the purpose of Twitter
Way back on Monday, April 25, 2011 at precisely 8:07 AM, I emailed Clay Morgan from EduClaytion.com. He and I had established an “easy, breezy, beautiful” rapport; we’d talked on the phone a few times, and for a while, we were on the same cyber-page. But suddenly, Clay had a Twitter icon on his page. And I didn’t.
What the deuce? I thought. So I tapped out a quick note.
Dude, I seriously need to understand Twitter. I either need a 15 year-old girl. Or you. Can you call me?
Clay responded like a firefighter would to a burning building. He emailed me and assured me Twitter was “pretty intuitive” and that I could probably figure it out. He said he had faith in me.
Whaaaat? Twitter? Intuitive? To whom?
Clearly, he did not read this article.
We set up a time to talk.
Then I lost his phone number.
Still, I had every intention of making Twitter priority #1 on my list of Things To Do. (You know, after I got back from Florida. And all the grocery shopping was done. And I had unpacked and put the suitcases away and done all the laundry and scrubbed the baseboards and taken out the garbage and fed the animals.
(Note: We have no pets. Not even a goldfish. Not even an ant.)
I was a little bit horrified that I had so easily morphed into one of the typical student-types: the kid who pretends the deadline hasn’t come and gone, but never goes to talk to the teacher about it.
But Professor Morgan was onto me.
Clearly I was delaying. We set up a time to conference around noon.
After my massage.
(What? I have a long-standing back injury, people.)
On the day of our exciting teleconference, we started with the simple stuff.
Clay explained that, for a writer, the purpose of Twitter is to help network with other writers, to acquire followers, and to spread one’s writing around to other interested readers. He said Twitter can be a place to gather with my fellow writers, where I can find people to hold me accountable to achieve my writing goals, and where I can find people willing to critique my work.
That all sounded good.
He explained it also meant supporting and promoting the people whose writing I adore.
I heard “cheerleader.” I was a cheerleader in high school. I may have lost my splits, but I can still cheer. And if tweeting and re-tweeting my favorite writers’ stuff was going to help them, I could drink that Kool-Aid.
So Clay taught me the basics. About the Timeline. And how to check my Direct Message Box — to see if anyone has sent me a private message.
“How do I know that?”
Clay patiently explained.
He also told me I should always check Mentions to see if anyone has tweeted any of my posts and, if they have, that I should be absolutely certain to send that person a short thank-you.
“It’s Twit-tiquette,” Clay explained.
He taught me about how to set up a list of my most favorite bloggers. And while we were on the phone, I understood everything perfectly.
Clay was extremely patient and gracious. And then, like any good therapist smart person with outstanding time management skills, after one hour, he announced our session was up.
Whaaaat?
“I haven’t mastered this yet!” I whined.
He assured me that I’d figure it out if I played around with it a bit.
I thanked Clay for “eduClayting” me, and I messed around on Twitter for a while.
I tried to send messages to the people I knew best.
Eventually, I got a response from Clay himself.
Whaaaaat? I was sending messages to myself? Awk.Ward.
I tried to figure out that mess. And I set out again.
This time I heard back from Leanne Shirtliffe aka: Ironic Mom.
After a few weeks, I saw I got my first retweet! And then I got a RT from Mark Kaplowitz, someone whose writing I really like:
And then that started to happen more and more.
Eventually, I figured out the secret language of hashtags: the weird letters that come after the numbers’ symbol (#). Like #MyWana. Or #IYKWIM. For a while, I felt like I sitting alone at a table in the middle school cafeteria, and everyone knew everyone else and everyone knew what they were doing – everyone except me. But then I learned that you can Google these letters after the number symbol and find out the inside joke. And boom, I was instantly sitting at the cool kids’ table because I was speaking the same language.
And guess what, writer tweeps are a lot nicer than the mean girls in middle school.
The big moment came when author Kristen Lamb sent me a tweet. I would post it, but it’s kind of like looking into the sun. Too much truth. Your pupils might burn, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.
These days, I have myself on a strict Twitter diet. I check in three times a week, spend 15 minutes responding to people, sending thank-yous, and trying to connect with one new person. I literally set a timer. It is really easy for Twitter to become a time suck.
Alas, now that all this time has passed, I don’t remember how to add people to that list Clay helped me to create. Also, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that list. I think it was supposed to save me time somehow. I’m not really sure. So that’s not great.
I told Clay that I was going to write a blog about how much he helped me.
I estimated that I would have that post written by late August.
So I’m a little ahead of schedule.
But I really need to work on my fall curriculum. And my book.
You remember, my book?
The thing that started all of this…
Yeah.
It’s calling me.
Gotta run.
Do you use Twitter? If so, who taught you? And what do you get out of it? Any funny stories about stuff that has happened to you while you were learning to tweet? What are your Twitter woes?
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