The Blessings of Social Media

Kristen Lamb (Age 6), Ingrid Schaffenburg (Age 3)

Happy Friday, WANA peeps! I know I’ve been posting a lot of heavy stuff lately, so today something fun light and…short. YAY! My business partner and close friend Ingrid Schaffenburg wrote a really beautiful post about social media and how two women who met over thirty years ago and hadn’t seen each other in 20 years would come together to (hopefully) change the world. And, yeah, her blogs are way shorter than mine.

Take it away Ingrid!

***

Last May, when I decided to move back to my hometown of Fort Worth, a huge priority of mine was reconnecting with old friends. I am a VERY social creature and without my tribe, I am lost. Well not lost, but I would’ve been creeping around Starbucks all day trying to make new friends if I had had none to come home to.

So I started with my trusted few. Close friends I’d known since childhood and some old family friends. But there was one person I just KNEW I wanted to connect with.

A few months prior, a distant acquaintance from high school had friended me on Facebook. And when I say distant I mean we had probably only spoken a handful of times in the halls of our high school. She being a senior and I a freshman, our orbits hardly ever crossed.

So at this point we’d spent, 18 years apart. Living completely separate lives and never entering into each other’s consciousness.

Until Facebook.

And as often happens, by clicking “accept” we gained access to one another’s pages but for the most part, nothing changed. We remained acquaintances.

For several months leading up to my move, I’d see her posts scroll by.



Over and over again, I’d see these posts. And just as The Rule of 7 in advertising states, it started to sink in.

This girl’s a writer. And she’s serious. And she lives in FORT WORTH!

For the rest of Ingrid’s post, and the story how Facebook changed both our lives and the lives of countless artists, go here…..

Have a fabulous weekend and I’ll see all y’all on Monday. Yes, “all y’all” is correct in Texas. I hope you guys will share your comment love over at Ingrid’s place. I still love hearing your thoughts and stories and I will count them for the contest (for details about the contest, just click on Wednesday’s post and scroll to the bottom for anyone new).


22 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. Awh how sweet is that. Love those pictures. Social media is a powerful and wonderful thing.

  2. How neat! 😀 I love those pics–you look giddily happy as always, Kristen! 😀

    • Lanette on May 11, 2012 at 11:07 am
    • Reply

    Cute pics! And we loves Fort Worth girls!

    • annerallen on May 11, 2012 at 11:08 am
    • Reply

    Facebook re-connections with old friends: topic for a great book! Social media is NOT just about what you had for lunch! Thanks for the day-brightener.

  3. Yay! How awesome is this?? great pics, by the way..

  4. Thanks Kristen! Great read! And congrats on the company!

  5. Thanks for DEMONSTRATING the power of social media! That is the type of result I hope to get when I finally start blogging.

  6. I really enjoyed this and I have also reconnected with old friends through social media. Wonderful experience for all of us.

  7. Really heartwarming story about Facebook. Cool.
    Patti

    • EllieAnn on May 11, 2012 at 4:16 pm
    • Reply

    Of course it’s all y’all! Is there any other way to say it?

    • lynnkelleyauthor on May 11, 2012 at 5:29 pm
    • Reply

    Have an awesome Mother’s Day, Kristen!

  8. Have commented on Ingrid’s blog, Kristen but here goes:

    ‘Kristin and Ingrid, my name is Prue Batten and I live in Australia.
    I published my first book POD in 2008 and it was picked up by a woman in California who was a miniature book artist. (Patricia Sweet bopressminiaturebooks.com) We communicated and found a true ‘soul’ existed between us: outlook, humour, and creativity. We bonded.
    I adore her work. She’s become a sharp and no holds barred beta reader for me as I moved on to publish another three books. I’ve become an avid collector of her work.
    We have also become sometime creative partners. Occasionally she uses inspiration from my writing to create a new miniature map or book which her studio sells.
    Last year she asked me to write a hist.fict short story based on the actual hist.fict I was writing at the time. I did, she created a stunning leather bound book and it sold like hot cakes! We even sent one to the English actor who was my inspiration for the character and who sent us a charming letter back. Better for me though, was that it gave me a whole new second volume idea which I’m working on now.

    That’s what soc.med has done for me. I’ve never met Pat and we’ve spoken once on the phone but the day I published my first book and began to use social media was a day we can call Serendipity with a capital “S” … I consider Pat to be one of my closest and wisest friends and thank the stars for a little thing called Facebook.
    PS: I’m grateful to have met many other writers too, and we have a loose fellowship. I think social media is a ‘Gift from the Gods”!’

    1. Awwww…what a sweet story! One of my closest friends is flying in from the UK to spend a week with me and we met on Twitter and we now are colleagues. Social media is really wonderful.

  9. Reblogged this on athenabrady1 and commented:
    Hi Kristen,
    please check out my blog @ athenabrady1 on this site and thanks for being such an inspiration. If you have some spare time I would be grateful for some tips.

  10. http://tinyurl.com/mairangi
    Hi Kristen – I’ve shared your helpful site on our writers’ group blog because many of them are scared of going online. Your calm, reasoned advice makes it all seem less daunting! Once they find the warm and welcoming world out there in cyberspace I’m sure they’ll take to it. Eventually!

  11. Thanks for the introduction to Ingrid and her blog! I’m now following her as well!

  12. How great to have a friendship like this. Hearing your story made me think of special friends in my life. We definitely need each other to celebrate the highs and hold us in the lows.

  13. This is wonderful!! I “met” Ingrid through a recommendation from your website and I’ve learned so much from both of you. Thanks for sharing a bit of wisdom with us all over all this time.

    • Yvette Carol on May 13, 2012 at 4:46 pm
    • Reply

    I love me some Facebook. With some of the people in my life that is the only we still keep in contact. In some ways you could view that as sad but in other ways you could say better that than nothing. I really enjoy to go on there each day and see what people are up to and usually, have a laugh as well!
    Yvette Carol

  14. Amazing, isn’t it? For me, blogging has made the difference between having manuscripts in the closet and having books OUT THERE. Plus new friends and collaborators, some of whom I may never meet in person.

  15. I’m a reviewer and have a blog and most of my review bloggers actually live in Texas. Its weird, too. Because I grew up in Dallas (moved to the sticks 6 yrs ago) and they mainly live in the Houston Area. We have gotten together once but plan on doing it again.

    Get this…we met on a Yahoo group loop. 🙂

    Marika

  16. “All y’all” is correct in Indiana too, and so I’ve carried it with me to Jersey. They need our help. Thanks for introducing me to Ingrid here on your blog

I LOVE hearing your thoughts!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.