The Great Social Networking Experiment (just one more time)
It’s already happening – one week into my Twitter networking experience and already I’ve spent entirely too much time “tweeting.” Yesterday was a light work day, true, but it seemed to take me forever to finish one small project. Here’s how it went –
(opening email) Wow, 12 more people are following me on Twitter. Okay, I must act like a good networker, so off to Twitter to check each one out and reciprocate. One or two were obvious advertisements and their posts, which you can see in detail, weren’t relevant or were way too frequent and irrelevant.
(back to email. Okay, what am I doing today? Client wants…) Ooops. Another email. Huh? Three emails? Three more followers? Okay, off to Twitter….
Ten minutes later (Lord! Got to get going here. Okay. Back to the email. Client wants X, Y, Z, and …) Was that my Twitter app? Yep. 20 more tweets. A quick peek. Ah, I have to respond to that one….
Five minutes later (Getting into the client’s mindset, imagining his life a bit, starting the project. Okay, open a Word document. Getting a paragraph down ….) Again with the email? Well, just in case it’s client work….damn! More followers! This is getting a bit hard to keep up with. Okay, let’s just type their names into the Twitter app …. cripe. Why can’t this app find them by name? Why are they using handles instead of their names? Open IE again, head to Twitter….
Five more minutes go by. (back to the project – damn, did I really stop mid-sentence? Where was I going with that? Time to turn Twitter off. I closed the app. Okay, now let’s get busy. However, five minutes later…) Oh good GRIEF! More followers? Forget it! I’m not looking! No, I’m not. I have a client to please here. I don’t care if a follower is upset that I didn’t instantly reciprocate.
(Back to the project. Again in five minutes when my email automatically downloads…) Tough. I have stuff to do. I can’t be bothered. A week ago these people didn’t even know me. And how the hell are they getting anything done? They’re constantly tweeting!
(Got a good half hour of solid, somewhat uninterrupted work in. Finished the first draft of the client project. Switched to Outlook to send it…) Are you kidding me? Now I have about 15 more followers and a few of them sent personal messages. No way. No freakin’ way. What’s the Twitt-iquette? Do I respond now or when I have actual time? If unsure, do it now.
(Sent off client project with a brief note to the client explaining what he was seeing and why.) Back to these messages. Prioritize. Answer them in order. Take a look at and follow most of the new followers. Oh, and I haven’t tweeted all morning. Great way to build a following. Damn, where’s the rule book for this thing? The user’s manual? What’s the right way to do this so it doesn’t suck up so much time?
I knew it would happen. I resisted. I caved in thanks to those who say they’ve had great success. My problem – I’m a bit of an enabler (make that a lot in certain situations) and I can’t disappoint people. Mind you, I have disappointed people in the business world and I’ve done so quite willingly. But I’m new to Twittering. I’m feeling my way. I have to stay on the good side of all those Tweeple.
So far, I’ve not seen any benefits. It’s early – I understand. I’ll read the articles on How to Build Business Using Twitter (there are slews) and I’ll do what I’m told. And I’ll let you know if it actually works.
How about you? How has your Twittering experience been? How long have you tweeted? How long have you resisted tweeting? Why does/why doesn’t Twitter appeal?
Everything I’ve read here makes me shudder and be grateful I’m not on it.
I keep my phone off when I work. I don’t get interrupted by emails — I hop on and off when I take breaks in the work.
I can’t stand interruptions when I’m writing. Heck, someone slams a door down the hall and I have a fit.
I need huge swaths of UNINTERRUPTED work time to do my work well, and Twitter just seems like a distraction encouraging ADHD-like behaviour.
I’m glad it works for some people, I just don’t think it’s for me.
I can’t wrap up that much of my time and identity in other people.
Lori, I’ve come up to a solution to your problem.
If you switch from IE to Google Chrome as your browser then you’ll save a few tenths of a second on every page download, or even up to one second on some pages(Chrome is way faster!)
So over the course of your day, with the accumulated Tweets, you’ll have *saved* perhaps 30 seconds. Now that’s not a much, but over the course of a week, that’s a few minutes, and over the course of a year it is probably an hour. And in a decade you’ll have saved a full work day.
And with that extra work day, just think of all the additional writing that could be accomplished. Of course there might be a few tweets chiming in during that extra time.
This is the same reasoning I use when shopping at Costco. I think to myself, sure I don’t need a 50 gallon drum of soy sauce right now, nor the 24 pack of electric tooth brushes, but over time it will really save me a ton of money. And I end up spending $100 when all I needed was a loaf of bread.
OK, so maybe this is just a partial solution…
P.S. Much of this was tongue-in-cheek, but Chrome is actually way faster than IE.
P.P.S. Your post is very, very helpful because I’ve been debating whether or not to jump into the Twitter deep end. Thanks!
Your social experiment is reinforcing my fear of Twitter. Already an addictive personality and people pleaser, I don’t need another distraction to lure me. Blogging’s way more than enough. 🙂
But Brian, I thought EVERYONE needed 50 gallons of soy sauce! Is that only me?
I’ll keep you guys informed on my Twitter experiment so as not to misrepresent the technology completely. But at this moment, I’m seeing my time frittered away (and yes, this is my fault). I told you before – I’m weak. Technology brings me gloriously and painfully to my knees.
I started Twittering a few weeks ago, and in the beginning I was addicted, too. I was also addicted when I first created my Facebook profile and my blog. I think it’s a natural part of trying something new and exciting, kind of like a new relationship 🙂
For me, the novelty wears off after about 2 weeks. Now I usually Twitter about 3 times a day–once in the morning, once during my son’s afternoon nap and once late at night. Same with Facebook and blogging. That works well for me. It keeps me plugged into the social networking scene, but I can still get my work done.
Every once in a while I’ll get caught up in Twittering or Facebook stalking (yes, they do call it stalking) and waste a day or two. But when that happens, I take a few days away and do something entirely non-Internet related…Like that ancient and forgotten pastime called reading! LOL!
Some people probably should never use Twitter, Facebook, etc., because it is so easy to become obsessed. Heck, it was designed that way! But it is entirely possible to have a (somewhat) healthy relationship with Twitter. I’ve met a lot of great people through the website so far, so I think it certainly has its benefits. You just have to develop the discipline over time. Hope this helps!
Are you an Aquarian? : )
Ha! Nope. Just Aquarius rising. :))
Yeah, got a twitter after a friend invited me – then we have a Rose & Thorn Twitter that I do as well – two Twitters! eeek! *laugh*
lately, I've had an increase of "followers" but not sure why…lawd!
Lori,
That sounds like me when I first set up a MySpace account. Eventually I lost interested, thank heavens, but I’ve resisted doing any other social networking sites for fear of a similar phenomenon. Blogging and reading my favorite is quite enough of a distraction, thank you very much!
By the way, my email automatically downloads every 5 minutes, too. Sometimes I think that’s half my problem. I’ve actually had to close down my email program before so that I can get my work done…
Katharine, I still have a bit of a Facebook fetish. Can’t call it an addiction because I do go for days without checking. That’s a good sign, right?