My Twitter confession
On Monday I created a Twitter profile. You might be thinking I'm behind. It's true. I confess to resisting. I wouldn't do it even when my employer started tweeting.
All these communities and email accounts - I didn't want one more site to have to log in to, another password to remember, another type of notification to create a folder for and then not read for two weeks. My 19-year-old brother just created a political community and invited me to join. Nope. Not doing it.
I'm just not convinced that I have to be that connected.
So why did I decide to join Twitter? ASAE's Component Relations section has monthly virtual lunches. I like to sign up as soon as I get the notification. Unfortunately, sometimes I have to work through even a virtual lunch. This month's promo said, "Join the discussion using #CRPLunch on Twitter." I'm sure it says it every month. But this time it made me think, "If I miss it again, I can go on Twitter and see what I missed." The lunch was on Tuesday.
There I was -- a bright and shiny newbie. I uploaded my photo, created a bio that was too long, edited it. Still too long. Edited it again. Three more words had to go! Finally done. Figured out how to follow NJSCPA. Now what is this whole "hashtag" thing? Was I supposed to follow it? I searched for it and Peggy Hoffman's name came up. She was past chair of the Component Relations Section, comments on the listserve a lot, commented on one of my Acronym posts - so, I followed her, assuming that would get me the event discussion. (I hear you laughing at me!) Later, I was alerted that Peggy was following me. Cool. I hadn't even tweeted yet.
On Tuesday, I connected to the lunch and opened Twitter. Where was the discussion? Where was Peggy? I searched for #CRPLunch. Ahh, there it was. I saved the search. I didn't tweet anything to the discussion. I thought I'd screw it up.
It was a great lunch, and I found the tweets to be a great way to record ideas as they happen. And I didn't have to keep tedious notes.
Someone I don't know followed me this morning. Do I keep it all professional or throw in some personal stuff? I still haven't tweeted. I guess I'll figure it all out and come up with something to say, edit it, and finally hit Tweet.
I'd love to hear your Twitter story - why you signed up and how it's valuable to you. And, Peggy, I'll still be following you!
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Comments
Thanks for sharing this. When I first heard about twitter I couldn't imagine how it would be useful to me. Now it has transformed my ability to filter news and information and make it available to my members in a valuable format. I use tweetdeck to monitor those feeds in which I am interested. Tweetdeck also makes it easy for me to disseminate my tweets across all of my social media outlets (FB, LI, etc.)as well as feeding them directly to our website. This keeps the site looking active and current. I recently started using paper.li to automatically generate a weekly aggregation of everything I'm tweeting. http://paper.li/nellcoinc/nellco This provides members who don't tweet with a current awareness source. If they look at it each week they can stay current in our profession without needing to follow twitter. Twitter has definitely revolutionized communication for NELLCO. I hope you have a good outcome, too. Good luck!
Posted by: Tracy Thompson-Przylucki | April 4, 2011 10:01 AM
@animal made me join.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 4, 2011 10:29 AM
I feel like a lot of people have had a moment similar to yours: on the fence about joining a new thing but then end up doing it because of one reason that makes it necessary. Once you arrive, you find more and more reasons and sort of get sucked in.
The truth is, there is only going to be more of this type of social technology catching on in the mainstream. Even if you choose not to speak, there's great value in being involved just to listen (as you're doing now). When you finally find a reasons to speak, it might feel great.
I think, when it comes to adopting new technology, that the best time to get involved would have been a year ago. The next best time is today.
Congrats for jumping in. I look forward to your first words!
Posted by: andrew | April 4, 2011 11:05 AM
Carolyn, welcome to Twitter! There is all kinds of helpful information out there...Mashable has some fabulous articles to start you out on the right path with their Twitter Guidebook: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/.
The guidebook answers questions similar to what you are asking in your post - give it a look-see and see what you think.
Every Tuesday at 2 pm ET, there is Association Chat (self disclosure: I moderate it) that uses the hashtag #assnchat. From 2 to 3 pm ET, people from all over participate in the chat and talk about all sorts of association-related topics. Last week's topic had to do with freemium membership models.
I think you'll also get a kick out of "Evolution of a Twitter user" at http://thelearningnation.blogspot.com/2011/02/evolution-of-twitter-user.html.
Everyone starts out by wondering how they can use Twitter to get any value at all - I admire the fact you have figured that part out so quickly and are looking for ways to move beyond it. In 2007 I created my first Twitter profile, played with it a few days and then didn't touch it for three months. Now it is the first thing I check in the morning after I wake up.
Kudos to you! Feel free to follow me on Twitter! I'm @kikilitalien.
Posted by: KiKi L'Italien | April 4, 2011 11:38 AM
My 22-year old college student laughed the first time I told him about Twitter. He thought it was a silly thing for older people.
He now has a Twitter account, though he never tweets. He communicates with peers by cell or text, and professionally (he's on an association Board of Directors) by email.
He created the Twitter account to be alerted to items he wanted to view online - as soon as they were available.
Posted by: David M. Patt, CAE | April 4, 2011 12:28 PM
Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement and suggestions and the follows! My husband just said, "I want to have a Twitter account so I can follow you." Aaw, I feel so popular! See, I'm such a newbie that I didn't even include how to find me on twitter. I'm @Carolyn_Hook and have now made 3 tweets. See you there!
Posted by: Carolyn Hook | April 4, 2011 8:38 PM
Love, love love the blog! So encouraging to see you started twitter as part of ASAE. It's such a great place to learn and grow. Also love that you did follow the CRP hash tag. Sometimes Amalea and I get lonely we'd love to see you. You can't do it wrong, and heck, if I can you can. I'm sure I've already scrwed it up. Follow me too @hduckworth.
Holly
Posted by: Holly Duckworth, CAE, CMP | April 5, 2011 3:26 PM
Love the post (and comments) and the willingness to jump in. I too started for a specific reason - that reason has evolved and too has my approach (so I mix personal and professional) ... it'll always be evolving. Enjoy!
Posted by: Peggy Hoffman | April 5, 2011 3:28 PM