Let’s start with a few delicious facts:
As of February 2011, there were 156 million public blogs on the internet (Source: Wikipedia). Let’s assume for argument’s sake that 1% of those are craft blogs. That gives you 1.6 million craft blogs to choose from. Bless your little heart for choosing this one! ♥
That said…. do you sometimes find the Internet, with all its trappings, sucking you in? I certainly do. Especially lately. The social media stuff in particular is super-enticing. It sometimes seriously piques my interest, and I find it calling to me, beckoning from the Great Ether: “Come join us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, YouTube, LinkedIn, Ravelry, Flickr, Craftster… aftster… aftster… aftster… “. So many to choose from, all so very interesting, with so many possibilities, and so many users!
I maintain this blog pretty religiously, but I also have a Flickr account which I use only rarely these days, a StumbleUpon account with which I discover the awesomest stuff but do not utilize as a social media tool, and Ravelry ‘n Craftster accounts which I may have visited twice each, if that. I do not do any of the biggies including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn. Sometimes, I think about joining them but I’ve only given serious thought to “tweeting”, as the cool kids say.
Today however, I’ve decided to take a risk. And that is to maintain the status quo. Yes. I’m going to stick with the only social medium that really matters to me. This here lil ol’ blog. “That’s the opposite of a risk, Michele,” you might say. But I beg to differ. It is a risk because it means reaching a far smaller audience. It means not having my finger “on the pulse”. It means potentially being left behind. And likely not being one of the cool kids. But I’m okay with that for now. I want and need to focus on my work. I’m determined to put the blinders on and let that feeling pass over me. You know that feeling? The one that urges you to fit in everywhere, and be everywhere, and be known by everyone, and be kept abreast of everything. For today I’m going to let that feeling wash over me and vanish in the waves. Because honestly, I could not keep up even if I tried. I am human. I am one little person with two little eyes, ears, and hands. I value my time. It is precious to me. But also, I’m finding that sleep is pretty much essential.
I’m under no illusions. I know Facebook et al are here to stay. And you never know, one day I may decide to sign up. In the meantime, I wish you the very best navigating your way through, in and around these media of socialization. Do let me know if anything good happens.
I’ll be right here. Doing my thing.
Have a fantastic day!
This made me smile as I have often had the same thoughts. 🙂 I do dabble with a couple of the others that you listed too, but like you, enjoy the blog world. It gets far too easily overwhelming and time consuming, so I think it wise to pick and stick with what one loves best! Simplicity can be one of the richest things in my opinion! Oh and if you start feeling left behind…just look back and I should be there somewhere too! 😉 Happy Day!
I love this post! I feel exactly the same way. I have resisted too but sometimes feel like I am missing out. I have facebook but only because my daughter wanted me to. I rarely go on it, only when some one sends me somthing. My blog is enough and gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction and for now that is enough! Thanks for putting it our there!
very well..i totally agree with you,its a tough thing to manage all social circles while you are running a blog, I am having some circles now but i am avoiding these in the start..hehe..kinda hectic..what to do & what to not..?honestly i cant manage all daily.although its interesting but time taking job 🙂
well a big clapping hand for those who are running their blogs & social circles smartly..i dont know how people get lots of time for this fun 🙂
best wishes!!!
Here you are Karey. Here's the post and I've attached your comment to mine below!
Karey said:
i was looking to comment on the "anti social media" post, but it is nowhere to be found!
anyway, it was a breath of fresh air to read that you are choosing not to join all the social sites. surely, i too do not need to be in the middle of the happenings, that's never really been a comfortable spot for me anyway.
kudos to you, i feel i share your train of thought on this one.
love the garden, too. if i had a good plot of land, i'd follow in your example!
michele, love reading this post about anti social media! I got sucked into blogging and loving it. you can see i don't update mine very often, but enjoy reading yours and some other craft blogs. i'm on facebook and love posting snippets of what i do that insignificant for blogging. i'm glad to say i found few of my long lost friends from around the world through facebook. so not all is lost on facebook! join in when you are ready – hugx nat
Ditto!!
