I use the word "folks" all the time, both in conversation and writing. I almost never use the word "people" either.
I say: "Thems folk down the road" not "Those neighbors down the road" or "Those people down the road"
I say: "Folks around here..." not "People around here..."
I say: "We has got new folks moving in over there." not "There are new people moving in next door"
But I never use the term "hi folks" that just sounds weird on my ears and before reading this thread, I can't recall ever seeing it or hearing it used before.
Maybe we Mainers just talk funny? (Tourists from the lower 48 are always telling us Maine folk we talk weird.) I can't say as I've ever heard anyone other tourists who didn't use the word "folk" every day. It's just normal way we talk around here and we always find the summer tourists to be the strange ones even though they tell us we be the strange folk.
I write the way I talk too, and it drives editors crazy. Editors always do a jaw drop when they see my manuscripts, they say I have the worst English they've ever seen. My books read the way I talk too, because I won't let editors edit out my "bad" or "broken" English as they call it. This is the way my people talk and the characters in all my books are the same race & culture as me (I don't write white characters) and all my characters live in my hometown as well. If I let editos change the way my books were written, they'd be editing out the "local flavour" which says, "these characters are from this town". This is who we are. This is how we talk. I don't like it when editors try to make my stories "appeal to mainstream readers". I'm not writing for white folks, I'm writing for local folks, and local readers want characters who ACCURATELY represent how we think, act, and talk, even if we do think, act, and talk in bad or broken English.
I wondering if editing out regional lingos of authors, causes our books overall to be less diverse? I think it does, that's why I won't let editors remove the regional "speak" of my characters dialogue.