Stop & Chat is a weekly discussion post here at Read. Sleep. Repeat. where we talk about what ever tickles my fancy!
This week’s Stop & Chat was submitted by Chrys of Oh Chrys!. Thank you!!!
Twitter!
The good, the bad, the obsessive checking!
I am completely and irrevocably addicted to twitter. I check it before I go to sleep at night, before I hop out the bed in the morning, while I’m cooking, cleaning, shopping, eating, reading! I’m a complete and total twitter whore, and I’m totally ok with that. Sort of. But Chrys thought it would be a good idea to shine one of those industrial strength flash lights on it, so you can see every angle. Starting with the good stuff!
Author Chatting!
(This can be a double edged sword but I’m going to focus on the good stuff…for now)
One of my most squeal worthy blogging moments was when Shannon Messenger, A.G. Howard and Leigh Bardugo replied to a few tweets I sent out right after I had read their books. I knew twitter was a great marketing tool, and a cool way to meet new people but I NEVER would have thought an author who I may have been a tad obsessed with would see a tweet from little ol’ me, and then REPLY! Author chatting is one of the coolest things about twitter because it takes down those barriers and pedestals. On twitter, we’re all book lovers. Nothing more nothing less!
New friends!
Like I said above, on twitter there are no barriers or pedestals, and that goes for other bloggers as well as authors! When I first joined twitter (for blogging) I was immediately intimidated by all the followers the bigger blogs had. I found myself thinking that they’d never notice my tiny tweets and it was better to just stalk their timeline in silence than to engage in conversation with them. Now, you all know how I am on twitter, so luckily this mindset didn’t last very long! And look at the outcome! I’ve made some fantastic friends and now have confidence to make new blogger friends! I learned that the point of twitter was to ENGAGE in conversation, and that jumping into a twitter convo was not only accepted but encouraged by most! There are some ridiculously sweet and hilarious people on twitter and they were all friendly enough to show me that twitter isn’t a scary monster. Speaking of which, all you book bloggers without twitter, BAD LIFE DECISION! I know it can seem like a bit much but trust me. Friends and author chatting aside it is probably the #1 way of promoting your blog. So, there.
Promotion!
I’ve already covered this, but I want to pound it into your heads! Everything form McDonalds to publishing houses, to authors, to fictional characters has a twitter and it’s not because that little bird is so cute. It’s, because its fast, easy, and spreads your thoughts like wild fire! Do you know how it feels to have someone you have never interacted with retweet your opinions to their of followers?? It feels flipping awesome! Not to mention the audience has a stronger presence, therefore making your tweets seen by more people, pretty much instantly! I’m sure there’s some statistic out there about how twitter reaches more people, but I’m not going to look it up, because I check my stats and the proof is in my pudding.
Let’s move on to the bad!
Drama
No use in running and screaming. Your going to hear this even if you don’t want to, because let’s be honest. Twitter is a magnet for drama.
I don’t know how a site that only allows you to use 140 characters or less can effectively start and promote so much drama! You’ve seen the constant back and forth, the cursing, the angst, the pity parties! But we can’t blame twitter for that. We took down the barriers and pedestals, and with that comes the realization that what you put onto twitter has the potential to be criticized, knocked down, and flat out trampled on. Which can be said for everything in life. No one is happy all the time, and no one can please everyone.
OVER promotion
Remember how I said twitter is a great promotional tool? Yeah we’ll sometimes people want to remind you of that…all day….every hour on the hour. I’m not saying they’re jerks, I’ve scheduled one too many promotional tweets too, but sometimes you have to look at it from your followers view point. If you just tweeted about your review of Pride & Prejudice at 1, is it really necessary to tweet about it again at 1:30? This is probably the biggest nuisance I find within twitter. I get that not everyone went to school for marketing but darn it common sense goes a long way!
Author Chatting!
Yeah, there is a downside to author chatting. Actually there a few. Sometimes, not often, authors may not like your criticism and twitter can and has become a place for them to voice that dislike. Personal thoughts are EVERYWHERE. I’ve seen people unfollow and block authors because their morals conflicted. I’ve also seen people bug an author to the brink of harassment for a RT or reply. It can get pretty ugly out there.
What are some of your favorite (or not so favorite) things about twitter? Share them in the comments!
