Just as I’m trying to get over my anti-social stance on social media and embrace sharing my life with total strangers in the name of fame, along comes Emily McFarlan Miller. Ms. Miller has been a social media editor whose job was to get more followers on such sites as Twitter and Facebook. That’s exactly what my team and I are planning for 2016.
I’m also studying how to establish my own publishing company – Virginia and Leonard Woolf did it – and bypass agents and the Big Five publishers. To do this I need to address my deep-seated aversion to social media, because that is where I’ll find people who might buy my work.
Ms. Miller was interviewed in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune Magazine by Bill Daley and made some salient points. Among them are:
- Just listen. That is, before you respond to a post, make sure you have studied all the points of view. In this day and age of instant reply, that’s a good idea.
- Retreat on occasion. Which means to take a break from social media in a way that works for you.
- Control what you share of yourself. I love this; it gives me permission to filter what I put on the Internet.
Miller’s comments made me feel better. I don’t have to behave the same way that I see others behave on the Internet; in fact, all I have to do is be me. And this was her last point: Be authentic.
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