Writer’s Tips, September Edition – Building Your Email List, Writing Chapter 1, Facebook Alternatives, #Copyrights, Writing Scams

Welcome to my September edition of Writer’s Tips. This month I have collected a few goodies to share with you. Diana Peach had a great article with tips on how to write a great first chapter that hooks the reader, at the Story Empire. Jan Sikes with another great share on how to grow your email list, also featured at the Story Empire. Blogging guru Hugh Roberts has some important tips to prevent your blogs from being stolen and/or plagiarized. Also, as I am truly tired of being a target and thrown into Fakebook jail, a friend shared this great page which offers #socialmedia alternatives to Fakebook, definitely worthy of taking a look at by James Spencer at Make A Website Hub. Anne R. Allen also has another great article – updates on new scams and warnings for writers.

Writing Chapter One – Tips

Greetings, Storytellers! Diana here today. I hope you’re all writing up a storm.

https://storyempirecom.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/writing-chapter-one-tips/comment-page-1/#comment-162441

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Building an Email List

Hello SE’ers. It’s Jan again with another book marketing tip I hope you’ll find helpful.

https://storyempirecom.wordpress.com/2022/08/12/mktg-18-building-an-email-list/comment-page-1/#comment-162440

xx

Facebook Alternatives 2022 – Social Networks That Won’t Sell Your Data

by Jamie Spencer

Protect your blogs and photos on your blogs by Hugh Roberts

How to protect your blog posts and photos by Hugh Roberts

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Scams and Warnings for Writers

Anne R. Allen with some updates for writers on new publishing scams and warnings for writers

©DGKaye2022

#Social Media Etiquette, Rant, and a Surprise.

A social rant and a sign from heaven.

Today I wanted to talk about social media etiquette, and often – the lack of it. As I spend a few hours a day on social media, I’ve been noticing so many more spammy comments – particularly with the bombardment of messaging personal DM (direct messages). We already know Fakebook is notorious for this, but I’ve noticed DM spam ever-growing in my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts specifically.

On Twitter and LinkedIn, I’m getting a boatload of ‘buy my book, watch my video, subscribe to my website’ DMs. Quite frankly, I barely ever check those messages because they are a waste of my time.

On Fakebook, I’ve left the few grief groups I joined because the amount of messages I’ve been getting from sicko losers who prey on widows, hitting on us, is absolutely disgusting. Not to mention, I am once again banned from using Fakebook for a week, basically, because there really is no free speech there. Oh, um, let me correct that. There is free speech for evil if you are on the ‘right side’ of Fakebook. Apparently, you can freely post your convictions and hatred proudly if you are in with the QAnon, Proud Boys, and White Supremacy crowd. But when a post asks your opinion on a political issue that the Fakebook Big Brother monitors don’t agree with, you get banned. Honestly, I hate that site with a passion. Sadly, like most big corporations that get us in their strangle holds because there is nowhere else to connect with friends, we as writers, are stuck there.

On a brighter note, my girlfriend came to visit me on Saturday. When I walked her down to her car parked in the vacant spot beside my car that used to be my husband’s spot, she asked me if I noticed something on my car window.

The back window of my car.

There it was, clear as day, a heart drawn on my window. As I attempted to wipe it off, I discovered it was done from the inside of the window, it didn’t rub off. Nobody has been in my back seat for over a year. My beautiful husband has left me yet another sign he is with me. 💓💚💙

©DGKaye2022

What’s Up With #Scammers who Prey on #SocialMedia

As many of you know, I lost my husband just over a year ago. For me and my grief, it may as well be yesterday because the excrutiating pain of missing the love of your life doesn’t go away. I thought I’d just post this reminder because it’s truly astounding that predators lurk everywhere seeking out vulnerable people.

Since my husband’s passing, and much of it spent in Covid seclusion at the worst time of one’s life, I had turned to joining some online grief groups. I felt it may be a place I can be with like-minded people and those who’ve walked the walk, those who know how painful grief is, and that they may be places of comfortable harbor for me sometimes. But sadly, the amount of men who wangle their way into these groups hoping to seek out the vulnerable, seems to be ever-growing.

Personally speaking, these groups do not help me at all, yet, I continue to pop in for some words of solace. But because I consider myself a great Facebook ‘FBI’ profiler, I always click on the pages of those stalkers who continually message or leave messages in replies to my comments. Almost all of them seem to have lonely pages with barely a post, as though they specifically joined FB to lurk and lure.

I get many requests, compliments, and sweet nothings from plenty of lunatics on FB, but these grief pages top the charts with lurkers. These places are like a magnet for loveless losers to prey. How many times on the news are we warned about scammers, yet, so many still get caught in this web. It’s up to us all to do our due diligence and check out first, who we think we are friending and allowing into our personal circles. And I might add, the people who run these delicate group pages should also be more diligent when screening applicants who join these groups. It only takes me a moment to figure out many profiles are bogus, bots or that they have ill intentions. Why can’t a moderator do the same?

I’m a moderator in four different FB groups, and every time I get a request from someone who wants to join one of my groups, I take the time to visit the applicant’s page and schmooze around to see what they post, what they do, their ‘about’ page, and decide if they fit into my group. If all the prerequisites aren’t met, I don’t admit them.

