How Much Social Networking is Enough?

Be Here Now Looking at Life from 10,000 Miles

How Much Social Networking is Enough?

I have to admit, this post is aimed at other writers, artists, or anyone who needs to establish a presence on the web in order to sell something. However, you never know when you'll need an extra 10,000 Twitter followers, so feel free to chime in.

It seems like every other day I hear people saying, you've got to be on twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Google+, have a website, write a blog, etc., etc., etc.… as the King of Siam would say. And there are all the groups associated with whatever your specialty is. In my case, writer's websites, forums, and discussions I should join, blogs I should follow, and blogs I should blog on.

I recently created a Google+ page and invited a fellow writer to join one of my"circles," as Google calls them. This talented woman is on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, keeps up a website and blogs. She is multitalented and has worked hard to create a presence for herself on the web. Anyway, she received my Google+ invite and immediately wrote back wondering if I had a compelling reason for her to set up an account. As she stated, "It's time-consuming for me to do Facebook & Twitter & blog etc. etc. So I thought I'd ask why you like this Circles thing & why you think I should join."

Honestly, I wasn't sure how to respond. The truth, it's a big wild web out there and I'm still learning out to negotiate it. Below are few thoughts and a few questions I thought I'd throw out for your personal pondering. I'd love to hear your thoughts in return. Here goes…

Like any effort, I accept that starting out, while building my presence, the time and effort will be greater.
Should I focus on building two or three really good followings–or do I need more?
Is there a manual out there that can tell me step by step what I need to do to be successful?
Finally, how much time should I expect to devote to keeping up this social presence as the years go by?

Of course there are so many other elements that go into this question; such as, what type of return am I looking for: a New York Times bestseller status or something more modest? Let's keep it simple. What should one person/one artist be doing to develop a reasonably successful web presence? What are your thoughts? Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by it all. Are you?