Okay, I know a bunch of you are tweeting out there. And much as I hate to acknowledge new technology, an email from Greg Pincus made me realize that I should at least reserve my name. After seeing his advice and the Shrinking Violets' experiment, I decided to jump in. I followed Greg's directions at The Happy Accident and became a Twit.
Now what?
The first thing I've discovered is that Twitter is not as friendly as Facebook. Facebook was easy to figure out. I make comments on a friend's wall and it shows up in relation to their original comment. Twitter doesn't work that way (at least I haven't found a way to make it work that way). All I have are these random replies showing up on my Twitter page that are in response to other people's comments on their Twitter page.
Confused yet? Try reading my Twitter page. Not only does it have my random responses, it has random comments from people I follow. But there's no thread. It makes no sense!
And is it useful? I already have a Facebook account (which I use primarily for finding old highschool and college friends) and this blog, and, oh, yeah, my web page. Sometimes I worry that I'm spending too much time on my computer, and a lot of it is NOT writing time.
So really, I guess the question is how is this helping my writing career and how much information is too much information?
6 comments:
I don't totally get Twitter yet. I agree.. it is hard to figure out what people are talking about! I do occasionally hit upon a tweet with a good URL attached so I keep thinking I should stick with it.
I doubt I will ever Twitter. It sounds like a time suck, and it's confusing... I can hardly keep up with blogs! So Twitter is not even on my list. But good luck! I hope you find it useful somehow. :)
Twitter is easier if you download a "client" - Tweetdeck or twhirl or Seesmic Desktop. They have much better interfaces than Twitter.com.
I also put together (with help!) some Twitter basics - terminology, a few explanations, some helpful links - that might help demystify some of it:
Twitter info
And think of participating in some regular chats to build up some relationships. It's more fun when you have friends!
i always love to hear this :) you are building a platform
I read of a study recently that said a blog tour of 60 blogs yielded no rise in sales for the new novel being boasted. I really think theses are great ways to network but as far as much more than that it remain to be seen.
Corey - It's an experiment for me. Of course, so was this blog 10 months ago...
Glam - I'll let you know if I find it useful!
Greg - Tweetdeck does help. I'll have to check out the other programs. Thanks for the list. That helps too!
Shelli - Always the marketer :)
T. Anne - I'm still on the fence with Twitter, but I have bought books after reading about them on a blog so I think blogging can definitely be a useful tool.
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