SNF: Social Networking Fatigue

When Google+ launched recently, I confessed: “I have SNF – social networking fatigue.”

I know I’m not alone. But it’s not cool to talk about it. My New Year’s resolution was to use Facebook and Twitter more. I failed miserably. After Letters to Juniper was released I vowed to have more of a presence on Facebook and Twitter. Well, here it is, four months later and I have failed yet again. Then there are Goodreads, LinkedIn, Branch Out, and MySpace. There are social networking sites I have never heard of and I’m failing at those, too.

I’m not a hater. I actually like Facebook and Twitter – even better than all the others. They just don’t rank very high on my priorities list. I am part-time babysitter for my 2½-year old grandson and 9-year old granddaughter. I’m writing a book. I’m promoting another book. I manage four blogs plus I contribute to this one. I review books. Somewhere in between I cook, eat, shop, do laundry, garden, walk dogs, blah, blah, blah … and sleep.

For more than a year I have tortured myself about my lack of facebook-ability and general twitter-lessness. I envied twitter butterflies and facebook fanatics. I wondered if I had a social disorder. I thought there might be something wrong with me.

An article at WebProNews caught my eye last week: Study Says Social Media Sucks at Driving Traffic. Outbrain, a marketing company, conducted a study to see which sites directed the most traffic to publisher content (such as articles and blog posts). Google came out on top. Social networking sites were dead last, accounting for only 11% of traffic to content pages.

My own effort to drive traffic to my website or blogs with Facebook and Twitter has fallen as flat as the study indicates. When I post a link at Facebook and Twitter to a book review on my Advice from a Caterpillar blog, I get some traffic from Facebook, but not Twitter. If someone else posts a link to one of my blog posts, I similarly get Facebook traffic, but nada from Twitter. All of which has led me to conclude Twitter is a bust for book buzz. Facebook is better, but not as good Google or a direct link from another blog, as the study illustrated.

Based on the Outbrain study, I’m probably spending the right amount of time on Facebook and Twitter, or any other social networking sites. I am officially letting myself off the hook. No more self-recrimination. Self promotion and its aliases – branding, marketing – are necessary albeit challenging aspects of the publishing landscape. I’m old enough to remember what life was like before the internet. I appreciate the exposure it has given to my work and the expansion it has afforded me in my career. But it all comes down to the writing and that has to be my first priority.

Peggy Tibbetts

"I was shocked at how it all ended." -- The O.W.L.
If you would like to review Letters to Juniper, contact Peggy at: peggyt@siltnet.net

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