Right about now I imagine you’re getting overwhelmed at all I’m throwing at you. But think of it this way: if someone handed you a triple-decker sandwich stuffed with layers of lettuce, mayo, turkey, tomatoes, and whatever else you might eat, would you stuff it all in your mouth at once?
If you were my younger brother you might, but let’s not go there. You’d probably take a small bite and try not to choke on eating the whole thing at one time, right?
Social media is the same way. If you’re freaking out over the overwhelming choices there are to being online, let’s just take a small bite and cover some basics, shall we?
If you ask me, (and by reading this you sort of are), I think you need to have some involvement in at least the following:
1. I almost shouldn’t even list this, as it should be a given. You must have your own web site.
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. A blog that is hopefully integrated into your site
That’s the minimum. You could, after you get the hang of it, start a Tumblr account (I’m just beginning that myself), get involved in GoodReads (I do not favor that site just because it can veer to the snarky side), start a YouTube channel (videos are great for SEO – Search Engine Optimization), a Teachertube account … the list could go on forever.
But stick to the four I list above to start. Since Twitter is the one that seems to confound people the most, tomorrow we will have a Twitter primer.
Beginner track homework (due tomorrow!): buy your domain name! How do you do this? There are many places to buy a domain name. I’ve heard Bluehost is good. Personally, I have used godaddy.com for many, many years because they have 24/7 phone help, and it’s easy to get someone on the other end. I recommend them, but you can absolutely go elsewhere. If you click this affiliate link, you’ll get 10% off your order.
And while you’re there, buy the domain for every title you have, and then later, you’ll forward those to your name domain – for example, I used to blog on blogger.com and instead of having to use the cumbersome URL they assigned, I bought katiedavisblog.com and forwarded that to the cumbersome URL. Once I launched this new site and my blog was incorporated within it, I forwarded katiedavisblog.com to this URL, katiedavis.com.