I suck at social media, how do you do it?

Is it me... or does every blogger seem to have a really easy/open relationship with social media networks? How can this be? I'm not a busy person. I spend most of my days (at least lately) at home, within 2 feet of either my computer or iPhone and I still can't get the hang of this. And replying emails? I'm horrible at it. Don't get me wrong -- I have links to all my accounts (email included) on my right sidebar. But if you actually click them, I rarely update/post/tweet anything other than my latest blog post or an occasional pin and apparently you're not supposed to do that! Oops.

Here are some of my issues:


Facebook - I read an article that said if you don't have Facebook it's a "red flag" and you're considered suspicious. Really? The only reason I have a personal Facebook account is so I can have a Facebook page for my blog. But ever since I've had it all I do is link my blog posts to my Facebook page. I thought it would be a good idea, but instead it's turned into one more thing I can't get a handle on. It's boring to me, and it's mine -- it must be horrible to follow it. It's also a pain --I'll get a notification that someone commented on my link, or they liked my page but when I click it I can't find the comment, or the person's name who just liked the page. How am I supposed to interact with people when Facebook makes it so difficult?


Twitter - Twitter's nice because people only have 140 characters to get their point across -- it's quick, but now I see links for "extended tweets" -- what the heck are those? I don't understand Twitter. Are you talking to me? Am I talking to you? How do you retweet? Why do you retweet? I love reading celebrity twitter accounts; especially Amanda Bynes. But I don't feel that me sitting on my couch and watching Gilmore Girls is necessarily tweet worthy. How do you decide what to share? My tweets would actually be the same every day -- since I follow the same routine every day. That is just asking to end up on Dateline.


Pinterest - I was under the impression that Pinterest was just to bookmark things for yourself? Why do you have followers for such a thing? Are we not just pinning other people's ideas? No? I have no idea. I tried to make my "own" boards, as in pin pictures of my house, and I'm thinking who am I kidding? I'm no interior designer. Why not just pin straight from the source? Also, how do people pin so often? I forget about Pinterest for weeks at a time, and then I'll go on a pinning-spree. I still only have about 400 pins. Most people have thousands. How? I'd like to know these tricks. And yes, I have the "pin this" Google Chrome extension. It doesn't help me.


Instagram - I love me some instagram. But how does everyone know what hashtags to use? Are you making them up just like I am? No? Is there a list somewhere? And how do people have such amazing things to post pictures of? If you look at my instagram account, there will be 10 pictures straight of my cats. Boring. Also, I've had the account for over 2 years. I have less than 500 pictures. Sean has had his account for half that amount of time and has double the amount of pictures as me. I mean... I have an iPhone -- why can't I get my act together and snap a pic?

Those are just four sites that I try to use. I feel like I can't even add Vine, or Keek, or Google+, or anything else to the mix. I can't get down the four basics -- ones that aren't even new in any shape or form.

So I'm wondering (any feedback on this would be appreciated!)... does monitoring your social media sites come easily to you? Do you enjoy them? Do they feel like a chore? How do you decide what to post AND where -- or do you just post everything everywhere? Does it annoy you to see someone's instagram picture also posted on their blog and then again on Twitter? If someone follows you on something, do you immediately follow them back? I'm curious, interested and baffled all at once.

I'm all ears...