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Welcome to our weekly BlogAnon meeting where we confess a particular blogging sin and turn to you for support, suggestions and that blogging bond so we know we're not all alone. Don't be shy. Read along and let us know if you identify with us this week.
Whenever I log on to Twitter I get the song "Rockin' Robin" stuck in my head thanks to all the tweet, tweet, tweetily deettily deets in the chorus. No offense to Bobby Day, but thankfully I don't Tweet all that often. I feel like a social media failure and I'm at a crossroads.
I have shared my Twitter experience, to try to learn what this fad turned legit outlet is all about. And I have had a lot of great experiences. I have also had some struggles. It is not unlike blogging in that regard. But I don't have time to become a part of a meaningful community everywhere.
I only have so much of my personal time to give to the cause of developing online relationships. And no - I don't mean love connections. I mean collaborations of ideas, introductions to new things and the building of friendships - real, not virtual. I want more than a big list of followers I don't know. I'm all about quality - not quantity. I didn't like the popularity contests in high school, and my small but loyal circle of friends from those days has a much stronger bond than any wall of followers ever could.
Gwen @ Chew & Digest Books played a big part in making this Twitter experience more personalized by introducing me to Mixero. Mixero is a program that takes your Twitter account and presents it in a very cool, orderly way that makes viewing and filtering information from Twitter so much easier. It lets me do all kinds of fantastic things such as cutting out all of the noise of responses to random people I don't know and conversations I don't care about. I can choose to read only the person's actual tweets. I can set up a tray of groups that then allows me to select which member's tweets I want to scroll through on their own instead of sifting through the entire set of everyone's all together. Less of the good stuff gets lost in the shuffle.
My love for Mixero aside, I still can't muster up the energy to visit Twits often. Yes, I know. Twits is not exactly an official term. But it's what I can't help but say in my head as I read about mindless details of everyone's day. There just aren't enough serious tweeters out there. Half the time they are just links to posts that I have already seen via my feed reader. Plus, I personally never know what to tweet about. I don't want to share minutia and I don't want to do only self-promotion. So what am I supposed to do? I am supposed to interact and build relationships while competing with a bunch of other people for attention via quick hits.
I have found that I prefer to be verbose. I prefer to write blog posts that break all rules on length convention. I prefer to spend my time blog hopping and delving into a blogger's heart and soul. Rolling up my sleeves and having a conversation that digs deep. I do use Twitter to test out blogs that are new to me - since most everyone tweets their post links. And I like to participate in group activities or Tweet-ups to meet other like-minded twits...er folks.
I'm not abandoning Twitter. It serves a purpose. Just not one that lures me in like it seems to do for others. And not for nothin', but any big time site that needs another program to filter and make the experience usable isn't going to attract and keep the older, non-techies like moi. If Twitter looked like Mixero from the get go I would have fallen hard and fast. But even that shine has worn off a bit.
What am I missing about Twitter? Do you use any social media outside of blogging? How do you find the time? What purpose does it serve for you? In relation to bloggers, are Twitter and Facebook just a way to solve the interactive restrictions of blogging?
14 comments:
Hi Molly, as I think I said before, I have an account with both Facebook and Twitter. However, I really don't use them. I pretty much stick with Blogger.
I really respect your position on quality vs. quantity. When I first started blogging, and everything was so new, the more followers the better. I've since learned that the numbers mean nothing, and there are so many people who "follow" me with whom I have no real connection. Over the last few months, I have reviewed the list of blogs I follow, and have stopped following well over a hundred. As you say, a few good relationships are better than many transparent ones.
I loathe Facebook, but can see the sense in Twitter. The problem is, I don't have time for it. I don't use a managing device for Twitter, but Mixero sounds interesting. I tweet my latest post in case anyone is interested, and I try to remember to tweet great websites I find. Occasionally I luck onto a useful tweet, but mostly I have Twitter shut so i can get on with my work - researching posts and writing them!
If people tweet about their breakfast etc and I see that, I unfollow them, because I need to cut anything that wastes my time.
I do love Twitter -- what can I say? I don't get Facebook and LinkedIn and all those *.ning (or whatever they are) sites.
I use Tweet Deck which is a pretty powerful twitter program but I'm going to check out Mixero too.
