Day Fifteen - the end

Day Fifteen

My biggest takeaway has been reconnecting with people from previous challenges and connecting with others for the first time. I admire the generosity of those who, despite busy lives, take the time to read and comment on the blogs of others and even after all these years of blogging, I get a buzz when someone visits and leaves a comment. I like the way this challenge – well – challenged me to look beyond the edge of the platform I had become used to – thank you Laura – to dangle one foot in the air and take a leap of faith. I came a cropper a couple of times but learnt from the process, got back on my  platform and tried again. Another takeaway has been winning a book by Doug Turnbull, Footprints in Red, which I will be reading soon and writing a review once I have finished.

My plan for integrating my social media platforms is to set aside time to fully examine the functions and potential of the ones I currently utilise, to discard those of little value and maximise those I intend to keep to make sure they are working for me.

I run workshops on building platform and the advice I give to new authors starting out is to start the building process in the most manageable way – beginning with Facebook because, let’s face it, who isn’t on there these days? Even those who claim to hate it will have a peep at least. I suggest Facebook to begin with because of the ease of use, the number of friends and acquaintances most people have who are already listed to form the nucleus of a friend list, the billion plus regular users to choose from to send a friend invitation to and the multitude of features Facebook offers.

I suggest beginning a blog at the same time, planning in advance what they intend to use the blog for and look at ways to plan around content. The third platform I suggest is Twitter, to get them in the groove of short messaging and to link the three accounts.