{"id":896,"date":"2016-01-05T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T16:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=896"},"modified":"2016-01-05T16:22:29","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T16:22:29","slug":"the-greydogtales-guide-to-social-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/the-greydogtales-guide-to-social-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"The greydogtales Guide to Social Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

In which we self-destruct and lose all our friends by exposing the truth about social networking<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

People often ask about the nature of the greydogtales<\/em> collective. What’s with this authorial \u201cwe\u201d? It would be foolish to expose our entire, multinational staff to public scrutiny. Let’s just say that most of my body cells, some of Django<\/strong>‘s, and our mate Trevor<\/strong>, are crucial elements. The rest of my body cells are in the process of starting a rival blog, tentatively entitled \u201cWhy We Hate John Linwood Grant And What We’re Going To Do About It\u201d<\/em>. My partner hovers in the background, pointing out plot-holes and ludicrous character mistakes, which is what I pay her for.<\/p>\n

This would be a good point to have a photograph of a lurcher, a nice dog anecdote and then shut up. Or to muse on what a funny old world it is writing horror, and share an amusing incident. Unfortunately, we like to call a spade a potentially seditious element for use in peasant uprisings, and thus feel bound to tell our listeners what all this Internet stuff is really for.<\/p>\n

greydogtales<\/strong><\/em> came online last year as a terrifying experiment in how to beat agoraphobia by \u201cgetting out there\u201d, but without having to open the front door*. It was an all-or-nothing approach. Full fb exposure, commit to three lively (ha!) blog posts a week, register for Pinterest and then forget why, etc. And we also read somewhere that if you’re going to publish your writing, you need to do this sort of thing. Maybe.<\/p>\n

*People also ask how I can be agoraphobic and be out dog-walking. The short answer is that if you have two large, hungry longdogs next to you, you feel somewhat less vulnerable. If the whole world came at me all at once, Chilli would have it on its knees in a millisecond. And then Django would pee on it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"blogging-336376_960_720\"<\/a>
a blogger forgets to turn his screen on<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But we had a plan for this article, didn’t we? Let’s have a scientific look at social networking in reality. Here are some of the exciting opportunities which are open to you:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Blogging<\/strong> \u2013 what you were thinking about last night after a few beers, which you then decided, for some strange reason, to share with your seven and half followers;<\/li>\n
  2. Twitter<\/strong> \u2013 what you are thinking about right now, which might have been more interesting if you’d had a few beers before posting it (non-drinkers might substitute extra caffeine);<\/li>\n
  3. Facebook<\/strong> \u2013 a system created by memes so that they could replicate without human assistance;<\/li>\n
  4. Google Plus<\/strong> \u2013 a system created by Google so that they could track you down later when they have to ‘adjust’ certain elements of the population;<\/li>\n
  5. Reddit<\/strong> \u2013 a bulletin-board system for promoting hearsay to the level of Government policy. Or a way to learn about new stuff. We’re not sure;<\/li>\n
  6. Insertnamehere<\/strong> \u2013 the secret network your children are on because everything above is so last-week and only for old people and nerds;<\/li>\n
  7. Pinterest<\/strong> \u2013 pictures of cakes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We’ll now look at two of the most familiar of those in detail, ie sketchily, with no real evidence and in a way which makes people wonder if we’re talking about THEM. Of course we aren’t. We love YOU. It’s the others who puzzle us.<\/p>\n

    Blogging<\/h3>\n

    Blogging<\/strong> is actually a complex process which allows interesting people to come over as rather dull and rather dull people to sound interesting. For those in between, such as ourselves, it is a stroke of genius. Decades of half-remembered facts, books we once skip-read and whatever magazine is next to the toilet allow us to sound authoritative and well-informed. Suddenly those moth-eaten copies of Smersh the Thunderer<\/em> in the attic are collector’s gold, to be shown off, and Napoleon’s shoe-size is a gem of arcane knowledge. Blogging justifies an entire life of remembering useless things and forgetting your mother’s birthday and your credit card PIN.<\/p>\n

    Blogging is also Hard Work. When we started, we looked into the intricate dynamics of which blog posts were read in which hemisphere, when the most shares occurred, what days of the week gave best coverage, how often to post, the prime word-count for a successful post, how to retain readers, how to tag properly and how to optimize for all search engines.<\/p>\n

    We then entered a lengthy consultation period, and decided, considering all these factors, to shove something out about three times a week, making each post as long as it happened to be. If it’s vaguely relevant, we occasionally ram it onto a Facebook group as well.<\/p>\n

    It’s important to have a clear focus for your blog, so that readers understand your field of expertise or knowledge. Which is why we cover classic horror authors, weird illustrations, lurchers and other things on a random basis. We want readers who are confused and willing to read anything just to get out of here alive.<\/p>\n

    It is also essential when you blog to respond to every comment. That’s why people don’t comment \u2013 they don’t need more of your dribble. You do, however, hear regularly from Nike Trainers, SEO marketing people and Chinese knock-off sites, so you’re never alone. That’s something.<\/p>\n

    Facebook<\/h3>\n

    Facebook<\/strong> is still popular, despite absolutely everyone having migrated to Twitter and Insertnamehere. There are many good reasons to be on Facebook. One is that it makes a nice pinging noise when someone likes or comments on your posts. That’s quite fun. Another is that you can trawl frantically through your feed and timeline for what just happened, and manage to lose the one post you were looking for. It’s like a wordsearch, but you don’t have to buy the little books.<\/p>\n

    \"friends-1027840_960_720\"<\/a>
    pledging allegiance to facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    However, after considerable effort, you can achieve a list of crucial contacts, which breaks down as follows:<\/p>\n