Social media - some tips about its use

 In addition to Email, the variety of social media that I use for reaching my writings to potential readers include WhatsApp, Blog, and Facebook. I am not into Twitter, Instagram, or Linked In which is considered ideal for people who are looking for business connections. I have learned a few lessons which I will share with you.

 The other day I got a well-written article on an interesting topic sent to me by a friend. Since it was not a forward I assumed that he had written the article. I congratulated him on an excellent piece of writing and suggested that he should continue to write and share with friends. Prompt came his response that he had forwarded the article as received and did not bother to check if it had the name of the writer. This is the reason why I always add my name below the title of all my articles to make it clear that it is an original article written by me and not a forward.

 Every article I write is posted on my blog, on my Facebook page, and later shared with pre-identified groups of friends through email and WhatsApp. I have found that my Blog is an archive of all the articles I have written so far, accessible to me, anytime, anywhere. It is also seen and read by many active bloggers whom I don`t know. On average, I post about two articles every month. I find that my blog over the last 12 years has more than 1,20,000 page views. I recommend that every writer must have a blog in which they post all their creative writings.

 Facebook has helped me connect with many long-lost friends who are active on FB. Besides, If I tag the post with selected friends on FB, I find that they can share the same with their friends if they find the article interesting. This helps in getting my articles exposed to more readers. While seeing the number of `likes` that I get is encouraging, I also know that some friends press the `like` button even without reading the post. It is the number of comments that I get that makes me more happy.

 I don`t use bulk mail service as I prefer to send articles to select groups depending on the subject of the article. This is a painful process as Gmail allows me to forward only 30 addresses at a time and not more than 500 per day. It used to take me a long time to complete the process. From a mailing list of 1500 email IDs, I have reduced it to 700 by deleting the names of those who did not respond to my mail asking them to confirm their interest in receiving my emails. I find the popularity of email is going down judging by the decreasing no of responses I get for my articles sent through mail.

 I find that most people have switched over to WhatsApp for instant communication. I also find that it allows me to target individuals as well as groups within minutes. Since I am constantly looking at messages on WhatsApp I can see the responses also immediately.

 For any creative person feedback from his fans is what keeps him/her going as an artist. My readers` responses to my articles, on different social media that I use, are what keeps me going as a writer post-retirement. So friends, if you find my articles interesting please communicate your comments to me (both bouquets and brickbats are welcome) and also share it with your friends who may be interested in the subject of the articles.