As an author or aspiring author, you need to use social networks to help create your platform and, eventually, promote and sell your books.

Yet, social networks can eat hours or days of your time with little impact. This is because social networks aren’t generally built in a day. If your social network is going to work for you, you want it to be filled with people who know and love you.

Should you friend or follow just anyone who asks? I say no. Be picky. That way, when you send messages or invitations to people on your list, you know they actually care and that they won’t report your communications as spam, for one thing.

If you’re a busy and successful professional, I suggest just taking a couple of hours a week to build your networks and friend/follow people on Facebook, Linked in, twitter, etc. whom you know well from different walks of life.

If you are just joining these networks, create a profile. Ask colleagues for recommendations on Linked In.

Then try a few apps (applications). Here’s the latest application I tried on linked in. It’s a one question poll on whether you want to write a book in the near future. I’m wondering how it’ll work. Here, you can take the poll right here.

I’d love to hear from you. What social networks do you belong to? What strategies do you use? What are your favorite apps?