Social Media for Authors—Beware of Experts

Recently I traveled to Indiana to teach blogging to the IRWA. OMG I love speaking to RWA groups! Romance writers are my absolute favorite people and it’s always such a joy to teach for them. The downside always is I have to go home and apparently “keeping” the attendees is called “kidnapping” and is a “federal offense.”

The FBI are such party poopers *rolls eyes*

Anyway, one challenge I face whenever I teach social media and branding and blogging is I have to undo a lot of really bad and frankly WRONG teaching. This presents some challenges for me in that often, many writers attend my lectures out of obligation. They are there because they are biting a bullet.

*writer slogs in with a half-written suicide note*

And frankly, the way a lot of folks teach social media? I’d want to toss myself off something high as well.

What I want to do today is to help you discern a real expert you should listen to (because there are plenty other than me) versus someone to either avoid like the plague or to at least use some more discernment before taking what the “expert” says as gospel. Often when we go to conferences and listen to lectures, we are trusting the expert blindly but these days we need to be educated consumers. If we aren’t? I can cost us BIG.

So my goal is to help you guys go into the conference season and onto the interwebs better informed.

Without further ado, beware of…

Outright Predators

Some “experts” frankly, are not. I hate saying this, but it is the truth.The digital age of publishing reminds me of the Gold Rush of the 1800s. There were plenty of folks who popped up on the scene to take advantage of an immigrant with a dream. They sold plots of land they knew had no gold. They sold maps and tools, and services knowing all along that the “miner” had about as much chance of hitting gold as flying to the moon.

We need to be vigilant in this new age because these people do exist, though these folks tend to pop up on-line (not at a conference). They are happy to sell some new fad or gimmick or plan and in truth? It’s snake oil. Thus if you see a shortcut that seems too good to be true? Likely is.

Feel free to run it by me if you are unsure, but I have been doing this social media thing since MySpace was big and I’ve never seen a gimmick that lasted long. Often there will be some trick, a few writers make a LOT of money, the “expert” then picks up this trick and sells it and the fact he/she can cite real success stories adds validity to what is being sold.

But here’s the deal. If this “trick” is being packaged? Odds are it is obsolete already. Someone is trying to make a buck off a ship that already sailed.

And don’t get me wrong, gimmicks do work. They just don’t work long term. If there is some magic way of doing algorithms so we sell a gazillion books on-line? By the time we buy the step-by-step plan then apply it? Amazon, Facebook, or Google’s IT people likely have already corrected the glitch that gave the mass advantage.

The big guys don’t like loopholes or shortcuts they aren’t charging us for.

Remember that