Over the last year or two, the most popular question thrown my way is: Why aren't you on Twitter?So let me answer this one with a question of my own: Why should I be?
From what I've seen so far, it doesn't look as though I'm missing out on a whole lot. . . And where would all those detractors more comfortable bitching about me behind my back go!?! :P
18 commentaires:
I've never seen or used Twitter in any way, but then perhaps living overseas helped me to avoid this silliness.
Hi! I've been a follower for awhile but haven't commented much! I just wanted to say that a year ago I would have agreed with you about Twitter.
Since that time I've realized what an asset its become to me. It's not just a place to say "Washed the car today." It's a place to connect with publishers, authors, publishing news sites and other bloggers.
I've found extremely valuable information like giveaways, book release date information and other helpful tips all from being on Twitter.
It's a dialogue you get to engage in with people in the blogging community!
I hope I gave you a good perspective on the professional use of Twitter! :)
It's a great way to connect with fans and to spread news quickly. I will check out a book if someone on twitter I like recommends it. I really enjoy authors who interact on twitter (like Neil Gaiman @neilhimself) I would follow you in a heartbeat! :)
It's really hard to know what Twitter feels like until you actually start following a few people and having interactions w/ them for a few days. I thought I'd be annoyed by it, but I now like it better than FB in many ways. YMMV.
Of course some people's tweets can be dumb or annoying. But there are also a lot of people - and a lot of different kinds of people - using it and making it smart and interesting.
Erm... it's an *enormous* marketing platform that will expose your blog to a huge handful of new readers?
It's a wonderful gathering place for many of the most interesting genre folk? I mean, where else can you get in a conversation with Cherie Priest, Daniel Abraham, Niall Harrison and Simon Spanton all at the same time?
Get over there, Pat. You'll be surprised at how engaging it is.
It also is a great way to give your readers something interesting you come across that you can't justify turning into a full blown blog post.
It has benefits and minuses, like any other platform. For quickly firing off an enquiry to an author or publisher that doesn't require a full email, it's quite useful (as long as it's not about anything confidential, obviously). It's also a solid alternative way of letting people know about updates, competitions and so on.
However, for getting into a long and sustained discussion, it's quite useless. And spam is increasingly becoming an issue on it as well.
Is it 2005? Do people really not know the advantages of Twitter? That's like asking someone "about the Google".
how about someone posts a list of good fantasy-relevant twitter guys and girls to follow?
I've found the Twitter's word-of-mouth style has created the fastest and most reliable platform for news. Following the right people, or just watching the Trending Topics brings you the latest news faster than most networks/websites. I recall the news of Osama bin Laden's death hit Twitter long before anything was on the news about it. For things like the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, Twitter was a better source of less biased/panicked information than the news.
Those are just a few examples. It's a great way to stay in touch with your community, or to reach out to celebrities who would otherwise be untouchable - as others have already pointed out.
Well, it's fun to talk about a plethora of things (when I'm awake early in the morning) and it's helped improve my reading knowledge of Portuguese immensely, so there's that aspect. Oh, and what's not to like about joining in with the teasing, except it'd be face-to-face? I could then mess with you in real time over your odd tastes in books, music, and politics ;)
I found it good when Amanda Palmer toured Australia and I could keep track of her plans for ninja gigs and such, but otherwise I find it quite useless, especially if the authors/artists I follow update their Facebook profiles regularly as well (often using the exact same feed for both).
The thing I enjoy about Twitter (and what I mainly use it for) is book news. Rather than waiting for a press release/lengthy blog post regarding some new cover art or an excerpt for a book, you get it immediately, often from the author or the publisher themselves. I don't really use Twitter for anything else.
I met up with Brandon Sanderson yesterday thanks to twitter. He missed his flight, tweeted it, someone tweeted back, he tweet invited everyone for pancakes and we had pancakes.
Now without twitter I never would have known that Brandon Sanderson was walking less than a mile away from me in Amsterdam.
As others have said - Twitter is great and you should join. Heck, you're already active on Facebook - it's not that different, but is much more accessible. All you need to do is link the accounts.
Ha, that Sanderson story is similar to what happened to a Twitter-friend of mine, except with them it was Neil Gaiman :-)
I also think depending on who you follow, the amount of tweets trawl through to get to something interesting or relevant can be absolutely massive. I guess you just gotta make sure you filter it to only show tweets from those you follow and not those who retweet/follow them.
Not surprising to hear that someone who blogs regularly doesn't see what there is about Twitter to recommend it.
Like Patrick, I can say *anything* on my blog, even if it's over 140 characters. I can post pictures, video, little javascript widgets that make image macros, php scripts, etc. etc.
I'd say the same thing about Facebook--although I can see why someone who doesn't have a Blog would like having a "Wall" that serves as their homepage.
Other than that I see both as a complete waste of time, and I know I must be right since the web optimization types are nowadays inisisting that all companies have a presence on Facebook and Twitter
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