Previously Unexplored

I was at Smofcon this weekend in Toronto and had a fabulous time. Saturday I was on the ‘Song of the South Ate My Life’ with Colin Harris and one of the questions caught me completely by surprise.

The person, whose name I have completely forgotten (I’m not actually sure I ever knew it…) asked me if my work on Social Media for other conventions had negatively impacted my own personal levels of interaction with Social Media. Basically, do I still post on my own feeds anymore?

Well, clearly the answer when it comes to blogging is yes. I have so much less time to document my thoughts, or hell, even spend the time to fully form them because something is always going on with one of the conventions on social media that I need to be monitoring. Some people are surprised by the idea that it takes so much time to properly keep track of the various accounts I run. “But it’s just…Facebook! How hard could it be?”

The average person in the United States spend between thirty minutes to two hours a day online on Social Media sites. That’s for their personal stuff. Think about how much time it takes to stay up to date online and to post and read everything you do. Now multiply that by four. The way that I manage the social media accounts for the cons that I work on demands just as much work. Now, yes, I could manage them in different ways, but I think those other time saving management styles wouldn’t be as good for Worldcon, and since this is a rough time for conventions with social media, time and attention must be paid.

But I do feel the pinch, so to speak. Weekends I take off are especially sweet because I can monitor my own networks and not have to worry about others. Con weekends are especially sweet because I can ignore it completely and talk to people. I have officially declared that 2016 is the last year that I will be working on Social Media for conventions. Kansas City is near and dear to my heart, and it’s important to me that they get it right. So, if you have any desire to learn how to work on Social Media for Worldcon, please feel free to reach out. I’d love to teach you. Hell, if you want Social Media advice for any level of convention, I’d be more than willing to help you out. I’ve been doing this for coming up on three years now, and by the end of things, I’ll have five years of experience that I’d love to pass on. Maybe I’ll write a (very short) book about it.

More on Smofcon later, but I had a wonderful time. There were many great conversations and I met a ton of new people (young and old) that I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with.