A few years ago, I was invited to join a "Buddies" writers group on Facebook by a FB friend who was the admin. I joined and posted a few links and clicked on a few links. It was similar to the other reciprocal groups which I usually shy away from. What happened next cemented my idea that these groups usually fall into cronyism and favoritism.
After seeing others sharing info about a variety of writing sites, I shared some info on one where I was starting to have some success. This was in my early days writing for Seekyt.com, so I shared the link to the site -- it wasn't even my referral link, but the next thing I knew the admin said, "My friend Suzy Q has already posted about it, and I am sure she would love to have any referrals."It was obviously time to back off from that group.
About a year later, I started writing for another site which was a sister site to Seekyt. The Seekyt admin was trying a fresh approach and asked us to invite friends to try it out. I had learned my lesson and knew better than to share it in a writers group, so I sent a private group email to about 15 of my writer friends including the gal who was admin for the other writers group inviting them to check out the new site. Imagine my surprise when my "friend" replied to all MY friends via the Facebook message that her friend Suzy Q had already told her about the new site, and that Suzy Q would love the referrals!
A year passed and out of the blue I received an invitation to join the Preferred Writers Group. I am not even sure who invited me, and I will never know what made me check it out, because by then I had sworn off writers groups for good! But I decided to just take a quick look... and I was impressed by the vision, by the idea of a co-op of writers that goes past the reciprocal link and "I'll like yours if you like mine" philosophy of other writers groups. The idea of real networking, sharing ideas, reading the posts that look interesting and Tweeting here, commenting there, G+ another, etc. was appealing beyond just the same group of friends liking and commenting on each other's posts all the time. And the idea of sharing in the profits was a definite plus!
As the quality has improved here, I have grown more excited about what we are building. I got a little fired up. My confidence in writers groups and networking as a whole returned, so I paid a visit to the old writers group. I knew several of them write occasionally for Seekyt, and I wanted to share my VigLink article with them. Really, the idea besides getting some page views was to HELP them understand how sign up and use VigLink! Wouldn't you know, as soon as I posted the link to my Seekyt VigLink article, the admin posted: "Have you talked to Suzy Q? She writes there," and she obligingly hyperlinked to Suzy Q.
I called her on it in a private message and asked her to remove me from the group. I could have removed myself, but I wanted to make a point. There really is no place for cronyism and favoritism in a professional writers group. If you are going to invite people to join, you should treat them ALL fairly: one, because it's the right thing to do and two, because it has been proven that repeated reciprocal linking, liking and commenting among the same small group of people is doomed to fail. Google catches on. Their bots notice patterns. You really do have to network outside of any writers group or circle of friends to succeed.
There is always room for friendships, and some people are going to hit it off more than others, but I have been impressed with how Laurie and Eden have handled the early days of this group. In fact, I don't think I knew ANY of you before joining this group, and I get the idea a lot of you have known each other for some time, yet everyone has made me feel like a part of the network right off the bat. Thank you for that. I hope we will all work together to keep a professional approach to networking and not just support and promote our special friends.
Related:
- Writing Tip: Why Seekyt Uses VigLink
- Referrals: Another Reason I Like Writing for Seekyt
- Earning Money Writing for Seekyt.com
- PWG Discussion: Journal Posts & Discussions vs. Articles
- Other Ways for Writers to Make Money in their Extra Time
- Earning Money Writing for Examiner.com
Post ID KD214
