Twitter, that is. I just don't get it. For the past few months, I have made a concerted effort to figure it out, but honestly, I think it's stupid and I don't want to play anymore. Aside from offering constant freebies as rewards for followers, I have no idea how the heck you're supposed to acquire followers. I don't follow many people, perhaps that's my downfall? Truth is, I find it hard to keep up, unless you stare at it constantly, it seems easy to miss updates (I'm sorry, 'tweets'). I don't use a cell phone to 'text'. OK, I lie. I sent one text -- I got as far as 'hey', then I gave up. Too much work. Perhaps Twitter is better-suited to people with Blackberries, having to run to the computer every time a thought pops into my head is just not practical.
I despise being limited to 140 characters, it drives me bat-shit crazy to mis-spell words or use poor grammar on purpose to save a few characters (I prefer to mis-spell words or use poor grammar accidentally!). The constant spammy nature of Twitter also drives me mental, it's like a whole bunch of people screaming 'look at me' at the same time. There is a Monday night cloth diapering chat, and holy shit, hang on to your hats! Blink and you'll miss 13,973 tweets!
I do have a Facebook group and a blog (well, duh, you're reading it, so clearly you know!), those are my other efforts at social media, I like Facebook because often times I can put a face to the name behind the screen, I like knowing who I'm interacting with. The blog? Well, it lets me spit out more than 140 characters at a time, though I wonder how relevent content is once a few days or weeks have passed -- do people really go back and read previous entries?
So I'm curious, do any of you tweet? From what I've read, most of the people who join don't actually stick with it, so should I just give up already? I tell you, this business of social networking is *exhausting*! If not for the fact my Facebook group is hooked up to my Twitter account, I wouldn't have made it this far. I suppose I could throw up some freebies and bribe people to follow me, but I don't know, it just seems so desperate (and transparent!).
The only good think to come out of Twitter (for me, anyway) is the dude behind shitmydadsays. I defy you to read it and not laugh at least once!
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I tweet. I tweet a lot. I happen to be sitting at my computer for much of the day, so that makes it easy. But I don't worry about keeping up or catching everything. I do check all of my replies and direct messages, but otherwise I just read what is happening while I am online doing other stuff.
ReplyDeleteIf you aren't using a twitter app to read your tweets, that might make things easier. You can have it open in addition to your browser, so if you are doing something else online, you can have your TweetDeck or Twirhl or Seesmic Desktop open next to your browser and see what is going on.
In terms of how to find people to follow, at this point people mostly find me. But when I was just getting started, I followed certain key words that were of interest to find people and just started following people that seemed to be talking about interesting things.
The most important rule of twitter for me is talk to people. It's great if you're doing some giveaways and stuff, but the most important thing is to be having conversations.
I tweet, too. I didn't get it at first. Didn't like it for a long time. Now? I love it! I've made some amazing connections - even met some of them :)
ReplyDeleteI can try and help "hook you up" with a bunch of twitter moms, if you haven't completely thrown in the towel!
www.twitter.com/JackiYo
(I'm the one who did the silent auction for Girls Night In for Cancer - and the winner of your gift certificate would never have known about the auction had it not been for twitter...)
It took me a while to get it too. Once I found some interesting people to follow, it opened up a lot of exchanges of useful information. For example, people I follow (that I have chosen because of similar interests) will post links to the latest development in X subject or dates of interesting events. This way, I find out a lot more about what is happening out there (in my community or North America as I follow people from Canada and the US!) than I would by myself.
ReplyDeleteThere is an entire moms' network in Ottawa as JackiYo said. You need to find one and the others will follow.
Good luck!
If you use tweetdeck, you can keep the #clothdiapers chat open all the time & offer suggestions to random people who ask questions about products you carry....good marketing & no real pressure, just answer the question if you happen to see it....if they like your answer they may buy from you & they will also likely follow you.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Monday chat, come early or stay late & things will be much calmer. Hope that helps.
So how do you find ppl to follow? Currently, I'm only following people I know, b/c I know them, lol. You see, I really am Twitter-impaired!
ReplyDeletesusie ;)
You look up someone who knows other moms (such as @JackiYo above - I am not so much into the moms/babies discussion on Twitter myself) and see in her list of followers/ees who else seems to have similar interests and you follow them (click on "follow" on their profile page).
ReplyDeleteHope this helps!
I have never been on twitter ... I've got enough to do around here already! I do love your blog though. I definitely look back at entries if something comes up and I remember that there was a blog entry on that topic. I also send the info to my husband regularly as well as I try to engage him in our cloth diaper pursuit!
ReplyDeleteI must say I found this blog entry very humorous, and echo many of your same thoughts about twitter! Facebook is great fun, and well, I have only read/ followed a couple of blogs, I just don’t have time for more than that. Since there’s an index on this blog I have gone back and read some of the older blog posts (i.e. when my son started eating solids and diaper changes were getting, well you know...., I was glad to find just that topic – what a great read LOL)! I have found among my friends anyway, that lots of the guys seem to like twitter, especially the ones who aren’t into FB. I have tried to follow my hubby’s twitter, but actually I find it a bit boring, and would really rather catch the status updates on FB!
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, Twitter is a quick and easy way to keep in touch with loyal customers who might not use Facebook or have time to read long blog posts. It's a "one line" opportunity to announce new stock or clearance items and specials.
ReplyDeleteIt's really not the number of followers that is important, IMO. Think of it in high school terms:
Would you rather be the really popular kid that everyone wants to hang out with but no one is really close friends with? Or would you rather have that close tight-knit group of compadres that honestly cares about you and your opinions? ;)
Being popular on Twitter takes a lot of effort (contests, RT requests, etc) with very little return. Supporting your existing customer base by offering a quick and easy way for them to follow the day-by-day stock changes, etc @ the shop is much less work and a lot more useful. ;)
http://dannybrown.me/2009/02/20/the-twitter-rulebook/
ReplyDeletePeople really do go back and read previous entries. I'm doing it now! :)
ReplyDeleteBTW, I hate Twitter too... it makes no sense to me
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