Fear of a Mac Planet
An artist/instructor where I teach responded to my casual suggestion that faculty could communicate and resolve various routine issues among themselves by using a dedicated Facebook group with: "I'M NOT GOING ON FACEBOOK; I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR FACEBOOK!" So much for the social media revolution.
Perhaps she's one of the few who have realized the Romantic Dream: making enough sales at a sufficient price level to not need to worry about marketing her work. If so, she should tone down the vehemence of her reaction- it makes her sound like a raving technophobe.
The rest of us will be making time for social media, thank you. One thing about leaving your day job, you DO have more time, but money, not so much. So social media, which is mostly free, becomes pretty huge.
It is time consuming to do right, meaning: get a conversation going. Facebook and blogs require promotion. Twitter is reviled, even by Facebook and blogging afficianados, but if you devote regular time, it is easier to get its mostly younger, more savvy adherents talking, thus getting yourself into conversations you just can't enter in "real" life, such as at art openings. Or even on Facebook or the blogosphere. I suspect that some who put down Twitter and other social media are just not that comfortable with the idea of meeting new people online.
I've had some success devoting Monday mornings and Friday afternoons to my various media accounts, with random tweets and posts thrown in when I have time. I'm also experimenting with using the Light Rail more for commuting, thus converting that time to productivity through social media and blogging apps on my phone. I try to apply that to blogging, but writing is not a spontaneous activity for me, so it's easy to postpone. It's clear "I don't have time for blogging," but I would never admit that I'm not trying to make time. Social media is not going away, no matter how much it scares you.
