Why Writers & Bloggers should create Social Media groups.

Yesterday I was time-wasting on Twitter and saw a post by a ‘social media expert’ on how to start a Facebook group to promote your ‘brand.’ She included writers among those ‘businesspeople’ who should use that technique. Not one word was said mentioning that people get banned from Facebook all the time— even Gays against Groomers got permabanned. I’m locked out of my old account for not bowing down to the great god Facebook Protect and handing them my phone number. 

There are groups on some of the alternative social media. The two I know about are MeWe and Gab, and both have groups. 

Groups, said the social media guru, should be about something related to your ‘niche.’ If you are a writer, you could found a group, not for writers, but for book lovers, perhaps book lovers in your genre. (The group will promptly become filled with desperate writers wanting to fill your group with book promos.)

Bloggers should make a group about their blogging niche. If you blog about travel, start a travel blog, if you blog about science fiction, start a science fiction blog. 

The difference between MeWe groups and Gab groups is that when you post to a Gab group, your post automatically goes to your timeline, unless you do some privacy setting thing I don’t know how to do. The advantage of this is that even when you are in a small group, all of your followers see your post from your timeline, and they know what group you posted in. So you can grow the value of your personal Gab account and grow your value as a group member with the same post, without doing anything about it.

MeWe is different. IF you keep your privacy setting to ‘public,’ you can share your posts from the group back to your timeline, but you have to make the effort to do it. If your group post was shared from another source into the group, attempts to share it will only share that original post, without the tag that it came from your group or any comment you wrote about the post. 

Both MeWe and Gab are smaller communities than Facebook or Twitter, but the members are more loyal to one another, at least when there are no big differences of opinion. You may need to work on your main account— post your blog posts, book links and interesting or pithy words of wisdom there, before going off and starting your own group.

Before you start your own group on your alt social medium, join a few groups of interest on various topics. When you find a few you really like, ‘adopt’ a couple groups. Post regularly in those groups. Comment on other people’s posts. Be friendly and encouraging. Pretend like you are assisting the admin/group founder. I had a pair of groups of my own on Facebook for years. I learned a lot about what to do to encourage groups along. It’s hard work. 

Think through what sort of group you want while you are participating in other people’s groups. If there is a group out there that is just right for what you would want to do with a group of your own, and you are allowed to post things that you would like to post there, you may decide to delay starting your own group.

On MeWe, all groups might have group ‘chats.’ I personally don’t like chat, and in an Esperanto-language group I was in on MeWe, a lady in the prostitution industry used the chat to promote her business— in English! You can disable group chat, and when your group has grown enough for you to recruit a few moderators, you can add it back if group members want to. As leader of your group, you should check in on the chat daily— answer some questions as well as check for abuse of the chat by prostitutes.

The purpose behind starting or participating in a social media group is the same behind using social media generally— it is to gather a group of people who like your perspective on things, how you write in short doses, your ‘you’ in general. These people are your prospective tribe members. The ones who actually buy your books or read your blog posts, especially if they do it more than once, are your tribe. Be true to your tribe! Cherish them. Put up with their eccentricities as they put up with yours. 

Follow me! 

MeWe (Primary Social Medium): https://mewe.com/i/nissaannakindt

Gab (free speech alternative):  https://gab.com/nissalovescats

Twitter (for now): https://twitter.com/nissalovescats 

Defend Trad Marriage group: https://mewe.com/group/5bca1f9c73a3f14e7c8572e5

BOOKS: Where the Opium Cactus Grows (Poetry) : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0557939135

Getting More Blog Traffic: Steps Towards a Happier Blogging Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H4FQ4M

 

After Facebook Ends....

 

Facebook, I have read, is in decline. I have been using it since early in my blogging/writing life. I have long-term friends there, I have family members there. The family members were important to me. Because I have Asperger Syndrome, social interaction— even with my own blood family— is not an easy thing. I can’t just pick up the phone and call a cousin, niece or aunt that might be annoyed by my call and long for me to hang up quick. By connecting on Facebook, I could see what they were posting, put positive emojis on it, maybe comment once in a while. And they could comment on what I posted. 

