Twitter has just turned 5, which means I spent almost five years being Bah Humbug about the whole thing. “What a waste of my time,” said I. “Who cares what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast?”
But I was wrong. Oh so wrong. On two counts.
It’s not a waste of time if you use it the right way. And it’s not about celebrities – not for me anyway.
I finally yielded because it had become clear over the past twelve months that I couldn’t continue to be a useful advisor to authors and publishers if I wasn’t participating in social media. More and more people want to connect with the writers they read, not just encounter them via the one-way traffic of the printed page.
So I signed up for a course over at AWAI with the modest title of Social Media Expert (!). The first lesson was on Twitter, so I dutifully signed up and got started, as directed. My Twitter account @Belinda_Pollard launched into the Twittersphere as a featherless and somewhat ugly baby bird on Feb 14 2011 – Valentine’s Day, no less!
I floundered around for a while trying to find out who to follow, and was startled (in a good way) when complete strangers began to follow me. I gradually discovered what all the little buttons did, and tried desperately to think of something to say that didn’t sound gormless. And gradually things just started to make sense.
Now I’m really glad that I joined. It’s helped me to help my clients (I blogged about Twitter for emerging authors over on my business website recently). But it’s also been a big help for me personally as a writer.
I have a personal interest in the future of the book, not just a professional one, and I found people tweeting intelligent and thought-provoking things on those topics. I have an interest in spiritual themes, especially Christianity as it intersects with real daily life, and I found some interesting tweeters in that arena too.
I found people to follow who tweeted links to interesting websites, blogs, magazine and newspaper articles on several major topics that interest me and stimulate my thought processes. It was like having a team of researchers surfing the web for me and telling me about the most interesting and relevant stuff in just 140 characters! Bless ’em! I hope that eventually my tweets will be able to contribute something back to them.
What do you think? What has your experience of Twitter been? Are you a Twitter lover or are you still not convinced? Also share the Twitter users who you’ve found most interesting and useful to follow!
I was dragged into Twitter by my sister, somewhat reluctantly, I might add. I didn’t understand what was said and it appeared to be in a foreign language.
Now my only problem is trying to keep up. I will make use of Social Oomph to post but, it takes time to set up. It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions.
I now prefer it to Faceboook.
Hi Nancy, I know what you mean… Twitter is a whole other country, they do things differently there. But once you get over the culture shock, it’s great fun and very useful. I think it’s THE social media site for writers now. I’m always following more writers and it seems I will never run out of them!
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Belinda
Hi Belinda,
I resisted Twitter for a long time too. Just couldn’t get my head around how it could be anything other than shallow over-sharing.
Finally, as I was casting about looking for ways to publicise my new writers’ blog, I decided to give it a go – just 10 days before you did. Like you, I’ve been blown away by just how wrong I was.
I have found the twittersphere to be warm, welcoming and incredibly helpful from a writer/blogger’s point of view, as well as personally.
The only problem is finding the time to keep up with the tweets – each day’s incomings loaded with fascinating, entertaining and educational information.
As a former journalist – in the pre-Twitter days – I’m impressed by the immediacy of information-sharing during big news events. (Not so much depth of analysis, blah, blah, but useful alerts to major developments and pointers to more extensive coverage)
From a promotional perspective, I have been stunned with how quickly you can connect with a target audience.
Lol, do I sound like a convert?
Looking forward to your tweets and future blog posts.
Carina
Hi Carina, thanks for stopping by.
It’s funny how we naysayers can turn into crusaders overnight.
I know what you mean about the time-crunch, with all those fascinating tweets just begging to be read. I am trying to get more organised, and do it within a particular part of my daily timetable. I tweet from a laptop, not a mobile whatnot, and my wireless is on the blink and I’m deliberately leaving it that way… so sometimes, just moving away from my internet connection is quite a successful Twitter time management solution for me.
And I’m trying to use Hootsuite to schedule my tweets so they don’t all come out in one big lump. (Still definitely got my L plates on with all that, I’m a bit trigger-happy, but I’m workin’ on it…)
I also tell myself regularly: it doesn’t matter if I miss something! (No, really, it doesn’t…)
cheers, Belinda
Hi Belinda,
Actually I am a newbie to Twitter as well. I joined just after xmas i think, after i swore that i would never get involved in such a silly idea.
It is fantastic. It is certainly the best place to share and collaborate with other authors.
Enjoy and have a fantastic day
Sarah
Thanks for visiting, Sarah! I’m glad you’re finding Twitter useful too.
For the benefit of others reading these comments… I met Sarah on Twitter just this morning!
It happened like this:
1. I saw a tweet with an interesting link from http://www.writersquarter.com/2011/04/30/k-m-weiland-lucky-13/
2. I liked what KM Weiland had to say in the interview, so I went over to her blog http://www.wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/, read a bit of it, liked it, and followed her on Twitter
3. Twitter offered me a list of people similar to @KMWeiland
4. Top of that list was @SarahKetley, so I had a look at her profile, liked what I saw, and followed her
Within minutes, Sarah sent me a Direct Message thanking me for following her, we tweeted back and forth a bit about the gorgeous weather today and whether we’d be writing (we live only about 40 km apart!), I went to her blog, she went to mine, and hopefully we can now encourage each other as writers. So that’s how it works! Great, huh? 🙂
Hi Belinda,
It’s interesting to read about your Twitter experiences. I have been on Twitter for just over two years, running an account on behalf of Sydney University Press and a personal one. I have written about my experiences on our blog at http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2011/03/sup_twitter_adventures_1.html and also http://ebookish.com.au/australian-publishing/can-social-media-sell-books/
It’s a great tool for writers, publishers, booksellers and anyone interested in books, writing and sharing of knowledge.
Thanks for your comment Agata. I will take a look at your links!