Red Room Where the Writers Are

As a local poet, using Facebook is a great networking opportunity. Aside from regular use--where I can re-connect with old friends or classmates from twenty years ago, Facebook is a tool that allows the option to meet new people, promote one's work, and can be a platform or portfolio that may lead to future opportunities.

For instance, not only do I look at associates' walls, but when I attend events or even when I am somewhere like the grocery store, I mention that I am on Facebook. This is actually a great way to build community---whether you know the contact well or not, this allows for pooling together ideas through messaging and brainstorming new ways to promote future work, and this can lead to access to more associates and contacts. Facebook allows for mingling between online and face to face contacts.

This community building is also an excellent way to reinforce branding--what you do and the fact no one does it like you---and also it is a new way to diversify the writing community. Writers come from all walks of life. In some communities you may not see this---even just seeing one face on someone's wall that is an anomaly may encourage others who may not feel like they can participate in that community. In a way, every time you put yourself out there, even on Facebook, it is an act of faith. You never know who you may meet, or where opportunities may come from. So it helps to meet others from different faiths, nationalities, different economic, racial and ethnic lines---because meeting someone from another backround encourages us to think in new ways we never thought before---and this is where opportunity comes from--it comes from pliability in terms of who you deal with. It also shows that your work is universal: in the end, success comes to those who understand that the more you speak to as many people possible, the more your message is heard, and that is the thing we all want as writers, isn't it?

Facebook is a great networking tool in terms of promotion: you can post links to your website or links to your work, you can put writing in the notes section so people can get a taste of your writing, and you can post clips to utube--clips of you reading. In addition, you can post announcements of your events through a Facebook calendar, where others can put on their walls that they plan to attend. This means many of their other contacts will see it. If nothing, whether their contacts decide to attend or not, your name is out there, and when you appear at different venues or people see your name and your work, they will have heard of you. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify is a good motto to have.

Even if you don't feel comfortable with the idea of Facebook, or even Twitter, it allows you the possibility of creating new ways to 1. Connect with others 2. Discover what is going on in different circles and 3. Respond to what is going on in your community. Not just all these things, you learn how to set goals in terms of defining how you will benchmark how you build community, and design what it will look like. Just like writing a poem or story, it takes alot of vision. First, you must ask, how will I get there? Good luck, and keep the faith.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there!