While it seems like everyone is on Twitter these days, a lot of writers still hesitate. I was one of them.
I created an account for Writer Mom Life on Twitter in October, but didn’t start to tweet until the last week of December. I was going to wait until January 1, but then I read that the library of Congress was going to stop archiving every single tweet, and I wanted to be sure WML got in there before the end.
I was very resistant to starting to use Twitter. My husband has been tweeting for a few years, and it seemed so complex yet pointless. Being an “older millennial” it wasn’t really around in high school or college, so it didn’t feel as natural to me as Facebook. The only time I usually hear about Twitter was in the same sentence as “drama” or “trolls” or “debate,” none of which sound like fun.
However, I am the kind of person who will at least try something before making a final decision. So I created the account, and decided 2018 would be the year of getting WML out there in the Twittersphere.
Having no idea what to expect, I set myself the goal of posting once a day. This probably isn’t enough to get any significant impact based on standard social media advice, but enough to get me in there and scrolling on a regular basis.
And wouldn’t you know it, I freaking love it. There are some days I am in there five or six times, liking things, retweeting things, and looking for content. That may not be a lot based on how often others are using it, but it’s much more than my initial goal of once a day. I am still in my exploratory/testing phase, and I may calm down a bit once I figure out my goals for it.
For those of you who have been using it for awhile, you may be thinking “no, duh, of course Twitter is awesome.” But if you are on the fence about joining, or have used it a little and aren’t sure about it, here are a few of my favorite things about Twitter so far:
- I discovered people I never would have otherwise. Despite being in a fair number of Facebook groups for self-publishing and writer moms, it’s very limited in terms of what people will reference and link to. I would never like 100+ different pages on Facebook. But following 100+ people on Twitter? Absolutely. And there is so much good stuff out there! This is important for what I want to do with this site. I want to be sure that I am finding resources that are relevant and helpful. I can’t just stick with the three I and everyone in my FB groups like and call it a day. Twitter makes it easy to see a lot of different types of content (provided you actively try to follow different kinds of people).
- I’m learning new skills. It’s a different way of thinking about things than a Facebook status or blog post. While the character limit is longer than it used to be, it’s still shorter than I tend to use for my Facebook updates. It’s never a bad thing for a writer to practice being concise.
- Seeing how others use it gives me ideas. What kinds of things do they post? How often? I can read articles about it, but it’s so much better to just see it “live.” I know most pro accounts use things like Buffer, and I have been testing the free version out a bit this week. It’s interesting to see what pops out to me, and try to figure out why.
Overall, while it still seems complex, and the immediacy is a bit baffling and stressful at times, I am enjoying this experiment. It no longer seems pointless. The value of it depends a lot on how you use it, of course, but even casual users could benefit from increased variety in what they see in their “surfing the web” time (do people still even say that? I should ask Twitter…)
If you’ve been wondering if Twitter is worth your time, I’d say yes. If you have five minutes to scroll through FB, then you have five minutes to find new people to follow on Twitter. The main difference is that you’ll be reaching out to a much bigger world than the more closed communities of Facebook. That can feel scary and confusing sometimes, but when you’re a #writermom, that’s what life usually looks like!
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