Thank you for the thoughtful post. I feel much the same way. I do use pinterest…but mostly to store my bookmarks and ideas in the cloud rather than my hard drive. I do have a facebook account, but rarely use it. I created a page for my blog, and forgot about it until someone found it and "liked" it. I am utilizing it sparingly!
new to your blog, but I loved this post and am going to link to it on my blog http://www.cultivate-life.blogspot.com
i too am at the not cool kids table. I just know how sucked in I would get with the facebook thing. blogs, to me, seem to have the potential for so much expression. i want to invest my time in the things that really matter to me, not just what everyone else is doing. i may join when my little kids are at the age to join, but then who knows what media will be out there then.
Honestly I am much the same!
Besides my blog, I maintain my Flickr account, my Etsy shop and Pinterest.And I think that is enough. I have accounts on several other sites but I don't/ rarely use them. I have no attraction to Facebook and find it quite unattractive although in order to get more traffic and exposure (mostly) for my shop, I've been advised to be more aggressive there and somewhere else, but somehow I like the old-fashioned way better. And yes, they can be time consuming to a great deal! And I don't think it's a matter of prestige if I brag that I have that and that many likes/ friends/ followers on certain sites, because my priorities are different. And as it always is: You can join them or stay aside.
Brava! I'm very much in sync with this post, Michele. Thee Web is endless and if I don't say NO to most of it, when would I live? I am trying to keep my circle small for my own sanity. For example, I used to join every linky party in the world – but it became way too much, and it felt wrong to post without visiting a bunch of links and commenting – I wanted to acknowledge everyone. So now I join just a few parties each week, comment as much as I have time for, and shut my eyes to the rest of the 20 zillion parties out there.
I Tweet, but rarely and softly – a small chickadee in that gigantic tree. (My dear friend Jane kinda lives there, so I joined mainly to keep up with her Tweety silliness. She has – wait for it – 36,000 followers. Can you imagine?) I Etsy because curating my shop is fun for me! I blog because it satisfies my soul to make tutorials. Oh, and I started a Pinterest board recently – not for the social media thing, but for myself, because it's such a pretty, visual way to keep track of all the projects I wanted to bookmark: I get a picture of every bookmark, instead of a boring line of text.
So stick a fork in me, I think I'm done!
You have the right idea, Michele, there's only so much time. I don't think we're missing out on anything important. If we are, Jane will probably Tweet it and I'll let you know.
I totally support this decision, Michele -honestly, social media is a time suck, even when it's fun. I think we all grow weary of the endless impetus to "keep up" on everything that's going on online. I wish every crafter would do what you've done here. If we focused more deeply on a few areas, I suspect we'd all find that we gain more benefits in the end than we can by running frantically between too many online profiles.
Love this post and agree totally. All the different sites out there are overwhelming. And, there are forums constantly popping up for every possible interest. And, I have a LOT of interests! It's a constant battle to refrain from surfing the day away. 🙂 I do check out a select few, but like you choose to keep it at a minimum, or I'd be "sucked in" never to return. When maintaining a blog, every follower is a true honor. There are just so many others to choose from.
So, I've kinda tried to set a routine for my days to keep things in check. I spend my morning reading though what friends I follow have posted, occasionally commenting. Then, I'm doing chores til I can get lost in my own world tinkering with crafts for as long as the family lets me. 🙂 (Sometimes they even help me. Yay!) Then, in the evenings just before bed, I check out FB and new sites I've come across or watch an occasional Youtube video with my sweetie when he comes home until the yawns take over and we trudge off to bed.
As scatterbrained and undisciplined as I am, I'm terribly sporadic with my blog posting, too, only posting when I have a project I'm excited about. I have to give credit to those who maintain theirs on a religious schedule. I'll never be able to achieve that.
Kudos to you and your blog! Best wishes on being a "risk" taker. 🙂
Mieljolie
I hear you Michele. I have my blog and Flickr but nothing else. I flat out refuse Facebook. Enough is enough!
I applaud you for this post!
I’m feeling pretty much the same! I can hardly keep up with my blog and flickr and have no interest in the other social media. I often feel like the inpopular child in the class, but for someone who learned to write with ink and a pen, I already has to learn so much digital stuff to function in this world. My garphic design profession went from working behind a drawing table to sitting behind the computer.
Amen!
I don't have a blog, but I do so enjoy reading them, the lovely crafty ones, so thank you, Michele, and all wonderful crafters for sharing so much of your lives and your creations.
I've never visited Facebook, I have signed up with Twitter but only tweeted once.
It may be a cliche, but life is short, so we have to find the balance that suits us.
