On Shameless Self-Promotion & Networking

Today has been a pretty boring day. But interesting nonetheless.

I've gotten up and left my house, for once, ha! I was invited to my mom's place for a hangout and stuff. I of course bring my laptop, knowing that I have some work to do and that I will likely have a better chance to work at my mom's house.

Ha. I should know better than that.

I spent my day -- from 10:30 this morning -- helping my mom and her business partner learn the ins and outs of social media and networking. It's now 4:15 p.m. as I'm writing this.

It's been a very long day. Not because I've been sitting at the computer, I'm used to this. What I'm not used to is teaching others how to use the computer in ways that I'm so used to doing already.

I've always been a little bit critical of myself as a teacher. I'm not very good at teaching to start, and I'm nowhere near as patient as I should be.

But I taught them how to use Twitter, how to get a Facebook for their business and how to host their website/blog thing. It was productive.

What's really difficult, however, is telling them HOW to promote them selves. HOW to make their Facebook work. and HOW to make their Twitter useful.

And that's not really something that you can teach, is it?

You need  to figure out the focus of what you want to present. You need to decide what it is that you want to get out of your social networking. For me, I want to promote my writing, promote my blog, and to talk with like-minded individuals as we all make our way into the world of being published as writers.

It's a scary journey, but when you figure out what you want to get from your social networking, it makes the journey that much more bearable, right?

And of course, it's really not something that you can teach. It's something that you have to figure out for yourself.