Why Jessica F Loves Instagram and Other Thoughts on Social Media
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Jun 18 2015
I’ve been known to tell writers that they don’t have to involve themselves in social networking if they don’t want to. It’s a statement that makes agents cringe, editors blanche and writers cheer.
I’ve always been fairly active on Twitter. I Tweet in fits and starts as the mood takes me and Beth does a terrific job managing the BookEnds Facebook page. Recently though BookEnds has signed up on Instagram and I’m absolutely loving it. I love taking pictures and I think it might be the perfect place for someone who wants to be involved in social media, but doesn’t want to do a whole ton of work. In other words, with Instagram you can post and go if you want.
As Jessica A said, it was a great time to launch our Instagram account. We had BEA and I traveled to California for a conference. I saw a lot of terrific Instragramable things and I posted them, all the other BookEnds agents have done the same. Instagram is fun for me. It allows me to explore another venue of creativity and its quick. A great photo and a few tags can be done in about five minutes. A lot quicker than a blog post.
I don’t think any body or any author needs to have their hand in every bit of social media. There’s just too much. If anything, find the one that best feeds your soul. What do you need as well as what can you give? Instagram gives me a fun break from words and allows me to paint pretty pictures in a different way.
–jhf
I agree. Instagram is my hands down favorite platform. So true that it's an opportunity to connect with my visual creativity, but it's also a way to connect with people around the world. It also gives me an excuse to get out in the beautiful state I live in — Maine, and IG gives me the excuse to go to many more sunrises and sunsets… quite addictive to post and get likes/comments.
pobud give thanks to the almighty , thanks
obat maag
Thanks so much for this post. As one of the cheering writers, I'd REALLY love to read the first link you posted ("I've been known to tell writers that they don't have to involve themselves in social networking if they don't want to.") but alas it's not working. Am I missing something? Desperate to read anything that tells writers they just might not have to endlessly and simultaneously tweet, facebook, blog, and use semaphore or smoke signals to promote themselves…
I opted out of social media pretty early on when it became obvious that it was an utterly ineffective tool for a writer to get read-the realtime reason being that nobody reads any of these posts except other hungry writers trying to get noticed! I maintain an online presence at the few agency sites with blogs that aren't billboards for their latest book sale or back-jungle ghost blogs that are updated once a year if they get around to it… What do I consider worth my online time? Hello Giggles (I'm a YA writer) and School Library Journal and of course, since I just wandered in-this one. So where's the espresso machine? -Kevin A. Lewis-
Instagram has been something that I've just not been able to really get into! Twitter honestly seems to work the best for me, although I prefer Facebook for personal use.