14. Everyone on Twitter is looking for the next big thing or most interesting piece of content to link to. Wouldn’t you rather be the big thing than merely another person pointing at it? – via @jeffbullas
I have enjoyed and toyed with Twitter since I first signed up in December 2008, not expecting the journey to be so much fun and so transformational.
For the first few months I sent the occasional tweet, connected with a few friends and watched the stream pass by, at the time I often said “I don’t know what to say”.
Then suddenly I started to really get into the swing of things, connecting with people from around the world, enjoying ‘chat’s, being as inventive as I could with my 140 character ‘tweets’. I learned about #ff aka #followfriday, #traveltuesday and about #trending topics.
I spent hours following links and reading about places and finding out things I never knew existed. In fact I have since become quite addicted….I could seriously live on twitter; all day! I often tell my daughter I was born to twitter! 🙂 and along the way I have ‘met’ some wonderful people, and consider them great online friends.
In March 2009 I started this blog inspired by the content, search engine optimisation, social media inspiration and evangelism provided by Hubspot. I already had a blog which I started in November 2008, where I wrote about my travels and things that inspired me, although since starting this blog I have been very slack about keeping it up to date.
I then waded in a bit deeper and started to use tools and apps like TweetDeck and Bit.ly, Social Oomph, Hootsuite and Ping.fm to integrate with Twitter. I started to follow the ‘experts’, reading as much as possible on what they call Social Media.
I have since become quite the ‘geek’ as my daughter puts it and have my favourites to follow eg @jeffbullas @chrisbrogan @mashable @marismith (facebook expert) and @sethgodin (squidoo & tribes) amongst others. I have learned so much that my brain bursts with info; info that pops out from time to time and amazes me that I know that stuff 🙂
One of my favourite tweeters/bloggers to follow is @jeffbullas and I have gained invaluable knowledge from reading his posts, some of which are incredibly funny. His blog posts are informative, useful and educational. I read voraciously. He also advocates the blog before twitter aspect of social media, so of course…I listened to the teacher….
…and have subsequently become quite the blogger. I now have 5 blogs, some more active than others, and 6 twitter accounts. I also run 3 facebook accounts! How bizarre! Consider this: 10 years ago it was all I could do to send an email, and now just over 18 months later……..
I guess I have learned my lessons well; today to my absolute delight, I was asked by an online community in Richmond if they could feature my latest blog on Twickenham!! Thanks to all my teachers.
Congratulations!
And thanks for posting this. I’ve been slow to get into Twitter and you’ve given me some good ideas.
Hi Thomas, you are most welcome. I am so glad you found it useful. I love twitter and quite happily spend my day tweeting 🙂 lets connect…find me @notjustagranny I would also suggest you follow @jeffbullas he provides brilliant content and loads of great ideas.
Cheers and enjoy your day
Cindy
As a new blogger, sharing your experience and insight really helps. Just starting to venture into Twitter and thanks to your post, signed up for hootsuite as well. It is amazing the amount of social media tools that are out there these days – truly has been a learning experience. Any advice on how to find the best to follow on Twitter? My focus is on planning for retirement (not focusing on the financial but everything else that goes into retirement). Appreciate your advice and keep on posting!
Hi DJ, thanks so much for dropping by 🙂 great to make your acquaintance. I am a twitter addict so you have come to the right person. Follow people you have the most in common with to start with. use hashtag keywords like #retirement #travel #golf or whatever you interest is when you post tweets, and ppl will follow you if they find it interesting. use the same principle with finding ppl to follow eg. in the search bar type in keywords of your interests and when the page opens up you can read their tweets and follow those you like. you are more than welcome to follow me; i have a few profiles: @notjustagranny @3days_in_london @junketadvisor @unltd_traveller @tweetingangel & @whatgrannysays. some are more active than others and I use them for different aspects of my interests, but it takes a load of work to keep them updated :). Not that I mind coz i LOVE twitter. good luck and see you there. also for great advise always of social media etc follow @jeffbullas, provides creat content