Sharing my Facebook social media tips this #WeekendCoffeeShare

If we were having coffee….

Hey, nice of you to join us here. I haven’t been back to Moonwinks since the start of my first job here in Michigan. Back then, we weren’t into coffee, just sweet flavored coffee drinks, and the lattes didn’t impress us. Today, we wanted to go someplace new after my Saturday workshift, and this place is on the way home.

Do you like Zingerman’s coffee? I don’t, which makes me even more a pariah around here. Everybody near Ann Arbor and beyond loves everything about Zingerman’s. My husband and I, we don’t get the fascination. The coffee is all orange-floraly, the bread is a bit chewy and just there, the brownies are chocolately but a bit dry and the overall menu is entirely too expensive for what you get. The espresso blend here isn’t bad, kind of round and not tart at all, so my Americano was a good choice. I recommend that, unless you like summer-y coffees.

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It’s been a week for me: not good, not bad, just a lot of running around, not writing and lack of sleep. I was incredible productive at the start of the week. I’m excited to finally figure out a social media plan and to put that in my Happy Planner and actually use it all as intended. After Tuesday, however, it all fell through.

My goal is to maintain a regular schedule per my Round 3 ROW80 goal #4 which means a daily presence somewhere.

Why? It’s a bit selfish; I want people to know and love me and buy my future books, thus making me that world-famous author I am destined to be. It’s a bit selfless because I like being social, connecting with people and making friends. A part is the productivity, meaning if I’m writing something then I’m writing something. It’s good practice, be it a blogposts or a Tweet.

So I started my schedule with the media I dislike most: Facebook. I randomly posted on my Author Page that I was going to Book Expo America. My page got engagement noted by Facebook analytics or whatever, and I got 2-3 more Page Likes. That was encouraging. I posted something again and *poof!* more people. To paraphrase, “If you post it, they will come.”

I needed a regular schedule so that my fans or readers will know when to expect something from me. I’m a private person in public, so I don’t open Facebook or email on my laptop anytime I’m out in public. I’m out writing Mondays, Wednesdays and most Fridays, so Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only regular days I expect to be home to post. I scrolled through my phone calendar and noted that I had more doctor and household appointments, car repairs and business errands on Thursdays, so Tuesdays made sense. Turns out that’s a day I post my Tuesday Tree Update on Instagram, so I went with that.

Tuesdays are a good day in general. It’s the beginning of the week, but it’s not Monday. Never schedule meetings on Mondays. I learned that from my admin days. Mondays are when people catch up on work from the previous week, firefighting disasters that occurred over the weekend or they’re planning and catching up on the first day back after vacation. Mondays are volatile days. People relax on Tuesdays and can take guilt-free social media breaks. Tuesdays are a good day to post news from my weekend just passed or share news for the upcoming weekend, thus giving folks the opportunity to fit all my book signings, streaming interviews and personal appearances into their calendars. Tuesdays are a day I see my friends active on FB, so that’s a good way to start with a built-in audience. I also see them posting on Friday evenings, so I created my Fave Book Friday feature for that day. Two dedicated posting days, with an optional Sunday, is a doable schedule for me. I have finally controlled FB; it does not control me.

I’ve done that for two months now, and it’s actually been enjoyable. I’ve slipped on Fave Book Fridays because I tried the scheduling feature and I didn’t work it correctly. Yesterday, I packed up and set up scrapbooking items for the Baker’s Studio yard sale, and I was so exhausted from it that I didn’t check the Facebook scheduling thing again.

I’m working on some draft blog posts–my ROW80 Goal #1–but the rest of my goals were a no-show:

2–-Deal with 10 emails/day: 5 new and 5 old.
3–-Deal with the photos on my phone.
5–-Keep in touch with friends and family through phone calls and letters.

We’re going to see Star Trek Beyond on Sunday, and I should have time and energy to get some of the other stuff done. Monday afternoon, that’s my beautiful chunk of time where I review last week and plan this upcoming week.

How about you? What’s been going on in your life?

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10 Responses to Sharing my Facebook social media tips this #WeekendCoffeeShare

  1. KB Garst says:

    Hello, I have been looking at your blog and I very much enjoyed the article on Peeps!

  2. LaurenEph says:

    Hello, I’m just getting back into blogging after 2 and a half weeks off, I thought I’d get back into it with a weekend coffee share! Can you tell me more about your happy planner?

    • Sure! The Happy Planner is a large datebook. Remember those from the days before electronics? The Day Runner or Franklin Covey ones? HP is a scrapbook-style monthly/weekly calendar. The idea, I believe, is to make scheduling your tasks more fun and colorful. There’s a whole generation that doesn’t know what pen and ink are, and this is a way to (re)introduce the tactile experience.

      I use it in combination with my phone calendar. I have my month-at-a-view calendar to see an overview, and I write in daily activities on my week-at-a-view page spread. Oh, and I add scrapbook paper and stickers! That’s the youthful girly side of all this. 🙂

      Planning to try a planner?

  3. Rowena says:

    Thanks very much for the coffee. I’m having mine with Vegemite on Saos…a form of cracker.
    After reading about your blogging schedule, I am starting to wonder whether I take panserism too far as I don’t plan anything on my blog, aside from doing my weekly coffee share. I guess this is yet another thing which makes me “beyond the flow”.
    I am struggling with the juggling act trying to write, research, blog and keep the household running smoothly…or at least not falling in a screaming heap, which is what it’s usually like.
    It was my birthday yesterday and we went on a cruise and bushwalk, which were both so relaxing and very photogenic.
    xx Rowena

    • Happy belated birthday!
      Glad you enjoyed the coffee.

      Everyone has their own schedule to juggle, their own challenges, and there own way to approach. Me, I’m still figuring it out, and this is what is kinda sorta working for me right now. I’m focusing on what is necessary for me today, which in this case is fixing up my blog. Tomorrow…next week…next month it will be something different. I need to learn to grow with the flow.

      It sounds like that vacation was what you needed to focus on, and that sounds great. Refreshed and refocused!

  4. I don’t have a Facebook account as I was hack once and the party had information to be able to figure out my passwords. I enjoyed reading your blog.

    • Ew. I can only imagine the horror of that! My husband doesn’t have a FB account for that reason (among many), but I feel the need to have a presence there. It took me awhile to realize that I can control that presence (duh!).
      Glad you enjoy my blog. That makes me smile!

  5. Joanna Lynn says:

    You sound very productive. I really need to actually schedule what I’m going to do…meaning in ink and paper so it somehow affixes to my memory better. I tend to ignore things on my phone unless I run into it or t is an actual appointment where I’ll keep someone waiting or incur a cost for not making a doctor’s appointment. You’ve tickled that part of my writer’s brain in knowing I have to plan and not just let it come to me on the days I want to write about something. Sigh! But thanks!!!

    • Awwww…thanks, I love being an inspiration. 🙂 I am, and have always been, a hands on, in writing person. The phone calendar is convenience; the planner makes me aware just how much I do/don’t do. Motivating and struggling. I know you can do it, too.

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