What I’ve Learned From My Social Media Presence

Photo credit: magicatwork on Flickr

As many of you know, I do social media a lot. Every day, in fact. And I do quite a bit of it and have been doing so for several years now.

Over time, I’ve learned some things. And so I thought I’d share these lessons with you.

1. YouTube isn’t as scary as I thought. When I posted my very first vlog, I was terrified. I’d been camera-shy for years—and in fact, when I first started social media-ing, I couldn’t post a picture of myself even on my super-protected personal FB page because it freaked me out so much. It took a long time to get a handle on my anxiety, then finally build up to being okay with sharing pictures online, and then finally posting that vlog.
   
   And now? Now I love vlogging. It’s been so fun, and I’ve gotten comfortable in front of the camera (as long as I’m in an isolated room with no one watching, that is), and I’ve gotten a lot of really awesome feedback. There have been a few isolated bleh comments here and there, but the delete button is a very nice thing. And I haven’t had to use it often. So yay. 


2. There are way more books out there than I can ever hope to read. Goodreads and Twitter are like the best worst thing to ever happen to my TBR list. I currently have 337 books on my TBR shelf and the more I read, the more the list grows. It’s a good problem to have, though, and I’m certainly not complaining. (Though if Hermione could lend me her time-turner, I might be able to make a dent in that list…)


3. People are generally nice. By and large, I’ve found, people are nice. There are definitely some jerks, creeps, and gross people out there, but the vast majority of people I’ve interacted with online have been genuinely wonderful. And interacting with those lovely people makes putting up with the occasional blah person more than worth it. 


4. Being yourself is the best policy. While I mostly talk about writing and books online, I’ve been known randomly nerd out about X-Men, or whatever TV show I’m currently hooked on, or some random movie I just saw and loved. I’ll squee about Korrasami and jump up and down about the Deadpool movie and drool over Edward Kenway and Ezio Auditore then go back to talking about writing. And you know? It’s really fun seeing just how many people following me are also secret nerds who I share fandoms with.
   
   The way I see it, it’s too exhausting to try to be someone you’re not online. And why bother, when plenty of people will love you for you better? 


5. It can be time consuming and overwhelming. I am all over the internet. Just about every major social media site (except Google +) I use at least semi-regularly. And unsurprisingly, it takes up a hell of a lot of time. Sometimes, when I’m overwhelmed with work, I have to take a step back and ignore the smaller social media sites and cut down on the amount of time I spend on even my favorite sites. Sometimes I only log onto Twitter and make sure my blog is updated and leave it at that. Eventually, I will probably need to take a break entirely, but the point is every site is a commitment, and those commitments can add up quickly. I really do enjoy the stuff I do online, but sometimes I have to remind myself that taking care of me and making sure I work on deadline material is more important. 

What have you learned from being online? 

Twitter-sized bite: 

.@Ava_Jae shares five lessons she's learned from being online. What would you add to the list? (Click to tweet)