But now Facebook’s newest annoyance, Facebook Protect, seems designed to get rid of unwanted users by demanding either you give up your phone number to them— and I do not trust them with my phone number— or do other things many people won’t be able to do. I once thought if I lost internet access I could go to the local library and check in on my Facebook and other things there. But Facebook is purging people that poor.

I used Twitter when I had my Wordpress blog, because Wordpress can be set up to post to Twitter automatically. Now Wordpress has become less usable to the point I had to leave, I am having to post my blog post links by hand. I do have some friends there, but mainly for me Twitter is a way to drive true fans to my MeWe and Gab pages or my new blog. 

I believe that the ‘Big Boys’ of social media, Facebook and Twitter, are starting to fade. Both revealed themselves as willing to meddle in a US election by banning a sitting president from both sites without reason, both began censoring information about the plandemic they didn’t like and other topics, so that many users were confronted daily with censorship in the form of ‘information’ links added to posts.

I conclude that many of the folks that stay on Facebook and Twitter do it only for their friends there. They resent Facebook and Twitter even as they use them.

We are in an age when writers and bloggers are going to have to be thinking about being on multiple social media. There is a risk here. Just as MySpace went under, alternate social media can go under. Gab was down for a while, Parler was down, though both came back. Others probably have come and gone for good without my notice.

Any new social medium, especially if ‘alternative,’ is a risk— you might be wasting your time. That is why I believe having a blog at the center of your efforts is good. It gives you a chance to post longer things— too long, in my case, I tend to run on. 

MeWe is my primary Facebook replacement and primary social medium. It’s a little dull, since it seems to be set up with the idea that everyone wants their posts very private. Since new MeWe users often don’t have many friends, their posts, when their privacy settings are ‘friends only,’ reach next to no one. I do #MeWeMondays — I am sure to post there on Mondays, yesterday I used that hashtag on Twitter as well as MeWe, and in general I try to put in a good effort. 

Gab is the social medium I use on #GabTuesdays . It is a bit more like Twitter in that there are all sorts there, and some users are argumentative and swear too much at other people. I soon learned to use the ‘block’ button a lot on the worst offenders. If you are a mild soul upset by confrontational attitudes, you might feel cautious about Gab. Don’t worry, I won’t dislike you if you don’t use Gab— we can always meet up on MeWe.

Truth Social is a new social medium I haven’t tried yet. I did sign up for it over the weekend, but the confirmation email never arrived. Friends I have asked said that it was mainly the same stuff you see on Gab. My main reason for joining was that a friend I liked on Facebook said she was joining Truth Social once it got launched, and I miss her. 

I was on Parler, didn’t like it much, and then it went down. If I encounter some friends who really like Parler, I may rejoin. 

In each case, the key to using any social medium is to set up your account properly— use a good profile pic, it doesn’t have to be a current picture of YOU, some people use their cat’s picture, a flag, or other image. Maybe use the same profile pic on all your social media accounts.

You also need friends/contacts. More important for the alt social media, you need people who are active there NOW. On MeWe and Gab I recommend joining groups of interest and see who is posting, post comments yourself, and friend the people you interact with. 

Make sure your account is one worth following. If you post JUST your blog post links or JUST book promos, you are dull. Share other people’s memes and posts, but also post things of your own. I’ve had some success with cat pictures, though one sourpuss on Gab criticized me for taking a picture of cute cats on a dirty kitchen floor. He can just come to my house and wash the floor himself, and then train my cats to like clean floors better than dirty ones!

The world we live in today, many people are reluctant readers. They CAN read, but many of them would rather watch a dozen YouTube videos than read one blog post or one chapter of your novel. Social media is a way to locate readers, and to coax the more reluctant readers to give you a try. 

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Follow me! 

MeWe (Primary Social Medium): https://mewe.com/i/nissaannakindt

Gab (free speech alternative):  https://gab.com/nissalovescats

Twitter (for now): https://twitter.com/nissalovescats 

Defend Trad Marriage group: https://mewe.com/group/5bca1f9c73a3f14e7c8572e5

BOOKS: Where the Opium Cactus Grows (Poetry) : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0557939135

Getting More Blog Traffic: Steps Towards a Happier Blogging Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H4FQ4M