I am no social media, media or technology expert. I'm a user. Just a common, everyday person using the 'net. Not defining it. Not creating it or working behind the scenes. Just a user. I'm not even an early adopter. I came to twitter late and have only really gotten into it over the past 8-10 months having discovered how to use it to my liking. Now I love it. Am I addicted? Yes, a bit. But no, I haven't got FOMS*
What have I learned? That if you follow boring people, twitter is boring. That you follow topics you're not interested in then it's not interesting. That if you follow people who do not communicate back, it's uncommunicative.
But when you follow the people and topics of interest, it's engaging, informative, funny and relevant to your interests or work. Twitter offers the ability to connect with like minded people on a personal level, yet on an international scale. It's like having pen pals who scribble eachother quick notes, or as one of my twitter friends said, a bit like being at a party and just chatting to people. I've seen jokes groaned over, discussions embarked upon, advice and opinion sought, depression cheered, learning, professionalism and knowledge shared and friendships made. My interaction with twitter has been about thoughts rather than actions and discovering great blogs, articles, websites, seminars and information rather than just telling people what I've been doing which is how my friends seem to use Facebook, for instance, posting images of their meals (nothing against Facebook, it's just a different interaction).
Does tweeting take away from my "live" friendships and interactions with people around me? No, of course not. I still see my friends, and if anything it has made me more open to talking with strangers around me.
Perhaps this is freedom of speech at its best, most raw and self regulated. Being a written form and humour, irony and sarcasm simply do not come across well, especially in 140 characters. We all learnt that lesson with email 10 yrs ago. Expression of tone can be difficult in the written form when writing conversationally.
The social media vs answerability and privacy debate will continue. But social media is still new and shiny we have a wonderful opportunity for a collective look in the mirror and some self responsibility and self regulation, old fashioned-community style. The legal and moral responsibilities were discussed with common sense by the BBC this week. No need to repeat here. Yeah. What they said.
At the end of the day everyone wants to live in a community without threat or fear, but with open knowledge. We have a great opportunity to make social media that place. Not the village gossip centre or the place of inciting hatred or fear. It comes down to a personal decision. On twitter as with life, they're the places and people with whom I choose not to hang out.
Enough of the heavy stuff. This was just supposed to be a quick top 10 guidelines for the curious. What has worked for me might not work for you but may assist just to get you thinking as to how you might use these new fangled technologies.
Speaking of new fangled technologies, a friend told me the other day that she does not have word on her computer. Or any word processing programme. Wot?? I was flabbergasted and felt like asking if she had moved from quill to biro yet.
No matter. To the point:
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1. I Don't Follow Celebrities.
Generally these are about famous people sending stuff out and its all one way. For me it got very boring very quickly.
I've recently put to the test (again). After the "Top 50 Media Movers and Shakers on Twitter" article in The Age, I followed a few and yes, they were boring, not interactive and I unfollowed. I've figured out I'm not the fangirl type.
2. I Follow People who are Interested in things I'm Interested in.
Movies, music, shoes, knitting, fashion, ornithology, cycling, photography, geology, stamp collecting, carpet weaving, history of shoelaces... any subject area will have an active twitter community. Ok I'm not so sure about history of shoelaces though I'll check. You can gain lots of connections, knowledge, interesting articles etc about any field of choice.
3. I Don't Follow people I Already Know.
Unless there is a reason of course. For me twitter is about expanding out rather than circulating within groups I know.
4. I Do Follow Institutions.
Somewhere I read never to follow institutions which seems insane. They're fabulous. The ones that don't keep up their accounts and are just bad, like any bad account. The good ones are great.
5. I Don't Follow Automated Accounts.
You can tell. You just can. There is no-one there, its just a programmed feed. This is social media and needs to be more social than media.
6. I Don't Follow Bad Accounts.
This sounds obvious but on occasion I've wanted that person/place to be a great/informative/responsive tweeter, but they're just not. Pity. #unfollow.
7. I Clean out my Following List Every So Often.
Don't be scared to Unfollow. Twitter is a buffet of people, topics, places, discussions and you can move about them freely. It's not as impolite as "unfriending" in Facebook and does not have the emotional connection of that. Follow, unfollow, move around as you see fit. Again, like mingling at a party.
8. I'm a Bit Scared of Following Lots of People.
Let's just say I prefer small groups to big crowds. If I follow 2,0000 people I suspect it will be less personal, less interactive and a bit bamboozling. Maybe I should test this one out. Hmm. Or maybe you can tweet me the benefits while I just sit in the corner.
9. I Live Tweet Selectively.
This is when you're following what people are tweeting as you watch a TV programme or listening to a radio show (for instance).
The thing about live tweeting is that you can end up having an interesting discussion with strangers after the show is over. Sometimes with experts you've never met, or just with different minds. Yes, the tossers pitch in some rubbish, but just ignore that and go for the good stuff. However, if the programme is mindless so shall be the tweeting.
10. Tweet responsibly and Play Nice.
What you put in is what you get out of it.
Further Reading:
Media Movers and Shakers on Twitter
What Can and Can't you Say on Twitter?
Twitter Hoaxer Comes Clean
Twitter Being Sued
Don't be Ignorant about How public the Internet is.
(Ok a bit off topic but a great article.)
And would you believe a matter of hours after posting this, Mike Rendell sends through a blog on the history of shoelaces!
*Fear Of Missing Out
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