Fakebook social media
Image by ijmaki from Pixabay

It’s not hard to figure out how these lurkers find us. They join groups with vulnerable people and try to befriend them with sweet words. If you’re like me, and have all your posts on your FB page, only visible to ‘friends only’ (and you should), this is your first barrier of defense. They cannot roam on your page or see personal posts, but they can still message you, and these messages predominantly go to FB spam messages and sit there until we delete or accept if we don’t reply to their scammy comments on a post we left comment on. I think I have hundreds in mine over the years, I don’t even look anymore, other than when someone approaches me on a group page and then checking my spam messages to find them there too.

When people start leaving you messages in comments to a statement you made in a group that have no relevance to the comment you made, be suspicious. When you poured your grieving heart out in a statement and get a reply from a guy telling you how beautiful you are and asking you to please accept his friendship so he can message you privately, that’s just wrong. And just don’t allow these types of lurkers into your private space.

I may be grieving. I may be sentimental. But I’m no dummy. As many writers spend most of their waking life on the internet mingling in social media, we know well about lurkers, losers, hackers and scammers. But for the many who are not internet savvy. Pay attention to how you allow people into your digital life.

©DGKaye2022

Facebook Foibles – Spying, Judgment and Privacy Invasion Galore!

 

I received a warning, doesn’t say for what, but my account “could be restricted” if I violate again. Violate what? Will I be sent to Facebook jail yet again?

 

I search around in my scrolling and reading, clicking away, sharing posts then I find that a post I shared in a private  group, from a reliable source on Facebook, or quite possibly, one I’ve shared from a writer friend, was deemed false and marked on the post ‘content not available’. But that’s not enough. There must be warnings to threaten me as a punishment for sharing such posts that despite showing up on other pages as perfectly legit – without being marked ‘content not available’ on those same articles. And oddly, I’m never told why an article on writing I may have shared from a friend’s blog is deemed false. False because why? How about an explanation besides “article deemed inappropriate”? A book review is not inappropriate, among many other nonsensical rulings.

Funny how posts linger on some pages, and when others share the same post, they get reprimanded from Fakebook. What’s good for the goose is apparently, not good for the gander. If the Fakebook police don’t like it, remove it and move on, even though you’re invading my ‘private group’ space and freedom of thought and speech. Spare me your idiotic messages about why you push your authority, warning me I’m on probation (once again), and putting people in Fakebook jail timeouts. Almost not surprising coming from a site that has a difficult time promoting democratic ads and plays politics with the opposition .

Just Sayin'

 

There is no privacy on Fakebook. Most of us know this, yet, there we still are, while they sell our personal info to 3rd parties – where most of those ads come from that follow us. Many of my close writing friends feel mutual sentiments about FB, yet we feel stuck there as a place to stay in touch and interact. Somebody needs to take them on and make a better site WITHOUT privacy invasion. MeWe is the closest to trying, and Sally, me and  Colleen and about a dozen other writers gave it a try for awhile, posting just as we always did on FB in various groups we set up. But I don’t think that site is ready for primetime because every group seems private, there’s no newsfeed, and keyword searches for a topic you may be interested seeing posts about, mostly just offer other groups to join, everything seems to be a private group you must join to be able to interact or read anything, that’s an epic fail. The concept is great, but there’s much left to be desired for the user. And then there is Liker.

Liker seems to be a social media site many EX Fakebook patriots have and are moving to by the droves. I’ve only just signed up there, and I’ve seen lots of posts via there prior, and yes, there’s a live newsfeed!. This is their slogan:

Liker is a smarter, kinder social network that is reimagining social media. “Our feed is fully customizable and filled with intelligent posts that are free of hate. We are the kinder, smarter social network .’

I kind of like the idea of freedom of speech without being censored or patroled. It seems like this site is growing daily and is user friendly, so I think I may venture getting more involved with it. Apparently, I’m not alone as a disgruntled Fakebook user, based on the many recommends I’ve read, and some of the comments I’ve seen on Liker:

 

Closed my FB account 2 days ago. Pushes Authoritarian rule and with Trump pushes dictatorship.

I’ve been in FB jail so many times, I can’t stay out for more than 15 days.”

In the past 6 weeks, I’ve been in FB jail for 3 days the first time, 7 days the second and I’m down to 19 days on the last 30 days. Guess what? FB is dead to me – just like Suckerberg.
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Same here! I have been in FB jail 5X for 30 days for posting about tRump. My current suspension will not end till the 27th. When it does, I will notify all my friends and let them know I am on Liker and deactivating my FB.
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They completely blocked me, forever… LOL!
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Those were just a few of many people, like me, who’ve been repeatedly punished on FB by muting, reprimanding, and jailing, overtime. And oddly enough, my jailings haven’t even been about politcal posts – BUT WRITING POSTS! And I am not the only one in my circles this has happened to.
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So now I’m asking if anyone here has joined Liker and if so, please share your experience there with us and let us know how else it differs from FB. Motivate me enough to want to start over again somewhere else. Thanks.
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©DGKaye2020
bitmo live laugh love
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