Okay, so part of this memoir writing thing that I’m doing has to do with Platform, i.e. putting myself and my expertise out there in Social Media:  Tweet, Update, Blog,  in short, create a brand.  How to market myself so that people will want to buy my (as yet uncompleted and obviously unpublished) book.  The whole Platform thing seems to me a little cart before the donkey-, egg before the chicken-ish, don’t you think?

 I haven’t written but a few pages. How can I get people interested in me, in what I think or have to say? Srsly. I’ve been trying to blog more regularly, and not always on silly stuff.  The more I blog, the more I realize that my interests are so diverse that I can’t imagine pulling them all together into some sort of cohesive whole.  I’ve been dreading revamping my Facebook page and shuddering at starting a Twitter account. Like children such creatures must be attended to, fed, watered, patted, changed. Where will I find the time?

I’m trying to pace myself.  All of this platform building takes time and energy, time that I generally either spend at work or asleep, energy that I expend all day at work. Writing, is my passion, and so I manage to find a few hours here and there in which to write.  Where could I possibly fit in marketing?  I don’t want to give up blogging or working on my memoir.  Can’t that be enough? When did being a writer become being a marketer? I should have started my book years ago. But then I wouldn’t have a story to tell, would I? Can you feel the stress mounting?

So here I am, blogging and writing, fretting about Platform. And then, one night a month or so ago, as I was scanning my blog stats obsessively (yeah, right, like you don’t),  and I realized I may have hit upon a marketing strategy without even realizing it. 

I checked out my Google Keywords, the words people had been searching on when they discovered my blog:  www.pmbgp.blogspot.com. Turns out my blog audience did not find my blog because of my clever tags– I keep forgetting to add tags to my blogs.  Turns out not many people were looking for me by name, because my name was not prominent among the Google search words.

Dear Reader, I named my blog Putting on My Big Girl Panties because I thought turning 50 in the next couple of years warranted that I step it up a notch, you know, be a big girl, become that elusive adult: Put on my big girl panties. Walk the talk.  Be a role model and share witty realizations as I react to my world as a mature woman (I can hear you snickering). 

Back to the Google keywords.  Here are My Blog’s top search strings for the past 24 hours (freshly cut and pasted from my blog):

I think I need to work on my platform. Just a bit.