Pinterest

Crazy about Writing: Twitter 101

/ Dora Hiers / 7 Comments
A few weeks ago, I shared What Happened to All My Peoples?, and a friend suggested that I offer a brief introduction to Twitter. While I definitely don’t claim to be a Twitter expert, my experience might help someone find value in the social media site that I use most, even over Facebook and Pinterest. Twitter doesn’t absorb much time and has the potential to be far reaching.
 

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Unlike Facebook which promotes lengthy posts, Twitter embraces brevity with tweets limited to 140 characters or less. Less, if you’d like people to share your posts or retweet (RT). To share, you just click RT (the two arrows that form a square) or modify it and type MT in front of the original tweet. Generally, if someone RT’s something of mine, I pay it forward and RT something of theirs versus replying with a “thanks.”
RT = Retweet
MT = Modified Tweet
So that you’re not wasting valuable real estate, you can shorten links by using tools like bitly or ow.ly. And just like with every other social media site, pictures play a big role here as well. A favorite (star) means someone likes your tweet or they’re saving it to read later.
Much like Instagram, hashtags are popular on Twitter. I joke around that I think in #hashtags. See? lol. A hashtag is just a conversation, topic or phrase such as #amwriting or #amediting. Google to find hashtags, check to see what’s trending, or jump right in with something fun and unique!
When possible, be strategic in your tweets and include names and hashtags. For example, when I presented a workshop at a local library, I tagged the library system. They retweeted along with a reader’s group, and that day my name and profile was put in front of 61k tweeters. Not a bad return for the one minute it took to compose the tweet, right?
Twitter users follow other tweeters, rather than friend them. Following someone doesn’t obligate them to follow you back, unlike Facebook. Twitter prompts you with suggestions of who to follow. I recommend clicking on a profile first and checking their tweets. Who wants to follow someone who tweets the daily max of 2400? (I can’t even imagine!) Those tweeters would inundate your feed. And why bother to follow someone whose only interaction is through Facebook or whose tweets are all “buy my product?” Also, once you follow 2k, you will be restrained by a follower to following ratio, which you can learn more about here. TMI?
Be aware of eggheads and tweets by someone with no followers, and if you get a message like “somebody’s spreading nasty rumors about you,” don’t open the link.
As your Twitter account grows, lists are helpful to manage the people you follow, and lists can be public or private. Some ideas for lists might be friends, family, news, celebrities, etc. If you pull those special people into a list, you will always catch their updates.
Sound off. Did I miss a topic you’d like to see covered?

Did this post give you the courage to give Twitter a try?

What Happened to All My Peoples?

/ Dora Hiers / 8 Comments

Our four-year-old grandson calls his daycare friends “his peoples.” His accent is so cute with that North Carolina twang, that I admit to asking him about his “peoples” every time I pick him up from daycare just to hear him say it. 🙂

Whenever we talk about his “peoples,” my mind wanders to my “peoples” or my friends all over the world on social media. In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of Twitter, second favorite only to Pinterest. I appreciate that Twitter allows follows without the obligatory follow back, unlike Facebook’s friend policy. Also, the 140 character limit and the list option makes for quick scrolling at different intervals throughout the day.

Recently, I was using JustUnfollow.com to purge followers who immediately unfollow me or folks I follow who choose not to follow back for whatever reason. But, I must confess that I have never cleaned out my “inactive” followers, those people who haven’t been active on twitter for three months or more.

Yowza! The list was so long. I probably spent an hour “unfollowing” and I hadn’t made it to the bottom. Crazy.

Some didn’t surprise me. Maybe they just decided that Twitter was one too many distractions, or they’d only tweeted a few times and Twitter just wasn’t for them. But what did surprise me was the number of inactive users who had ten or twenty thousand or more followers.

What happened to all my peoples? 
Image Courtesy of Pixabay

Why would they abandon a Twitter account with such an impressive platform? I could only conclude that something traumatic happened in their lives, whether it was death, illness, or job loss. Who knows, but this process made me sad, and I found myself praying over the profiles.

Finishing that task will have to wait for another day. And it just might take me four more years to get it under control.

How do you feel about Twitter? How often do you purge your inactive followers or have you put that off like me? What’s your favorite social media hangout?

Pinterest…Love it or leave it? By Dora Hiers

/ Dora Hiers / 4 Comments

I’m about to let you in on a little secret. 


I’m addicted to Pinterest. Shhh! Don’t tell anybody!

But how’s a person supposed to resist those delectable cookies and savory soups filling the screen? Or how about those comfy looking spaces that just cry out to a reader to curl up with a great book? And, oh, those delightful rustic cabins with the rocking chairs on the back decks overlooking mountains and sunsets and towering trees …imagine the inspiration for a writer! What’s a person to do?

Have you investigated Pinterest? What do you think? Do you agree with me?

If you have never visited Pinterest (really? How is that possible?), essentially Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board or scrapbook… a place to collect ideas. Maybe you enjoy collecting creative recipes for your culinary pleasure, scoping out the perfect vacation destination, or hunting down DIY instructions. Whatever your interests, you’ll find inspiration along with plenty of pictures there.

Just to give you a basic rundown, a “pin” is essentially a picture that bookmarks and references the original source. You can upload your own pictures, pin from websites or blogs, or “repin” other pins. A “board” is where you organize your pins.

Take a moment and pop over to my “bulletin board” and see what the rave is all about. While you’re there, you might want to click the red “follow board” on some of the boards that excite you, but make sure you come back and let me know what you think, OK? 🙂 http://www.pinterest.com/dorahiers/

With the holidays looming closer, I bet you can see how Pinterest might be a gold mine for ideas. Decorating, gifts, recipes…sheesh, I never buy cookbooks anymore. For the most part, I pin and print all my recipes, and then organize them in a binder. Did you see any recipes you couldn’t wait to try? Salivate over any desserts?

Some people unwind by watching TV. Others by scrolling Instagram pictures or Facebook statuses. Next to reading, browsing Pinterest is my favorite hobby.

What about you? Love it or leave it? 
What’s your favorite hobby and why?