What am I missing about Twitter? No worries Molly-I really don't think you are missing much! I found that twitter was just a place where you can post a status of what you are doing, yet who really cares? You have a character limit so it's normally like: "Washing clothes"
Yeah, no one cares. At least I found I didn't. I abandoned Twitter quickly. I use it only for Jimmy Eat World and BBC News America. That's about it :)
Do you use any social media outside of blogging? Facebook. Just to keep in touch with a lot of message board folks and obscure family members I wouldn't normally speak to anyway :)
How do you find the time? I am really bad about FB. I do a lot of stuff via my phone. When I feel like actually logging in on my home computer I do try to visit folks and make comments but it's only about once a week.
What purpose does it serve for you? I like it because you can see pictures, have discussions and keep up to date on friends. I have tons of friends from the JEW message board that I love to talk to but I am crappy about emailing and messaging. With FB I can just log in and they are all right there lumped together. I find that I keep in touch with more people using it.
Hope I was of some help :)
You should get FB!
well, you have given Twitter more of a chance than I did. I really don't have the time to keep up with the conversations. I don't understand how people can be so attached to Twitter.
I do Facebook and look at it in the morning and at night. I find it useful in keeping up with extended family and friends, especially the ones we don't see very often. I like that most people include pictures. And it has been instrumental for this class secretary to keep up with everyone while planning our 20 year HS reunion.
I do keep FB separate from my blog. FB is only for people I know face to face. If we ever meet I'd be happy to have you as a FBfriend ;)
well, you have given Twitter more of a chance than I did. I really don't have the time to keep up with the conversations. I don't understand how people can be so attached to Twitter.
I do Facebook and look at it in the morning and at night. I find it useful in keeping up with extended family and friends, especially the ones we don't see very often. I like that most people include pictures. And it has been instrumental for this class secretary to keep up with everyone while planning our 20 year HS reunion.
I do keep FB separate from my blog. FB is only for people I know face to face. If we ever meet I'd be happy to have you as a FBfriend ;)
I agree, 140 characters just isn't enough for me....heck, I use almost that many commas!
Blogging is about all I can keep up with and a little Facebook every day...mostly I play Lexulous with a friend.
I really, really like my little circle of friends who visit my blog, that includes you, chickie.
Molly:
"I prefer to spend my time blog hopping and delving into a blogger's heart and soul. Rolling up my sleeves and having a conversation that digs deep."
I adore that and completely. agree, makes the "brave new world" you reminded me of far more hopeful really.
I have a Twitter account but I seldom go there. When I first started on Twitter I added most of the blogs I followed to my Twitter list. There was one blogger who was so horrid in her tweets that I stopped following her. I assumed that was her real personality. I hardly ever go to her blog anymore even though it's excellent and one of the top book blogs.
Maybe it has something to do with the people you are following. I have found twitter to be the best way to make a real connection with people. Sure, there are those that only tweet what they are eating or where they are, but if you delve in, there are some great nuggets of awesomeness.
My issue lately is that it can be a HUGE time suck if you don't watch it. I need to learn that it is okay not to pay attention and that if that link/post/tweet is really life changing, I will see it again.
I can't give you much help here. I use Facebook to chat with my non-blogging (and some blogging) friends, and it works quite well for me. I will get on Twitter if I'm bored and have no access to my computer or a book. I lurk, see what people are talking about, and if timely, I will throw in a word or two, adding virtually nothing to the conversation. I just can't be on there as much as I need to be I guess. Otherwise I would never get anything done!
I do very little conversing on Twitter; sticking to the 140 cpm speed limit is annoying. I have Seesmic desktop installed, and while I'm sitting at the computer, it is running-- keeping me updated on both Tweets and FB status changes-- but I no more sit here with my eyes glued to it than I cut my hair with a weedeater.
What I have found is that it can be an excellent news-gathering tool; it can widely disseminate your blog posts; and it can be a great way to get a quick answer to a question.
If you can glean just exactly what you want out of it, it's no time suck. You need to use it-- not let it use you.
I also prefer blogging and facebook. You're right that it's either minutiae, or links. I usually tweet my blog posts to hopefully drive some traffic there. Who knows? I did one twitter party, and I used tweet deck. That was pretty fun, but for day to day use, I have to weed through so much to get to what I want.
I prefer blogging to Twitter. I signed up for Twitter a few weeks ago and tried it for about an hour and quickly grew bored with it. I'm sure I didn't know what the heck I was doing and that was part of the problem but I just can't get into the little sound bites of information. I have so many things competing for my time that I just have to stop the "madness" somewhere.
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