Yesterday I joined LinkedIn, because I’m all professional and stuff. Never mind that I don’t change out of my pajamas until well after lunch, and make-up is nowhere in the equation. I’ve been social networking my ass off this week. I now have a third email account to monitor, and five randy Italian men asking me what I’m wearing (blue flannel with pink flamingos). Mission accomplished.
The point of LinkedIn seems to be to have the most friends, associates, colleagues and other. This is so that you’ll have lots of spokes on your little icon of a wheel. I’ve spent months trying to build up enough followers on Twitter so I don’t look like a social deviant, totally ignoring my Facebook account, and only occasionally joining in on the discussions in my Writers Digest Community groups. Shout out to my peeps and tweeps.
I’ve met some amazing people, and really value the friends I’ve made online. In fact, social networking would be fun if it didn’t feel like working a second job stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. Let’s be honest, people. It’s just that sense that you have to do it in order to promote yourself that turns it into a chore.
I’m supposed to be developing associations with like-minded (old) people, but I’m drawn almost exclusively to other writers. I understand the struggles they’re going through to get recognition for their work. I’ll be starting a new group for humor writers today on LinkedIn, cleverly called Humor Writers. I encourage all my writer friends to look it up and join, so I don’t look like a total loser. I mean, so they can share their common experiences, support one another, and learn more about publishing, promotion, and marketing.
If you just happen to want me to be one of your connections, just look up Karla Telega, (I’m not using an alias) and I’d be happy to be another spoke in your wheel. Amorous Italian men need not apply.
You know…it seems to me that I made an account there, but never did anything with it…God, I’m still trying to figure out Twitter…with Twitter, I wish I could send a message to everyone, not to just one person that I don’t know and is probably saying, “Who the fuck is this?”
I’m just sayin’….
(Psssst….I’m at work today, but I’ll try and sneak on…)
I won’t tell on you.
I joined Linkedin a couple of years ago…I forgot my password. Haven’t been back. I’m on Twitter, too, though I don’t know why. (queen_o_the_mat) I haven’t figured twitter out at all. I feel like I’m at a party where I don’t know a soul and have bad breath or body odor ’cause everyone ignores me!
I’ve just discovered a new minty floss. Maybe now people will talk to me on Twitter.
You don’t want the horny Italian dudes?
I’ll be happy to send them your way.
Thank you for this. You made my whole day.
Hi Karla………I have an account on LinkedIn and I hooked up to your writer group. My account is pretty empty on there. I’m not sure how to use the whole process yet. Sometimes I get discouraged with Twitter. I try to tweet blogs that I like, and then some people tweet me that I’m always tweeting their blogs. Do they think I’m stalking? Because I do have things to do and it would be easier Not to promote them on Twitter. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t, ya know. So apparently, I don’t understand Twitter either. It’s all craziness, and I’m one of the little mice running on the little wheel.
You know how much I appreciate when you tweet my blogs, you sweet thing. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in high school, with all the cliques.
I know you appreciate them, and most certainly deserve them! Yea, it’s crazy. I don’t understand the social order or protocol of Twitter at all, yet I keep tweeting. Perhaps there’s a brain-eating alien built into the Twitter software? Yea, I’m going with that.
It doesn’t have to be a brain eating alien. There are plenty of earthly parasites out there that leave their animal hosts mindless zombies. We could be infected and never know it.
TWEET! TWEET!
I could be a zombie and not even know it? That’s deep.
Even though I use Twitter and FaceBook (much less then when I was “figuring them out”) and even though I’m honored to be LinkedIn to you, I can’t help but feel that the application of technology to social interaction, though inevitable, has blown the “cocktail party” networkers’ concerns way out of proportion.
Let me clean up my blogging home, place a post on the table, and invite friends and passing strangers in. Sure, I’ll send postcards to the folks on Twitter and FaceBook, but if they can’t take the time to visit my blogging neighborhood, I guess they’ll have to remain drunk on ephemeral relationships…
I’m just getting back into Twitter now after abandoning it for awhile. I’ll use it for promoting blogs, myself and people around me. And I’ve gotten in on your new group.
I joined linkedin a couple of years ago but I’m rarely on. I should probably check it out more often.