About a month ago, I posted about using social tools for marketing and connecting with folks.  This post is an update to the earlier post on the topic.  Then, I said I wanted to learn these tools and figure out how to use them to help me market and be present on the Internet in an organic fashion.  As a writer, it’s important to have way for readers and potential readers to connect with you. I suspect this matters for most forms of creative expression, so it applies to painters and photographers as well.  It used to be enough to be creatively competent.  Now some level of availability is also expected.  I follow some of my favorite writers like Neil Gaiman and enjoy reading their tweets.

So here is a follow up with a few observations about my journey so far:

• I have been spending more time on the web than I want to. It’s a fair and enjoyable distraction.  So it’s a constant battle to be intentional about the amount and type of time I spend.
• Twitter is  the most effective, and most inane, tool out there.  Tweetdeck, by the way, is a lovely tool.  Thanks to Jeremy Tolbert for telling me so. Twitter tends to lead to other content and people I want to explore, and so far is not as likely to have flames and negative responses.
• I’ve been trying to make sure I interact (comments, direct replies, etc.) as much as I post.  That makes cyberspace a much more fun place to be.  It feels kind of like floating through a world-wide party and having party chatter -sometimes pleasant surface talks, sometimes business in a corner, or a pleasant surprise or new person to meet.
• Relevant and interesting blog posts are tough to do.
• I have no way of knowing whether or not it is helpful to readers or drives sales.  I think time will tell that.
• The more I interact (posts and replies and all that), the more comments  show up.  So this isn’t all writing to a void, even though sometimes it feels like it.

I’d love to hear other people’s stories and key points.