It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want follows, you gotta follow. And then they follow you back. And then you follow each other.

The end.

I'm super bad at this, you guys, playing the Twitter / Facebook / [insert any other social media platform here] game. I only barely know the rules, I don't ever post at the right time, and an average of 40 people even see my posts pop up on Facebook because I won't pay Facebook to "boost" or "promote" my posts.

Clearly I am winning the game.

So here are five ways I'm not following social media rules, and why I feel pretty good about it (also known as: How Not To Grow Your Blog).

1. I only follow who I want to follow.

On Twitter, I don't follow to be followed. I don't have time for HootSuite or any other some such nonsense wherein I have to learn an entirely new platform just to navigate the platform I already subscribe to. I don't follow thousands of people and I don't want to, even if it means less follows, favourites or retweets of my posts.

For sanity's sake, I have a carefully culled list of 325 people, news sources, friends and organisations I want to keep up with. This keeps me invested in people and issues I'm already fond of and encourages engagement that I can keep up with and grow within. Yes, this means I *only* have 271 followers after blogging for 6 years and being on twitter for over 2 years. Oh well. I've found my tribe and I'm happy it's small. My blog may stay small because of it, but I don't want thousands of followers who don't give a crap what I have to say. And vice versa. If you're like me and you follow 10,000 people, that's probably 9,900 people you don't care about.

Follow who you want. And forget about the rest.

2. I don't schedule tweets or Facebook posts.

I tweet and use my FB page when I want to. And when I write a blog, I want to share it right then, when I'm thinking about it. Occasionally I will schedule blog posts, especially if I'm in that amazing place where I can't stop writing and want to spread out the awesomeness. When this happens, I'll go back to it that day and share the post, but don't give all that much attention to when it goes out.

Unfortunately this means that sometimes my peeps in America are asleep. Or my Irish friends are at work. But those I engage with frequently (see above) will still read and like it and are all kinds of encouraging and wonderful about it.

Write however you can, whenever you can.

3. I don't (usually) promote my blog on my personal page.

I don't know, it's weird. I have this thing where I feel like I don't want to over promote myself or share too much of my writing - which is often inadvertently intimate - with my real-life friends on Facebook. And yet I'm super cool with a group of strangers reading my stuff. In fact, I want them to! But I struggle with blending these boundaries. And sometimes... well... I want to go out on a limb and really say something, and I'm afraid at how it will be taken by people who actually know me. So I either hold back in my writing, or hold back in my sharing of it within my close circle of friends and family. Case in point: last week someone close to me told me they were bothered by my "voice" on an issue. It was a surprisingly painful example of why I'm guarded in what I'm willing to write about, share and cross-post.

I'm hoping, trying, to grow in this area, to keep my voice authentic so readers AND friends will recognize and honour it. And I'm actually thinking of doing away with one or the other (delete my personal page and keep my blog page, or vice versa), but we live far away from home and our families need instant grandkid gratification.

Write what you need to, promote what you want and keep boundaries in place if you need them.

4. I overpromote everyone else.

On the flip-side of under-promoting myself, I over-promote the brilliant things my family, friends and wanna-be-friends do. I'm kind of a stalker, so if there's a blog, writer or article that moves me, I will share it with you a half dozen times or so. And when people close to me curate festivals (Middle of the Map, on this weekend!) or write praise albums (The Flint Hill Fellowship, available now!) or create literary art (Conversations | Reconstructed, opens Friday!), I want to share it - a lot - with everyone. I'm hoping my overindulgence reflects poorly on me as opposed to them. I can be a little overeager.

Share what you love. More than likely, they'll return the favour.

5. My name is not my brand, my handle isn't my blog address and my platform is not my identity.

This is the one that currently stumps me. I think The River Into Words may have run its course. I still want to blog, but wonder if I should move from being TRIW to being just Karen. If I were honest, I'd have to say this blog runs the gamut from Christian mommy blogger to expat blogger; from faith blogger to a very public Dear Diary. Do I have something else, more or different to say?

Also, I apparently have a common name, which was not available as a twitter handle, email or blog address. Do I integrate my maiden name? Take on a new identity? Or be a different name on every form of social media everywhere? I have no idea. So for now I'm staying put, even if my handle, blog, email and FB page don't match. When it's time to move on I will. Until then, the river into words will keep going.

Stake your claim on a name, but be open to how the words, ideas or questions move through you.

Oh, and bonus