X's and O's

I'm not talking about hugs and kisses or tic-tac-toe.  X's and O's refers to social phenomenon.  The O's are all the same type of people.  Maybe they are all extraverts or type-A people.  The X is a different type of person.  When you are an X in a room full of O's you are invisible.  No one sees you, no one registers you've been there.

We've all had that experience.  Social media makes this worse because I can blog and post to my heart's content but never reach anyone.  Somehow I have to promote myself and my posts on sites like Digg or Delicious and hope some finds my ideas and point of view interesting enough to read.  If I'm really lucky the reader will share it.

That's only happened to me once in almost a year of blogging.  But given the amount of content being produced by bloggers worldwide, I support I should feel lucky I hit gold at least once.

And yet I can't help feel that social media is the wrong path for humanity.  I don't have evidence of this, it is just a feeling and an impression.  Proponents will say that social media helps people find information about products and services.  Company A posts or tweets information about their products and services and that help me find information when I need it.

Perhaps.  But if I don't have a product or service, then what?  If I sell content, how do I create content about content?  And if I figure that out, I still have the promotion problem.  I need to be in a place where people look for that content.  So if the content is a book I need to be in Amazon and Barnes and Noble and lots of other bookstore.

And even being there isn't enough.  I need to get in front of people and jump up and down and wave my hands screaming, "Over here!"  Otherwise I am an X in a world of O's.  The sad fact is, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to promote my work and write new material.  Not without help.

And I don't know where that help would become from.  Perhaps this is why most writers are discovered after they die.  They don't take the time to promote themselves.