Carol xx
with over 1000 followers I think you have your own little facebook thing going on anyway, well done you for resisting.
xxx
I totally hear you Michelle! You do what is best for you and forget the rest. I'm on Twitter a lot myself but it does suck up more time than I suspect. I have learned to cut back a lot—it's always such a balancing act.
Dear Michelle, I soooo get what you mean! I resisted for a while to join fbook and decided to create my blog instead. But friends kept insisting and recently I gave in for their sake. But honestly: blogging rocks, fbook not so much. In our blogs we can share joy, "miscrafts", brilliant (surprising) ideas, etc… It is more or less like inviting our friends/followers to our craft room over a cup of tea/coffee to a before/after session 🙂 Long live the blogosphere!
Yes I'm agreeing with you and everybody else commenting here. although I have joined both facebook and twitter I enjoy blogging much more than anything else. I just don't have the time to keep up to date with all the social media out there. I think you are doing the right thing and choosing the media voice that's right for you.
Diane just sent me a link to you post. I LOVE YOU!
Monica, I'm liking the sound of the "not-cool" kids table. Sounds like a hoot-n-a-half!
Diane. Yes! Thanks for picking up what I was puttin' down. We all do what we can. Some can handle more, others less. Obviously I'm in the "less" part of the equation, a fact I'm trying to embrace rather than fight! Thanks for "getting me".
Carol: Balance. Yes. So tricky, that!
Mar: Thank you! We are in agreement that blogging rocks for sure. What makes the difference (IMO) is the time spent doing what we love. That's the magical combination TIME + LOVE.
Pam (aka Sister DG's mom)??? Is that you? Oh my goodness, what an honour and a pleasure! The love runs in 2 directions! Thank you for your sweet comment!
I don't blog just spend way too much time reading and enjoying everyone's blogs. I really need to get to sewing!
I like your blog even more, for just being a blog. All these bloggers desperately looking for audience, it looks so sad. It is about content, not about visibility. And your blog is perfect, just like it is now.
I don't blame you. I really don't get Twitter and only use it when entering giveaways. I'm dumping FB for Google + because I can direct my comments to individual groups like family OR friends, not both or everyone and it's linked to Picassa for photos without a fee. Flickr? A PITA to link to photos from your blog.
Michele, I think you must prioritize your life so you can spend time with your family (who must come first) then to your crafting. You enjoy recycling and showing how you do that best in your blog, so it appears that is best for you. too much time on computers just takes away from life.
Life is short – spend it in ways you enjoy. I think you are doing what is right for you, at this point in your life. Go for it. It appears with all the comments so far, that many are with you. We enjoy your blog and what you share with us.
We are in the same boat, Michele. I joined Pinterest, but no Facebook, no Twitter. I have no desire. I'm happy to be where I am 🙂
Good for you!!
Gorgeous photos btw…
Blogging is what I love too. I do have personal and also a business facebook account but I have trouble remembering to do anything on them. I only got into facebook so that I could see the pictures my sister who lives far away puts up.
To me blogging has so much more depth to it than all the others that I have seen. Anyway I like it! Once and a while I too think that maybe I am being "left behind" by not being on twitter or not having a facebook account for my blog but I also have decided not to worry about it and just do what I actually enjoy.
Thank you for this article! And thank you, Diane G., for pointing me to it! I love the post and all of the comments. I feel so inspired now, because I've been in such a quandary over what to do.
I, too, just LOVE making my art and blogging–that's where my joy is. Then I heard that I NEEDED to be doing FB and Twitter, so I did them, but my version was "drop and dash." I'd tell what I'd done on my blog, then run for the hills! Then I read that that wasn't good enough. I needed to be a good friend on FB and Twitter if I wanted to see any results. But being a good friend meant that I wasn't being a very good friend to myself (too busy to create my art or blog about it), and my husband said he felt like a social networking widower! 🙁
So I thought I was all alone out there, secretly somewhat OK with being at the "not-cool" kids table, only to find lovely like-minded souls DO exist. Thank you.
It's now time for me to take a step (or a few steps) back from some of those activities, but I'm not sure how to do it. I've been trying to go back to the "drop and dash," method, but I may have to go cold turkey! 😀
Jennifer
Hi that is very nice and popular article I thought a lot of Socialkik networking and how writers can best use it. One of my thoughts in recent times has been around for images to use on Facebook and Twitter.