5 tips to working social media to your advantage--- or not

I updated my Facebook status the other day with the observation that I am more social online than I am in real life. To a certain extent this is true. When I try to wrangle that into creating traffic to TMCphoto or PeanutButterPie it's like stepping into a puddle of molasses. It feels forced and not authentic to who I am.

So I'm browsing around the blogosphere today and I come across this post, and I have to say that it hits the nail right on the head, and timely? I can't even tell you how timely it is(or maybe it's just one of those things that's bobbing around in my head and every once in a while it pops up right in front of my nose) examining my online persona. Mainly I'm just wondering if I'm offering something unique to the world at large and if not, what do I need to change? or should I worry at all?

Crafting my online persona needs to feel genuine to me. I know that I'm not alone in this either. I can't be someone I'm not, here, or anywhere for that matter. I could buff and polish who that is, tweak it until it's just right, squeaky clean; but if it doesn't feel real to me, the person who it's representing; then I'm not comfortable and it's not going to work.

How could it possibly? If you as a reader feel that all I'm after is for you to visit my shop, how can I ask you to stick around and find out what my weekend was like, what great thing I photographed for 1000 words, who I'm featuring for my monthly Q&A or what I'm currently working on?

Since I started doing this I've been so fortunate to find blogs and blog writers that I love to drop in on regularly, I have learned from, been inspired, cheered for and offered condolences and advice and received the same. For this alone I would keep things genuine.