page).

Although Twitter has a lot of great info, especially for news and current events, it just gets too noisy. Recently, I've mostly been using it for DM's.

As for Pinterest and Instagram, I struggle to find the time to effectively use them.

I've seen a lot of advice that says to focus on one or two platforms, and leave it at that. I'm starting to understand why - there just aren't enough hours in the day, and they mess with attention/productivity. So far, stripping things back has been great!

[Tom Wood]

I love Facebook!  Twitter is fun and I'd do more with Instagram, but my cell phone doesn't work at home.  If they ever allow posts from a computer, I'm there! ...

Here's an article that describes the "hack" that allows you to post on Instagram from a PC. It's not an officially supported method, so there's no telling how long it might work.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2018/08/30/how-to-post-on-instagram-from-pc/#1c9ed58d516a

Note this part:

"Important Note: If you do not see the plus (+) sign at the bottom, as you do on this screen, simply refresh the browser window (F5 on a PC keyboard) or the reload button to the left of the address bar. This usually reveals it for the times when it does not appear instantly."

I always have to reload the page to get the controls to show up. Note also that not all the controls are available with this method. The Highlights controls don't show up at all.

[Bill Hiatt]

If I weren't trying to use social media for business purposes, I'd probably moderately enjoy seeing what my friends are doing. Because I am trying to use it for business, it seems like more and more of a chore.

I'm not a photographer, so I don't bother with Instagram. I maintain a presence on both FB and Twitter. I seem to be able to generate a fair amount of response when I want to, but getting book sales that way is a slow process at best. I think social media fans and followers who stick around long enough become real fans eventually, but it's a slow process.