I Have Not Been Assimilated

I haven't joined the Borg.  I have not been assimilated.  Heck, I'm not even a Star Trek fan - though I live with three (3) men who are.  That's why I know about the Borg. Their bloody phrase seeps into dialogue at the Casa de Graham.   I know the phrase.  I know the meaning, but it doesn't fit.  I have NOT been assimilated.  What I've been is the victim of a marketing plan crafted by Mr. Quack, my resident diabolical genius.    

Quacking Alone Romances has had a Facebook page for a few weeks.  It existed and I left it alone.  I operated under the theory that if it didn't bother me and I didn't bother it then we'd both be okay.  Then I started trying to keep this blog refreshed with daily new content - which I thought would be a good thing - by going in each morning and posting a thought for the day.  

Mr. Quack sat me down and told me that I was getting it wrong.  I didn't want to update the blog content everyday, I wanted to put the new stuff on the Facebook page.  He said short thoughts don't belong on the blog, to put that stuff on Facebook.  So, I moved the thought for the day over to the QA Facebook page.  And, I've been trying to keep the page updated with new content by going in and posting my thoughts about books, TV shows, the universe and everything. 

Then Mr. Quack sat me down and said I'd gotten it wrong again.  He said that the Facebook page for QA Romances should stay static and only get updated by blog posts.  He said I needed to work on the Facebook page he'd started for me by reaching out to "friend" folks in my network of family and friends and by posting my thoughts there.  He says that social marketing is a necessary evil. 

Well, I've gone out to FB and put in some of my favorites there and I've started reaching out to "friend" old friends, college and law school buddies and family members. It'll be nice to have a way to stay in touch with them, I suppose.  But I wonder if my youngest son isn't right about Facebook.  Sam says that the number of friends you have on FB isn't about friendship or connecting.  He says it's just a modern day status symbol. 

Mr. Quack says that the way to build "likes" for Quacking Alone Romances is for me to get people from my personal FB page to go to the QA company page and click the little "like" button.  I'm not really sure what purpose that serves unless there's enough on the page to keep people interested and to get them to click over and buy my books.  There's a direct page and way to do that here but on FB there doesn't seem to be a real book pages area or a real way to get people to buy the books.  On the blog, people come to read the posts and then sometimes click over. 

The blog posts on FB don't even look like blog posts.  The notes don't get posted as real notes.  Everything seems to be a chopped off summary that doesn't contain enough to get people interested.  And I'm not just talking about the QA page.  Every "company" page I've been to looks like that.  For example, I love the Smart Bitches blog.  But if you go to their FB page (which I did, I went and clicked the little like button), then it looks pretty static.  I tried to help them by posting a thought on their wall.  As popular as that blog is, the wall didn't have too many thoughts posted. 

I still don't get why fresh stuff on a blog is a bad thing.  I click into lots of blogs every day to see what's new.  But, assuming I've been wrong about that, I still don't see how thoughts for the day or brief opinion commentary from me belongs on my personal FB page.  Maybe I need to get Mr. Quack to put a button on this blog that people can press to just friend me on Facebook.  But if they couldn't see the new content/thoughts, etc. and know there was a reason to friend me on FB, then I'm not sure I undertand the point. 

Mr. Quack talks about Twitter.  But I believe he wants me to get Twitter so I leave him the hell alone.  Even if I had Twitter, I wouldn't leave him alone.  The little "my boss is a fiend" emails or the little "if client x calls me one more time I'm going after him with a machete" emails go to spouses.  It's part of the greater marital experience.  I suppose I could try Twitter if it's like a QA Twitter page that is just a brief version of the blog.  Is it enough fresh content on Twitter to have just a Thought for the Day?  Some days I'll post a brief opinion about a reader controversy or an opinion on a TV show, but it seems to me Twitter is more of a place to go to have a conversation. 

I don't want to have a conversation, I just want to post occasional fresh content.  It still seems to me that the brief comments and thoughts for the day posted on the blog would feed over to the QA page to keep it fresh.  They're short enough that people checking the page get most of the comments/and all of the thoughts without having to click into anything.  Maybe there could be a feed to my personal FB page.  That would be efficient.  The new, fresh content would go to everything at one time. 

As Mr. Quack edits this, I hear him gnashing his teeth in frustration.  He thinks that I don't understand social networks and social marketing.  (He's right, but don't tell him I said so.  He's right too often already. It goes to his head, don't cha know.)  It still seems to me that fresh comments/commentary/thoughts for the day belong first on the blog and then they could feed over to the QA page and my FB page. 

Because bottom line is - I don't get it.   I thought that the social sites would be a mirror for the blog.  I thought that keeping the blog fresh would refresh the other stuff sort of automatically.  Frankly, I don't have that many fresh thoughts to put one thing on the blog, another on the QA page and another on my personal page.  It's everything I can do to have enough thoughts to get through a day at my office.  If I were home all day, then maybe I could have enough fresh thoughts. 

All of it seems like a big distraction from writing and I haven't been doing enough of that to keep fresh material out there.  But it's all supposed to help sales, and that's what I'd like to do.  Because if all the other stuff doesn't start kicking up the sales numbers, then there is no point in it.  I guess, I'm just really not that much of a social creature. 

What I've been doing is putting thoughts and stuff on my personal page or my QA page and then copying them over manually from one to the other.  None of that gets fresh stuff on the blog though and it seems to me that the blog is the best marketing tool. 

As you see, I don't get it.  Not getting it means that I haven't been assimilated, which is - to me - a good thing.  If any of y'all have any thoughts, I'd like to hear them.  Where do fresh, short, thoughts for the day/opinions/commentary belong?  I'm trying to communicate those things to my readers.  What's the best way to do that? 

If anyone out there can explain the whole social marketing universe to me, I'm sure that Mr. Quack would appreciate the help.  He thinks I'm just terminally stupid, and maybe that's the problem at the core of it all.  I like blogs.  I understand blogs. I get blogs.  The other stuff, not so much.

If you've been assimilated and it's working for you, please give me a shout out.  I'd love to hear your success stories.