Careers in social media exist now. I saw how big they were in my job hunt and thought perhaps my background in blogging could get me a position somewhere managing a company’s social media accounts.

Nope.

Big nope.

Never mind my years of experience creating content for this blog, since before 2000, a wide and deep range of creative and original content that regularly engaged readers and prompted them to interact and participate. Never mind my ability to build an audience out of nothing, merely by commenting on other people’s content, with not a single bit of blatant self-promotion, cross-promotion, or paid ads. Never mind that I’ve been on Twitter since 2007, shooting off a series of one-liners that look like a best-of compilation on BuzzFeed.

No. I’m old, and I’m old school; I’ve withdrawn myself from the internet public for far too long, a lapsed blogger, an active but very private Facebook user, a veritable internet hermit. (What can I say? I don’t crave fame.) And you’re only as good as the last five things you’ve posted, and the last five years I’ve posted anything at all (with the exception of my private Facebook posts, which only my real life friends and family see), I’ve pretty much failed to reach my old standards of amusing or educating people.

There is also the fact that the internet has changed in the last 10 years. Blogging to social media is like vinyl records to MP3s. What was once an indie world has now been completely monetized, commercialized, and baptized as legit. It has all gone from the wild west to the yuppie corporate world.

So, in the interest of getting more book cover work and becoming more relevant in marketing (in case I want to apply to those types of jobs again), I’m diving into social media and learning as much as I can.

And boy, what an education!

I want to share what I learn with you, so I’ll be posting here every now and then about any revelations I’m bound to have. In the meantime, here is what I’ve done so far to embark upon my journey of self-realization:

1. Created a Facebook page for Graphicfantastic.com.

Before this, I’d post my book covers on my own private, personal Facebook page, in a photo album set to Public so that everyone could see or share them. Since I didn’t want to inundate my friends’ timelines with work stuff on a daily basis, I posted only the best cover I worked on each week and refrained from sharing posts from authors and publishers with whom I worked.

Now, with the more public Graphicfantastic Facebook page, I’ll be posting nearly everything I do for work. I’ll also be sharing relevant author and publisher posts, as well as industry news, and I’ll be creating some independent content, just because.

https://www.facebook.com/graphicfantasticapril/

2. Revisited my two Twitter accounts and made the personal private one public.

I’m an old school Twitter user; I’ve been on it with the handle @aprilgem since 2007. Back then I had one of those clamshell mobile phones, and I would text on it to Tweet. Replies didn’t work the way they do now, and there were no analytics. I followed only a very small number of people — people I would actually want to text by phone — and I kept my account private so I could decide and limit who would follow me.

Years later, I opened up a more public Twitter account @graphicfan so I could engage with authors, publishers, and readers about my work. People were tagging me during industry conventions or book releases, and I didn’t want to pollute my personal Twitter account with too much work stuff. This all turned out to be unnecessary because I ended up not Tweeting much at all with either account. I let them both lie fallow for several years.

Now, I’ve started tweeting again. On the @aprilgem side, which I’ve opened to the public, I’m slowly adding to my Following list so I don’t get overwhelmed, mostly people I find funny, inspiring, entertaining, or educational, people that make me want to engage so I have some incentive to keep active. I don’t aspire to be an entertainer so even though I can, I’m simply not motivated enough to regularly come up with stuff that stands well on its own. I’m better as a foil, bantering with someone else, like Gracie Allen with George Burns, and that sort of thing is what comes most naturally for me.

On the @graphicfan side, I’ve been following as many authors and publishers as I can, at least those I’d like to work with someday. I will mostly post work related stuff, covers I’ve done and retweets from authors and publishers about books I’ve worked on. I plan to post other things, but I’m still easing into checking social media accounts regularly, so it’ll probably be a while before I feel comfortable enough to add to my work load with all this new marketing.

https://twitter.com/aprilgem
https://twitter.com/graphicfan

3. Finally got on Instagram.

I put off getting onto Instagram for a very, very long time. For years, I’ve had friends tell me I should be on there, almost since it first began, but by then I was already starting to withdraw from the internet public, and I didn’t want to get started on yet another thing I was just bound to abandon anyway.

Now, I’m irritated that I didn’t get on sooner, if only because my usual handle has already been taken … and by someone who isn’t even really using it to full benefit. I mean, really. And sure, her name might be April, but dude, my name is April G.E.M., and I even have the domain name — by all that makes sense, that handle should be mine!

So I got @whimsytoons instead because @graphicfan and @graphicfantastic were already taken. I’ve never been the type of girl to take many selfies, though, and I haven’t been keeping up with my hobby of photography, so I’m not really sure what to post half the time. Because of my handle, I feel obligated to post cartoons, but it’s been a while since I’ve done much cartooning either. So right now, I’m just feeling things out, trying different things to see what I want to do regularly.

I also created @covergoddess for posting my work stuff — covers and cover-related stuff I have rattling around in my head. While I have been called a cover goddess, I was surprised the handle wasn’t already taken.

https://www.instagram.com/whimsytoons/
https://www.instagram.com/covergoddess/

4. Got on Pinterest and Snapchat to explore.

I don’t remember when I got on Pinterest, but it was before I decided to be more active in social media again. It was mostly a means to save and organize some Pinterest pages my friends shared on Facebook. I opened the account using Facebook, so I had nothing to do with the creation of my boring handle @amartinez5566. I pin mostly food and health stuff; three or four years ago, I changed the way I ate and became more physically active, so the science of exercise and nutrition is a really huge interest of mine.

I will probably explore Pinterest further over time and consider using it more fully.

https://www.pinterest.com/amartinez5566/

As for Snapchat … I first heard of it back when it was a teenager hotspot known for risqué sharing of selfies. Young people would “snap” their half-dressed selves to their crushes and feel safe because there was a 10-second viewing time and a 1-day limit to re-view before the photo disappeared forever. Ephemeral. I next heard of it from someone in my family, who really only uses the Snapchat filters to amuse a toddler and nothing else.

I got on it when a celebrity urged followers to watch for announcements on their Snapchat account, and whoa — it’s nothing at all what I would have imagined.

It has gone both completely corporate and completely reality TV. Companies are on there creating content like magazines, with animated teasers and links to articles, surveys, videos, and whatnot if you swipe up. On the other side of Snapchat is the sheer number of users, celebrities and regular folk alike, snapping away to give random strangers a peek at their lives, boring or exciting they may be.

It’s been quite the education.

I will not be sharing my Snapchat handle any time soon as I am on there mostly as an observer. I found a list of the top 100 people to follow on Snapchat, and I added all of their accounts so I could see what sort of things people post. More on this in a future post…

I will say, though, that it isn’t @aprilgem — someone named Stella got a hold of that one before I could even get to it. STELLA! Not even named April, for crying out loud. All these aprilgem wannabes, I swear. They all want to think they are diamonds in the rough, I guess. I didn’t bother adding her. I don’t need the irritating reminder.

5. Installed Tumbler, Reddit, Imgur, Behance, etc.

I’ve installed these apps on my phone, and I’ve browsed them a couple of times, but I haven’t gotten into these yet. I don’t want to get in too deep right now. I’m trying to ease into social media to see what I can handle on a regular basis without burning out.

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