Drowning in the Seas of Knowledge: Social Media World-building

This has been my week to make a stab at getting my act together on-line.  The end of the year is approaching fast, I’d hate to miss out on my resolutions.  So now my blog has widgets, my Facebook page actually exists, and I still need to figure out why Goodreads isn’t showing up properly (or maybe this is just me, ’cause my computer is antique).

I’ve also been looking behind the scenes.  I’ve noted that I feel like a noob in the social media realm.  Now I have all of these dashboards and statistics to scrutinize, not to mention new systems to learn and integrate into my already busy schedule.  But the process is not unlike world-building for a book.

I start out with some basic knowledge, maybe an idea I want to play with.  So I started with a bunch of general knowledge about England during the Medieval period, and was able to generate characters, plot, twists and settings for a whole book that way.  As needed, I researched specific areas where I needed to know more, to refine what I had written, to understand the material better and make the character stronger.  So far, so good.  Now, the series is expanding into areas where my basic knowledge is pretty slim.  Less stuff to bounce around, collide and transform into concrete scenes that will carry the book forward.

Social media is the same thing.  There’s a surface level at which I know enough to get along.  I can tweet, post on Facebook, write up a Goodreads review and even send it over here without much trouble.  But in order to use this stuff better, I need to know more.  I need to understand the dashboards and widgets, just the way I need to understand the politics of Medieval Rome if I’m going to write about it effectively.

I find Guelphs and Ghibellines, widgets and dashboards equally arcane and suddenly essential.  And in both cases, I have the same problem:  I have no patience with my own ignorance.  I want to already know exactly what I need so I can just leap right in.  Doesn’t work.  My brain is not plug-and-play, no matter how hard I try.

Any advice on how to shorten one’s learning curve?  Or perhaps, to learn to accept it?  In the meantime, I shall endeavor to keep my head above water.