A Novice Looks at Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook Fan Pages

“The best way to engage honestly with the marketplace via Twitter is to never use the words “engage,” “honestly,” or “marketplace.”
― Jeffrey Zeldman

If you want to throw your life completely off balance, immerse yourself in social media. That’s my initial assessment, after wading through these murky waters for the last two months.

I have had a blog and a personal Facebook page since 2008. Most of my friends and family are on Facebook. I like reading what’s going on with them and jumping in the conversation. I’ve also figured out a rhythm to my blogging schedule that doesn’t completely suck up my day. Combine the two, and I’ve allotted for every second of discretionary internet time.

But then came Twitter.

And Pinterest.

And The Scoop on Balance Facebook Fan Page.

All at the same time.

I didn’t plan to open three accounts at once. But when my lovely blog designer placed those cute social media icons in the corner of my header (if you are reading this through e-mail, you’ll have to click over to the blog to see them), she needed a place to link them. Honestly, I had neither read a tweet nor pinned a picture prior to that moment—wasn’t entirely sure what tweeting and pinning was!

I am now. And here are my preliminary thoughts (and by thoughts, I mean “questions”).

Twitter:

“Using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite ‘The Iliad.’” – Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and journalist

I must be missing something. Everyone who is anyone is on Twitter and yet, I can’t, for the life of me, figure out the allure. For one, I cannot complete a thought in 140 characters. I end up using abbreviations for everything, and soon, my tweet is incoherent. Which may also explain why everyone ELSE’s tweets seem equally incoherent. I am Twitter-illiterate. Twitilliterate.

Also, I’m confused about “following” etiquette.

“On Twitter we get excited if someone follows us. In real life we get really scared and run away.” ~Unknown via @mozusa

Is there a “follow me and I’ll follow you back” policy? It seems like it. Many people on Twitter with large followings also follow tens of thousands of other people. Some people have the exact same number of followers and followees. (Unless you are famous. When you are famous, following etiquette doesn’t apply. You don’t have to follow anyone, dangit, because you are freaking LADY GAGA!)

How do you—the non-famous people—manage all that? I mean, if each of those 10,000 people you follow tweet just once a day, even if you simply SCROLL PAST the 10,000 tweets—don’t even read them!—it will take you close to 3 hours to scroll through your entire feed. (I did the math on this.)

Most people tweet multiple times a day, and link to things like blog posts or articles or You Tube videos they want you to click on. That’s a minimum of 9 hours a day, just scrolling past your tweets.

“When you’ve got 5 minutes to fill, Twitter is a great way to fill 35 minutes – @mattcutts

Clearly, “follower” cannot mean “reader of my tweets.” It would be impossible.

So, what’s the point of tweeting? If most of the people who follow me are simply doing it as a courtesy because I follow them, why should I spend time crafting an abbreviated thought/tweet? Are we all just trying to build a following so we look cool and popular to other people on Twitter?

I struggle with motivation to get out there and tweet, honestly. I feel like I’m tweeting to no one. I’m just a twit.

This I find interesting: not only can you see the tweets of everyone you follow, but you can also see the conversations between those people and OTHER people. So, my question is, are you allowed to jump in and say something in these conversations? Is that rude? Or is it more rude that they are having this conversation in front of you (and 10,000 of their closest friends) and not including you ?

Feels a lot like when I was in high school and all the ultra-popular girls sat together at the other end of the lunch table. And they talked about the party last Saturday after the football game. The party I was not invited to because I was only kinda-popular, not ultra-popular. Close enough to the conversation for me to feel stupid and left out–not close enough to laugh and talk, too. #sigh

Speaking of…

The hashtag #. When do you use it? Do I make up my own or is there some sort of Hashtag Library from which to choose?

Finally, a friend suggested I open an account with Hoot Suite (yay, another social media forum to navigate), to help me organize my feed. After several hours setting up yet another account, I have all my “streams” categorized. This is supposed to help me. Except it doesn’t. Now I just have a bunch of columns to look through, instead of one. #overwhelmed

So, in summation, I find myself scrolling through pages and pages of tweets in my feed, none of which are directed toward me, half of which are so abbreviated, I can’t de-code them, and the other half containing links to something I don’t have time to click on.

And maybe if I didn’t use words like “summation” I could express my thoughts in fewer characters. But, letter-count has never been an issue prior to this.

Can you help me love Twitter? I really want to love Twitter.  What’s the secret? Oh, and if you want to follow me on Twitter (ha! With a lead-in like that, who wouldn’t?), click here.

Pinterest:

I think every female I know is on Pinterest. And the 2 who are not, will be joining tomorrow. It’s crazy. For the men who read this blog (and the 2 aforementioned women), Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board where you can collect things like recipes or decorating ideas. It’s a cool concept and has proven to be helpful to me, because I never know the best way to bookmark something I find on the web. Pre-Pinterest, I either printed it out on real paper (remember paper???) or filed it in an unknown place on my desktop, never to be found again. Now, I have things organized in one place on Pinterest. That’s cool.

The two things I hear a lot regarding Pinterest is “It’s addicting” and “It makes me feel inadequate.” I haven’t found either of those things to be true. For me, it’s a lot like flipping through a magazine. No addiction. No feelings of inadequacy. But, truth-be-told, I haven’t spent enough time scrolling through other people’s boards to become addicted. I guess you could call me an Occasional Pinner. Only Pin on the weekends.

This is making less and less sense as I write.

I did have a chance to create a few cool boards—I’ve posted some of my favorite recipes there, as well as some kitchen remodel ideas and some stuff on balance. But, honestly, I haven’t ventured out into other people’s boards much. Maybe that’s where the addiction and inadequacy takes place? Is that like the bad part of Pinterest Town?

Help me out: I feel like everyone on Pinterest knows what they are doing except me. What do I need to know about Pinterest to make it work for me? What do you love about it and why is every woman in the world addicted? Or feeling inadequate? (I don’t actually want to feel inadequate because I’m getting that from Twitter, thankyouverymuch, but I’m curious as to how it happens.) You can follow me on Pinterest here.

Facebook Fan Pages:

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment. — Jane Austen

I get Facebook. I like Facebook. I use Facebook daily. Therefore, I wasn’t the least bit intimidated to create a Facebook Fan Page, until I created a Facebook Fan page.

It’s different than normal Facebook. For example, I don’t have “friends” on a Fan Page, I have “Likes.” And I have to “invite” people to “Like” me—how awkward is that? Literally…”WILL YOU LIKE ME?” This question is not for the socially insecure.

And I can only invite them once. So, if I send my “friend” a request that says “Will you like my page?” and my “friend” ignores me…I know about it. It’s weird. And a little painful.

And the “liking”– it’s not a mutual thing. You can “Like” me, but I don’t have to like you back.

Also, my page has graphs and charts describing my “reach” and telling me how many people are “talking about me.” I can see the exact number of people who saw my post (but didn’t “like” it.) Middle school anyone?

I’m never quite sure—is it bad to write the same status for my personal page AND my fan page? Am I a total loser and kinda-unpopular if I also use that status as a tweet? What if I link to a blog post where I expand on the thought of the status/tweet? And then pin that blog post to Pinterest?

If you follow me on all my social media venues, will you hate me when you see the exact same idea come across your computer five different times?

And when, exactly, am I supposed to do my laundry and vacuum?

Do you have a Facebook Fan Page for your blog or your business? What do I need to know to make this experience more meaningful to my “Likers”? You can “Like” The Scoop on Balance on Facebook by clicking here.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

The Internet Time Sucker

Are On-Line Friends Real Friends?