Are you a lurker, or do you just feel like one?
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. You post on Social Media sites, but no one responds to your posts. Are you doing something wrong? Quite possibly!
The key to getting noticed is to respond to others posts. Eventually, they will discover your presence. But keep it friendly, please. The Internet has enough trolls and ogres already.
Another successful strategy would be to shop around. You may be on the wrong site for your talents or interests. Every site has its positives and negatives. Every site has it resident communities.
I haunt three four sites with differing degrees of regularity. In addition to my blog, hosted by the wonderful people at WordPress, I am a registered user of Twitter, Facebook, and Ghosttown, err… Google+.
I use Twitter for quick conversations and to occasionally tell people of a new post here. I liked spending time there because the 140 character limit hid the fact that I didn’t have a lot to say. It was cozy for someone who was socially shy.
I joined Facebook to touch base with family. I buzz the site at least once a day, but I rarely comment or post there. But if you are into mini games, it’s a great place to hang. I couldn’t be bothered with them and find the game notifications greatly annoying.
And then there’s Google+.
Google+ is the best of both Facebook and Twitter, and much, much more. You can post short or long thoughts, with or without graphic accompaniment. The graphics can be static (photographs or drawings) or dynamic (videos or gifs). You can link easily to outside sources (my blog) or just re-share someone’s post.
Best of all, you can remove all evidence of “wrong post”, misspelled words, autocorrect errors, bad moods, poorly written sentences, etc. And not just in your own post, but in any of your replies as well. And then there is “tagging in” – the process of mentioning someone in a post reply so they can join the conversation. You can tag in on Twitter, but not without risking the integrity of the original tweet; and it can be quite a lot of work to find complete thread. On Google+, the conversation remains intact and all in one place with the original post.
It’s the best place to be invisible. You’ll feel right at home with all the other ghosts.
An Off-Kilter Mind 