THE LONG STORY:
I’ve been playing with social media lately. After delving into “Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself“, I began musing upon the potential that I haven’t been taking advantage of with the various platforms.
I’ve been on Facebook forever, but that’s largely just a friendly thing with people I know, and I’ve just been using Pinterest as a dumping ground for cool concept art. They haven’t been at all tied together or anything, and there’s been no general strategy between them. Twitter, I’ve had an account with since early 2008, but I’ve rarely used it for more than the odd thought. Certainly never enough to develop any kind of following or reach. As for LinkedIn, it’s mostly up to date, though that’s a necessity in today’s employment world.
So, I started with Twitter. After having spent a couple months aggressively tweeting and retweeting educational articles, I’ve decided to be more active in creating my own content. “Eternalus Optimistius” is something I’ve had in mind for a while – inspired by a contest on the screenwriting website Talentville, I looked for and found the hamster stock photo, and… forgot about it completely. Well, not completely, but I left it to collect digital dust for the last year, until a couple days ago when I realized “Hey, it’s time to do the “Almost there hamster wheel screenwriter thingie” and see if you can’t get some attention with it”.
So, there you go, I’ve done the “almost there hamster wheel screenwriter thingie”. Finally. I’ve put it on the blog (twice now) and tweeted it. It’s been retweeted a bit and seen by more people than my average post. Enough to go viral? Probably not. Now I have to decide how much of a pain in the ass I want to be trying to get attention with it. Could it ever catch on organically? Maybe. Would a nudge help? Probably. Do I want to be the sad case trying to make something catch on? No, I don’t. (be cool if it did though)
So, yeah… social media. At the risk of sounding like an Amway salesman, there’s a world of opportunity out there (without getting into the boundless masses of salesmen on Twitter simply trying to sell to other Twitterers how to make money selling to other Twitterers on Twitter). Pretty sure that simply retweeting other people’s stuff isn’t the way to opening those doors – though it’s part of it. But really, it’s having something original and yours to work into the conversation that’ll really make you stand out.
So. I’m not a #guru. Not a #ninja. Not a #rockstar or a #maven. Just a graphic designer who writes screenplays who’s looking at the ways that social media can open up the possibilities. I know it can. I know it will.
You might say that I am eternalus optimistius.
(and yes, I’ve lifted the concept from Looney Toons. There’s nothing new under the sun)