Staying Current with Social Media - Panic!

A confession - I am feeling a bit behind again. On the eve of Hip and Sage hitting stores, I feel like I am not keeping up. This is not an unusual feeling, I am sure, because things are changing so much. Here are the questions/concerns on my list and that I hope to answer this month:

• Have my sites fallen behind in terms of SEO (search engine optimization)? I am worried that I am not doing key words right or making it easy for searchers to find me and readers to share posts. The rules for doing this well have changed and will keep changing. For example, I saw something that said using WYSIWYG editors for posts lowers SEO because of all the excess code in the posts that get in the way of bots finding the content. How big of a deal is this? I know basic HTML, so I could go back to that if needed. When I search for my own blog posts, sometimes I don't come up - why is that happening? Some of my posts used to come up very high but now don't come up in the first several pages - have I messed something up?
• I am not participating in any posting carnivals - should I get back into that to reach new readers? Blog post carnivals are a good way to find targeted readers because they are topical - the Carnival of HR, for example, shares only HR related posts.
• Should I be paying more attention to growing readership? I am posting and participating, but I have not done much lately (except posting and participating) that would help me grow readership. Perhaps I need to link more...
• What are the NEW rules to growing readership? It used to be that if you offered great content, people would find you and come. But now that there are gazillions of blogs and dozens of competing social networking sites, I think we need to do more to stay in the game. The problem is, I am not quite sure I know what that MORE is and I am a bit panicky about that. I should know!
• How many tools/sites are enough? I am thinking that I should focus a bit more and be a better member to fewer sites. I don't have the time - or the interest - to stay really active with much more than my blogs and one or two social networking sites. What goes? How do I decide? What about all the NEW sites I have not tried yet? Which ones are best suited for me? I think I need a social media selection coach - is there such a thing?

OK, that list is long enough to frustrate me into action. Let me know if you have any ideas for me, OK?