More Social Networking

[Christine Duncan]

Okay, I have admitted before that I am not comfortable with social networking online--but I am learning. It is sometimes pretty artificial though. Here we all have a love of mystery in common, so I'm not really talking about Crimespace.
How do you respond when you are on Twitter, or Myspace (or insert your favorite social network) when people friend you? I love it when people write me a personal note back--but so many don't. And I have to admit to getting busy and not doing much that way myself.
Sometimes, it's as though there is some electronic scorecard out there--I have 9245 friends with whom I have never so much as exchanged a word--but hey how many do YOU have?
Do you announce that you are an author when someone friends you (hint, hint, read my books!) or do you, like me, figure they read your profile and more promo could be a bit much?

[I. J. Parker]

I don't do that stuff -- mostly for the reasons you mention. Theoretically, there is a benefit in having lots of people recognize your name -- but that only works if they're already interested in what you write.

[Dana King]

This is the only social networking site I belong to, because we all have at least one thing in common. Even here, when someone asks me to be a friend, I read their profile first. It can get to be a time sink, but at least here I'm learning something and getting to trade ideas with people who know what they're talking about.

[J.D. Rhoades]

I'll usually accept a friend request. I mean, why not?

[Christine Duncan]

Yes, I think accepting the friend request thing is the easy part though. Do you try to get to know people? Try to promote?

[J.D. Rhoades]

Once you get to know people, the promotion takes care of itself.

[Kim Smith]

I not only try to post something on their wall or whatever, I go through the alphabet of my myspace group and send nice notes every month.

[Christine Duncan]

Wow, Kim you are organized. But how do you find something to say? Or do you just tell them what you are doing with your book?

[Kim Smith]

Oh no, I just say hey how are you? Glad we are friends, hope you have a great day(weekend) etc. Just to you know, let them know I realize we are cyber buds and I take it a little seriously.

[Christine Duncan]

I like this! Great idea, Kim.

[Dorothy Thompson]

Wow, great question, Christine. I just had someone "friend" me tonight on Twitter so I'll be honest and tell you what I did. I went over and friended her back. And that was it. I have to admit I didn't know tonight what Twitter was all about, now I get it. I've been "twittering" but was still confused. Now I realized that anything I write in that box is going to show up on my "friends" Twitter place. Not sure if my "twitter" would end up in their email box or not, but that would be cool if it did, then I'd really start sending out some promo but in an indiscreet way (shh...don't tell anyone). I can't see blatantly promoting through any kind of medium, but hey, people do it. I see it as spam sometimes so if you're gonna do it, do it in an indiscreet way if possible.

[Christine Duncan]

My friends' tweets show up on my opening page when I go on the internet, because I use netvibes, an aggragator, that lets me see all the blogs I subscribe to, my favorite search on Craigslist, a link to this page (crimespace) and as I said, Twitter. I can tweet from there--so that's easy. But like you, mostly what I have been doing lately is just friending people who friend me. On twitter, I guess that is okay. You get to know each other from your tweets. And I do plug my blog there. But I just want to do more.