How many times has this happened to you?
You’re browsing around, and you spot someone you think might be interesting to follow, so you hit the button.
The response is something like, “Thanks for following because “Ajax Magazine says Darius Hootinannie is the most promising writer west of the Mississippi. His books are available at Junkieworks. com.”
This kind of doo-doo has caused me serious concern about the viability of Twitter as any kind of social networking tool.
Now, at this juncture it might be appropriate to say that I appreciate all follows, and I am WAY too new at this to judge just how much Twitter exposure is going to help my efforts at gaining knowledge – or plying my books – but I have some doubts. I mean, at this writing, I have 217 followers on the bird. Not bad…could be better, but not bad. But I hardly ever hear anything from any of these folks. Not many comments on my posts, not many subsequent follows on this blog – very little of what I had expected. My suspicions are that everyone on twitter wants the same thing. To be followed. So we follow, follow back, the numbers grow and the world goes round and round. But, how much conversation, trading of ideas, chit-chat, comments on articles, do I see? Not as much as I would have imagined – by a long shot.
So. I’m going to look to myself first. At this juncture, due in large part to all the ranting I’ve heard about this much ballyhooed social networking tool, I’m going to rethink my strategy on it’s use. Pay a bit more attention to the folks I’ve followed, and actually increase my participation a bit. Maybe it’s my fault…I’m about to see. After all, all things being equal, social networking is like anything else in life – you get back what you put in. So, I’ll give it another shot – and I’ll let you know. If anyone has had similar experiences, come on by and tell me so.
Thomas
Thomas Rydder 