Tweet & Sour Talk - Emma Simms on learning to love Twitter
Why do you Tweet? Perhaps you don't! We are delighted to host a guest post by Emma Simms, who is the Twitter-savvy Marketing Manager at Charles Lucas & Marshall in Newbury. Their approach featured as a case study in a Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce event at Newbury Racecourse, which we blogged about on Morgan PR. She also tweets personally as @EmmerSimms and is a fellow blogger at EmmaSimms's Blog, which is where this first appeared. It is a honest and heartfelt explanation of what she does and doesn't like about Twitter.
I have thinking about what I like and dislike about Twitter.
I started tweeting in earnest in October 2009, and in that time I have attracted 600 followers, have chosen to stalk follow over 550 tweeters and have tweeted over 10,500 inane musings.
Predictably, I began my twitter life with the immortal tweet…. ‘Trying to work out what this is all about…’ Oh, what a sad newbie I once was! *laughs with a gay tinkle* But even more sadly, I don’t think my tweets have become any more interesting after 10k plus practises!
I recently thanked/mentioned @mediocre_mum for her help in ‘getting me launched’ by introducing me to some of her lovely followers, at the stage that we tweeted, I really was clueless and follower/followee poor. Which really makes Twitter kinda pointless. As I have said before Twitter is all about WHO YOU FOLLOW.
I can’t really explain why I follow who I follow. What I do know is, that among the hundreds I do follow, none of the über followed Twitter-Super-Stars are followed by me. Ashton, Demi, Oprah, Britney et al. All those with mega followings – even the British Twitter King, Stephen Fry, are not followed by me. Again, I don’t know why, but following the masses per se never appeals to me. In fact it deters me. I don’t have anything against these celebs, I do follow some celeb tweeters, but they tend to tweet as normally as Joe Public and indeed engage with mere mortals as well as their fellow celebs. The informative @mashable is the most greatly followed tweet account that I follow – and that’s purely because of content and not Pete Cashmore (although I am sure that he is a lovely bloke.)
I love Twitter for a number of reasons;
- You can make new friends and meet people – I have new genuine friendships and have had ‘real-life’ meetings with people I have met through Twitter. I have met more people locally, than I would have done, connected with people internationally and have also been roped in to raise money for charity and take part in the Moonwalk this year with a twitter friend and her family.
- It is a genuinely amazing feed of information, breaking news, goss, footie scores and advice from fellow tweeters, news feeds and companies. I can’t total the times that I have heard breaking news through Twitter before the conventional methods. Sometimes its a bit off-beat, but a few searches normally either confirms or dispels the early tweet breaks.
- Watching a favourite TV programme with twitter in hand can make me belly laugh. Mass observations, shared reactions and downright catty comments make it a must for many of my fave programmes. Like having your mates round to watch it, without having to get dressed or make them drinks. (by dressed, I mean presentable not *actually* dressed, I do wear clothes watching tv on the sofa).
- It fills boring downtime – waiting for the train, long journeys, lunch breaks or simply laying in bed/bath.
- Your follower/friends can offer a smile, support and sympathy when you have had a crap day, or have something you are excited about to share.
- Great advice/help from people who *know* things – we went to Brighton for the day and I tweeted about some places that are ‘must-do’s’ on the way down in the car. By the time I had arrived, we had a planned itinerary and locally recommended dining venues from @nikkib, who I had not tweeted with before. The Thai restaurant was fab.
- I have won prizes through Twitter too! Not only a t-shirt from the amazing @chasingvegas, but also over £200 worth of racing tickets and cocktails from Mahiki Nightclub at @NewburyRaces! Definitely appreciated!
- There are no annoying kids on Twitter! Yey! They are wrapped up with Facebook and MSN and long may it continue!
- I love Twitter because it’s not Facebook – none of those crappy Farmville, ‘populate my goldfish tank’ crappy games and shitty quizzes, thank the lord. FB has one good use – sharing photos with children, and other strange people who don’t ‘get’ Twitter or Flickr.
- It reinforces my theory that people are funny. There are a lot of genuinely funny, grumpy and caustic people out there that are amazingly witty. I love them.
- That there is an UNFOLLOW button and a BLOCK button. Simples.
- That its relaxed, you don’t have to get back to people in a certain time limit – it’s strictly when you’re on, you’re on…
In comparison, the things I don’t like about Twitter are less in number and matter even less;
- Tweeters who tweet the same old, everyday, every week, same old moans, groans. Yeah we get it. I don’t mean the odd ‘off’ day or rant against something that has annoyed – it’s the same old moan about the same old thing that drives me to hit ‘Unfollow’
- Diva strop and attention seeking ‘no-one is talking to me, I’m misunderstood, I might as well leave…’ = *pushes button* UNFOLLOW
- I love a good debate, but when people get spiteful and nasty, ’PUSH THE BUTTON’ – It’s ONLY Twitter!
- How addicted I am – it’s truly ridiculous.
- How it is IMPOSSIBLE to describe why I do it and why I love it. Bloody impossible.
So in a nutshell, I loves Twitter, I truly do. There are some great tweeters I admire and some genuinely funny and unique tweet accounts that make me laugh out loud… most of them I have listed under imaginatively named Twitter Lists such as ‘Make Me Laugh’ and ‘Worth a Follow’
I’m @emmersimms – if you’re not tweeting then don’t worry about it, if you are and we’re not following mutually then please drop by. (but leave the diva fits and moans at the login).