Food for social media thought on Kristen Lamb’s blog today. It’s easy to see a teeny icon and a name and overlook that there’s a person attached. As I read this, two pieces of advice sprang to mind: one from my favorite boss, who said you shouldn’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want your mother to read (or wouldn’t want to see posted on the front page of the New York Times, and the other paraphrased from Bob Vila: read twice, post once. I’m not perfect—heck, I even misspelled Kristen’s name in my comment, but I’m trying. Happy Tuesday!
Writers are NOT salespeople and marketers. We aren’t. If we were AWESOME at sales, we’d be in SALES. Sales pays way better than playing with our imaginary friends and hoping we create something others want to read. In fact—and I might be going out on a limb here—I would wager most of you are not thinking, “Well, I’m only doing this writing thing until I can land my dream job in sales.”
I work to be very forgiving when writers make social media faux pas because I get that you are trying to be responsible and that “sales” is unnatural for most of us. I’ve also dedicated years and a good quarter million words (most of them free) to educating writers the proper way of using social media.
I created WANA methods to let writers focus on what we are best at doing—writing. The WANA approach works. It’s been responsible…
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Laurie Boris 
Hmm, well. I’m one of those people who tries to keep her personal profile and her fan page separate, mainly to keep from alienating anybody with my occasional political rants. But I rarely turn down a friend request on the personal profile, unless I don’t know the requestor from Adam (or Eve). Maybe I should rethink that policy?
Guess that’s one of those “it depends” questions. Some social media people have suggested not letting the boundaries bleed, but for me, it gets to be so much work. I tend to keep my politics off the page. I don’t mind differences of opinion, but if anyone gets disrespectful, well, the “three strikes” rule works pretty well. Sometimes one.