So, I keep seeing this question pop up on various social networking groups…
“Are you on Twitter?”
Well, yes, I have a Twitter account. @ISDNVoiceover
And I have people who actively follow my tweets. Or have at least clicked on the link to Follow Me. And many of them will probably see this post when it gets fed to the various places it gets fed to when it is published.
But am I ON Twitter? Not very much.
I still don’t get it. Unless I am using it all wrong, it seems like a pull website. Where I have to go to it and pull the information. OK, Facebook is that way too, but for some reason I WANT to go to Facebook and check out what is happening. I just don’t find myself drawn to Twitter the same way.
Perhaps I just need someone to break it down for me. Talk to me like I’m six years old. Wait, the six year olds probably don’t need to be told. It is now in their DNA.
Haha… Connie, I think you nailed it. This 6 year old feels the same way!
Twitter might be a pull site, but you can pull from anywhere. I don’t tweet too often, but I like it for following current events or checking out my favorite papers/magazines or journalists. It’s also wonderful to see the daily personal blurbs from artists/actors/writers I admire, say like Stephen Fry. Some of these celebrities are very generous with their thoughts or perspectives, and it’s not all fluff. Some friends and family use twitter as a means of messaging in a social manner so that other people can chime in too. Direct messaging on twitter is fun, and when you delete a message on your end, it’s gone on both ends. That is part of the reason why twitter has been so important in global social movements. Messaging on FB is completely insecure.
One of the great things about twitter has been that it is an open platform, allowing third party providers to make augmentations to the service. Twitter is about to end that, which is too bad.
I would also highly recommend Google Plus. I was very negative about it for quite sometime (honestly, it really wasn’t ready for Prime-Time when they launched it). It isn’t a replacement for The Book of Faces even though it does everything FB does and better…it’s really a hybrid of twitter and FB with all the integration of Google services. You can have a video conferencing Hangout on G+, invite your friends and sync it with your Google Calendar, and then save it and have it available on YouTube. As a side note, I got rid of my phone lines at home and now I use Google Voice as my phone patch for US clients and Skype for international clients. Works like a charm (actually, better than any Getner or JK Audio device I’ve used).
Directly related to VO, I’ve ”followed” production houses that eventually down the road sent me emails requesting quotes for jobs that I recorded for them. This kind of passive or soft-sell networking has also been effective on G+.
OK, now I need the six-year old tutorial on Google Plus!
Connie: Thought you’d never ask: You need to do two things to make Twitter a success –
1st) Use it as a “HEADLINE’ site for all the tons of social stuff you do – direct people to your blog, mixers you’re attending, MCAI links, etc. It works best with some REAL activity not just once a week like you do. And repeats of key stuff are okay cuz not everyone is on-line at the same time.
2nd) You need to follow people BACK when they follow you and monitor your “mentions” when people talk about you or retweet you – thank them, be social – you can do it! Active Twitter users don’t like to follow people who won’t follow-back because those folks look like BROADCASTERS – as if what they TWEET about is the only thing that counts. Don’t be a broadcaster – be a sharer of information and share OTHER Twitter people’s info. Twitter needs to have a little 2-way communication as well – at least let folks THINK you care about them and look at their tweets when you can.
If you do this the TWITTER lite-bulb will go off for you and you’ll get it!! With all you do in the VO world and media community you SHOULD have 1000’s of followers by now. If you step it up a bit and take these steps you might have some Twitter success!! Oh, BTW I’m at @tjkeenan & @Soundtrack_Pro I’d follow you if you’d follow me :-)
Tim Keenan
Thanks Tim. I’ll consider adding it to my list of things to do. The problem is that most of what I write gets automatically sent to Twitter, and then I get lots of notices of people following me, but I just never get back to Twitter except on rare occasions. I spend much more time on LinkedIn and Facebook – and the VO-BB.
But I’ll go find you and follow you. Just know that I probably won’t see much of what you post! Unless it mentions me of course. ;-)