I jumped into the Twitter frenzy around the middle of April and three days later wrote Seven Things I Learned About Twitter in the First Three Days. Granted, my experience was limited, but there were some things I figured out pretty fast. The biggest thing: anyone prone to communication addiction should stay away.
Being a glutton for punishment, however, I persevered, promising to let everyone know if Twitter helps build blog traffic. The answer is yes. Since I don't tweet about every single blog post, and I can see the number of visits to my blog each day, I can tell that even two tweets a day about that day's post will bring more visitors.
A side note: On the days I also post a notice to any of the Yahoo! Groups I belong to (six at the moment, plus one mystery lovers' list), the number of visits shoots way up.
Here are the other things I like about Twitter:
1. The people I follow tweet links to excellent articles or blog posts that I never would have found on my own.
2. I can follow breaking news and local weather warnings before that information is available on television or radio.
3. Some of my favorite bloggers tweet when they post, which saves me looking up the list from my own blog.
4. I've found a few public figures to follow. I choose the ones who are funny, who seem to tell the truth (although who can really know), and who tweet useful information. I don't think I follow any movie stars, although I understand Elizabeth Taylor is in Twitter World now.
5. I have the option of unfollowing and/or blocking folks who spew venom, spend all their time selling things I don't want to buy, or tweet so often I can't find messages from anyone else.
6. The mind tidbits (tweets) fascinate me. It's like people-watching. Only different. The kind of things writers do to get story ideas.
7. I'll give you a couple of interesting Twitter people to follow if you want to smile: @GayleGresham @wordsbybob. For good information: @problogger @Twitter_Tips. And, of course, me @PStoltey. I try to provide a little of both.
Can you add to my Twitter "smile" list, or to the "information" list?
8 comments:
Thanks for this. I just started using Twitter and often forget to Tweet :)
I'm going to start following those you suggested.
I tweet when I post. (Just had a funny thought. 5 years ago nobody would have had a clue what that sentence meant.) Twitter's upgrade has made it more difficult to unfollow people. Used to be able to click on "Following" and it told you if that person was follow you. Made it easy to unfollow simply by clicking. Now I need to find out how to do this again with their new format.
Patricia, I was one of those people who was really doubtful about Twitter at first...and now I'm one of those people who spends too much time on it!
Thanks for the Twitter links...I'll check them out.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Well, I’ve made some friends on twitter, but, I’m pretty selective about those I follow. For example, if someone I don’t know follows me…that’s the case about 100 percent of the time…I look at the frequency and quality of their tweets, I also visit their web site. If the information they’re providing looks useful—and not too frequent. I’ll usually follow back…at least as a trial. But, if I start getting, “I just fed the cat.” Updates every 5 minutes, well, our relationship doesn’t last. My take: Twitter is good if…if you’re following the right folks.
Best regards, Galen
Imagineering Fiction Blog
Glad you're getting the hang of it!
In the last month or so, I've made several publishing connections, authors who have offered to recommend me to their agent! Maybe Twitter will help me get published :)
I went through a similar learning/familiarity curve with twitter. Takes a while to see what the worth of all the fuss & time is about but it's definitely not only a great networking tool but also a wealth of info can be gotten there.
The Old Silly
I still don't use twitter like I should. I think I wasn't picky enough in the beginning. I need to unfollow some folks so I can more easily find the updates I'm interested in. Still, like you, I have run across some very useful articles I'd never found any other way.
Nope. Not convinced yet. So far, all I can think is, "Why would I care." My Facebook page gets inundated with Twitter feeds that are absolutely meaningless - conversations between strangers.
I prefer quality to quantity, and Twitter seems to be a bigger time suck than it would be worth.
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