I don’t know about you, but I’m increasingly tired of Facebook. In the past, there have been many pros of using it, both as an author and for a personal account. Facebook pages were a great way of reaching out to fans and were ideal to ensure people didn’t miss important news. However, for me personally, there are now many annoyances:

• My FB wall is no longer interesting, but cluttered with links, gifts and statuses that I rarely care about.
• Facebook is making it practically impossible to reach out to fans. Even if you ‘like’ my page, you’re unlikely to actually see updates in your news feed.
• FB paid ads and promotes have a decreasing reach. Even if I pay to promote an update so that it’ll appear on more of my fans news feeds, the numbers it reaches is still barely worth the expense.
• And, then there’s the whole FB mantra of removing content which should be deemed appropriate whilst simultaneously allowing videos of be-headings and shootings to clutter the screen. Seriously, you remove a picture of two Indian men kissing but allow killings to be shown?!

With this is in mind, I’m increasing turning to Google+ as a way to share news, chat with people and discuss my passions. I’ve set up a little Google+ community for readers of my work too. The benefit of this, over Facebook, is that YOU can post in communities, YOU can chat in communities, and YOU can do all of this without any of your posts being relegated to a tiny sidebar which no one reads (yes – FB, that’s aimed at you).

It has taken me a while to used to Google+. It’s no Twitter, and it sure isn’t Facebook either. However, what it is is a great foundation for reaching and talking to like-minded people. There’s no maximum characters, and it’s a good idea to actually have some long posts now and then. Joining communities doesn’t clutter your feed as it does with FB, and it’s easy to hop in and out. And then there’s the indexing; seriously, for authors, Google indexes your posts pretty instantly, making them highly searchable.

So, if you’re an author or a reader, head over, join my page or add me to your circles. Say hi, build your own profile and join the Google+ masses.