Hi, my name is Jeannie and I’m a marketing professional who almost gave up on Twitter.
Because marketing is what I do during the day job (and night job many times, too) the idea of giving up on one of the hottest social media avenues is sort of like saying I’m a vet, and I gave up on dogs. The idea seems ludicrous. But even the professionals can flub up their own marketing efforts sometimes, and I did just that when it came to Twitter. And I almost gave it up.
But if you’ll notice (and feel free to notice this at @jeannieruesch ), I have returned. I’m committed…and THIS time, I’m actually having fun doing it. Why the change? Well, it actually has to do with the people I chose to follow — and how writer centric that group was. Now, this post might annoy someone and I’ll apologize right up front if it does. But I think it needs to be said. I didn’t follow that many — I think my max number of followers was at around 300 or so. But it was 300 people who lived, breathed and focused solely on the world of writing.
Well, I’m a writer — you’re a writer. It’s what we do, so what’s the issue? Well, here it is: 90% of the time, my feed was nothing but promotion. My twitter feed had turned into one big infomercial for authors. Who wants that? And when it wasn’t about an author promoting their work, their reviews or their blog posts (yes, like I plan to do with this one…), it was about writing. Deadlines. And more blogs.
It was enough to…well, make me stop. It wasn’t FUN anymore. It had turned into something I dreaded.
See, I’m a firm believer that the avenues of marketing that will be the most successful for you, whomever you are, are the ones you find the most enjoyable. Because, truly, you won’t think too much — you’ll just do it. You won’t worry about being perfect or literary, you’ll just smile and giggle and post pictures of cats doing silly things on your Facebook page. Or pictures about bacon. Because who doesn’t love bacon?
And then, eventually, you’ll remember that you can also promote yourself every so often.
Every. So. Often.
Yes, every so often. (Margie Lawson would be proud, don’t you think — of my usage of one of those rhetorical devices that I can never remember the name of?)
See, this is the thing. Twitter is about conversation. Promotion is not. So ANYtime you promote yourself, you aren’t really conversing to them. It’s the equivalent of holding a print ad up in the middle of a conversation to the person opposite you. But, we’re here because we need to promote, right? Promotion is great and Twitter is an amazing tool to promote on, but you have to remember to temper your promotion with personality. For every single promotional post, you should have at least 3 or 4 (maybe more) posts about something else. Something fun. What you enjoy.
Once I realized that I would have a lot more fun conversing with people who weren’t just writers, I started going out and following people who talk about the things I like — soap operas, The Bachelor, the Voice, more TV shows, and just silly stuff. Now my Twitter feed is fun to read and play with.
So that was my journey. I’m about 75 followers shy of a 1000 now, I’m talking about all sorts of stuff, reading even more… and I’m having FUN getting there. What was the last silly thing you posted on Twitter?