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Social Media ist das Opium des Volkes

iStock_000009250299XSmallby Mike O’Mary

Okay, so maybe Karl Marx was talking about religion instead of social media when he tagged an institution as “the opiate of the people.” But if Karl were alive today, I don’t think he’d argue with calling social media an opiate. Speaking for myself, I swore off television years ago only to end up spending those newfound hours in front of the computer every day. Sucked in again!

How much time do you spend on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Classmates, YouTube, Flickr, Google Buzz, Bebo, Flixster, MyLife, etc., etc.? And I’m not even talking about the time you spend checking your e-mail accounts, blogs, bank/brokerage accounts, shopping, travel, and all that other “essential” stuff. Talk about a huge time suck.

To be clear, social media is pretty amazing. You have hundreds — sometimes thousands — of personal and business connections at your fingertips. This simply was not possible ten years ago. Old college friends were just that…old college friends. Maybe you saw them at your 10th or 20th or 50th reunion. Now you can see them every day. Perhaps all you learn is that they spend oodles of time fertilizing eggplant in FarmVille. But hey, you’ll have something to talk about at the next reunion, right? (“Hey, Greg…how’d that degree in library science turn out? Oh. Sorry. Nice eggplant farm though.”)

I started to say that social media is pretty amazing. And that it has its place. It’s helped me spread the word about my new book publishing business faster and cheaper and to a broader audience than I could have done with traditional PR or marketing. And I’ve made some new friends along the way. It’s been great. But I really did get sucked in. Here’s what happened: I was spending LOTS of time each day trying to keep up with all of my social media accounts, and then staying up very late at night doing all the other things that are traditionally associated with book publishing. That had to stop. My job is editing and publishing. My job is not social media gadfly — no matter how entertaining, compelling or (dare I say it) ADDICTING social media might be.

Here is a longer version of the famous Karl Marx quote. Again, I have substituted “social media” for “religion”:
[Social media] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

It’s your life. Don’t live it all virtually.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, an independent book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 15 topics.

editorial, podcast, reading, resources, social networking

Grammar, Grammar, Grammar!

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This post is sposnored by FiledBy – where authors can claim their free website and build their online marketing platform.

grammarby Catherine L. Tully

I know I have mentioned this great resource before, but only in passing. Grammar Girl is a heavy-duty tool for the writer–new or experienced. Mignon Fogarty is the name behind this character, and her “Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing” include goodies such as:

  • Affect vs. Effect
  • Toward vs. Towards
  • All Right vs. Alright
  • Lay vs. Lie

These are excellent, bite-sized tips for the writer that can mean the difference between getting a query nod and having the editor hit delete. Let’s face it–in this business, you’ve got to know what you are doing when it comes to grammar and sentence structure.

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It doesn’t really matter how you decide to keep up with Grammar Girl. She’s on Twitter and she even has her own podcast on iTunes. A little honesty? It’s the only podcast that I have actually downloaded and listened to on my iPhone.

Naturally, if you prefer a good, old-fashioned book you can go that route as well.

Why am I so excited about this? Well, grammar is huge, and it is usually presented in the most awful, boring format. Grammar Girl gives it to you straight, but in a palatable way, without taking too long to get the point across. I’m a serious fan.

This post was brought to you by FiledBy

blogging, social networking

Follow Friday?

 twitter_logo_header

 by Catherine L. Tully

If you don’t know what the title of this post means…get ready to learn a great promotional strategy on Twitter. “Follow Fridays” is a way to figure out who to follow–and to share those you follow with others. To participate, simply tweet the words #followfriday (don’t forget the “hashtag” # before it) and then the username of the person you wish to share with the @ sign. For example, #followfriday @freelancezone @catherinetully.

It’s that simple. You can add as many people as characters allow (140) and if you run out of space, you can create another tweet. Try it–it’s fun!

editorial, lifestyle, social networking

Using Social Media

twitter_logo_header

by Catherine L. Tully

How do you use social media? I’m getting into it pretty heavy and I’m really enjoying what it does for me. Joe and I use Twitter and Facebook for this site (come join us if you haven’t already!), and I use LinkedIn as well. The learning curve on all of them is a little to deal with on the front end, but they are fairly user-friendly overall. It can get a little complicated when you try and use some of the more advanced features, but all writers can benefit from having an account set up.

If you haven’t yet jumped on the social media bandwagon, try it. Set up a Twitter account and tweet. Create a Facebook page for your business. Take the time to walk through the LinkedIn profile and get that out there. It’s worth the effort–trust me!

resources

Unfollow Thursday

twitter for writersI am starting a new Twitter fad. Are you sick of getting stupid spam Tweets about “I just added you to my Mafia family, you should accept my invitation” and teeth whitening? Are you as fed up as I am with 500 million tweets daily about stupid spammy nonsense? “I make $500 a day, you can too!”

That’s why I’ve declared Thursdays as UNFOLLOW THURSDAY. It works exactly the same as FOLLOW FRIDAY, except in reverse. Name your names, folks–shame them into ending the Twitter spam all together.

For those who don’t know about FOLLOW FRIDAY, and now UNFOLLOW THURSDAY, you simply type in Follow Friday: @TinyNugget, @Freelancezone, @CrimsonForehead, whoever else you want to follow and announce to the world that you’ve followed them Continue reading Unfollow Thursday →

editorial, featured

TweetMyJobs Changes the Game

twitter for writers

Freelance job sites like eLance and other for-a-fee providers, quake in your boots. TweetMyJobs has just changed your landscape probably forever with what its marketing hype calls “the largest Twitter job board in the world”. Pretty bold stuff for a company that didn’t exist this time last year, but that’s how things move in the Twitter world–it wasn’t three years ago Twitter wasn’t even a player in the game, now they rule a massive chunk of the online market.

I used TweetMyJobs for the first time yesterday to see what the fuss was about, and I can tell you that the for-pay sites are in trouble. Subscriber-based job sites have reached the end of their usefulness thanks to TweetMyJobs, and unless this fails to catch on with the folks posting the jobs themselves, FREElance is about to be FREE once again. Continue reading TweetMyJobs Changes the Game →