Lately, I’m on Twitter all the time. I’m suddenly learning that maybe it isn’t waste of time. I was late to the social media party. I joined Facebook in 2016, more than a decade after everybody else. Here’s something to consider: by jumping on the platform after everyone already figured it out, it was difficult to discover the tricks of the application. No one talks about the cool things you can do with Facebook anymore, everyone just does them. It took me two years to learn that I could “tag” someone in a post. I find it hard to catch up.
I joined Twitter a couple months later. Both Facebook and Twitter were the outlets where I planned to share my writing. I was new to WordPress too. I didn’t understand how people were going to find my blog unless I sent it directly to them.
I set up a Facebook page exclusively for blog posts. They all automatically post there. But no one ever reads that page, no one knows it exists. I marketed it once, I sent out a post with a link, but I’m too self-conscious to do it again. I feel like my flesh-and-blood contacts are sick of Jeff, the writer. They just want witty banter or nothing at all.
I haven’t figured out Twitter. I have a few dozen followers, and I follow about twenty of them. I follow new people all the time, but they all tweet so darn much, I can’t keep up. I get stressed out and fall behind. In variably, I unfollow them all a few days later. My blog posts automatically post on Twitter, too. Those tweets don’t get much action either.
A few weeks ago, my friend Angela, one of the few people I follow on Twitter, connected me with the Good Men Project—An online magazine that explores what it means to be a good man in today’s society. She’s a regular contributor and I asked her about it. She tagged me and her editor in the same tweet, and after a bit of back and forth, they asked me to become a syndicated contributor. That’s a fancy term the Good Men give to someone like me who allows them to mine my blog for stories to republish. We’re like symbiotic species. They constantly find new content, and bloggers like me get much craved exposure.
Once I was accepted, my editor offered some advice. I need to connect to more writers on Twitter… a lot more writers… starting with her. I’m now connected with a small core of her followers. I’m falling behind again, but I’m trying to accept that. Apparently, I don’t need to click every link that’s posted.
So, I’m giving this a try. It’s my big experiment. I’m going to see if I can build a network of writers on Twitter. My hope is that I’ll find new bloggers to follow, and new followers too. The Good Men Project would like me to direct more people to their site, and personally, I’d be happy if more people read the long unread posts they are resurrecting.
If your interested in joining my experiment, let’s connect on Twitter. I want to read the articles and stories you tweet about, and meet your friends who write posts of their own. And if you’re interested, my first syndicated contribution on The Good Men Project is the first story I wrote for this blog: Hi, I’m Jeff.
The Other Stuff 
Well, thank you for the shout out! Twitter can be a fun way to interact with people for sure. Jodi Picoult liked one of my tweets once—granted it was about how her book made me cry, but hey a like is a like!
I have also had an interesting “viral” tweet situation which taught me a lot about a lot. But that’s a long story.
I’m sure your journey will go well. There’s lots of interesting people out there. I’ll tag a few people and introduce you to a couple of folks.
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Thanks Angela, I’m hooked up with your friends. Now we’ll see if I get overwhelmed, So far, I’m doing fine, but I have a snow day today, so I’ve got all the time in the world.
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I hope all my efforts aren’t too overwhelming! I think I’m done for the moment. 🙂
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I see these people who follow thousands. I’ve looked at twitter as sort of an email system where I can consider each tweet individually and fully. I just need to get over that.
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I had to do a twitter clean up about six months ago. I only follow the people I’m interested in–though I still follow more than I’ll ever be able to keep up with. I for one appreciate that you pay attention to each tweet–but I agree, it may not be the best strategy depending on the goal.
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And at least Jodi read your tweet. Stephen King completely ignores me. Sometimes I think he doesn’t really want to be friends,
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Ha!
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Wow that is great, Jeff – glad you found this new connection. One time, long ago, I shared one of my posts of FB. I never created a page – I figured I had told people, ‘hey this is what I am doing go check it out’ and some did that day but never came back. I am on Twitter – I was with a runner’s group. But it became too overwhelming to keep up. So, I don’t really share my stuff. I will find you out there and check out your writing. Congrats on your new endeavor! I think you will do great.
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Yeah, people generally don’t read any of the links I post, even to some really good articles from respected publications. Whereas that’s generally what I’m looking for. I think in general, out side the blogger crowd, we bloggers are seen as somewhat weird.
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I totally agree with you – I think you have even mentioned this before. The second you mention your blog – well, hello eye roll – if not seen visibly, then felt. I rarely mention it and just appreciate the blogger community even more.
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I know if I self-promoted I might have more readers, but like most writers I hate things like “networking” and self-promotion so my audience doesn’t expand…. my own spiraling Catch 22.
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I feel ok doing it on Twitter because I don’t really know anyone. On Facebook I’d be mortified to post something on my timeline. A blogging friend just hooked me up with a huge group on twitter and I wound up “ selling” a bunch of books… so worthwhile I guess
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Did you create a different Twitter account? I might be mis-remembering but I could have sworn I already followed you on Twitter. Regardless, I’ve just followed! I’m glad you posted this, because I had noticed that I hadn’t seen you around on Twitter at all.
I, too, get easily overwhelmed with the volume of tweets to sift through. On the one hand, I want to follow fellow writers and really, truly connect with them. But then, on the other hand, so many of them tweet far too often for me to keep up with. If they were organic tweets, I would actually like that. But I’ve noticed that many seem to be using some sort of service that automatically tweets out the same content on repeat, so sometimes I wonder if there’s really a person on the other side of the keyboard.
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I don’t think we were ever hooked up before. I put zero effort into Twitter before last week. Plus all the people I followed before were runners from the UK (long story). Having a twitter feed where I can’t consider each tweet is strange. It’s not the way I’m used to consuming media. But I’m also noticing that about 60% of my tweets are coming from a couple of people so I thhink I can better control the flow by unfollowing those tweet-mad folks.
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