Twitter and blogging can be a wonderful thing , although I’ve been thinking about leaving twitter lately because as in real life there can be many sides to twitter, not all of them pretty. I asked people who follow me to list some pros and cons, the overwhelming answer for the pros was the amazing support you can find on twitter. The fact that its easy to find the specific support you need ,ie the #autism community is fantastic. People enjoy the conversation on twitter although I’m not alone in feeling that there is increasingly less conversation as self promotion takes over a bit (more in this in a moment) .People enjoy the fast easy access to up to date news and many enjoy joining in tweeting along with banter about tv shows.
Many people have formed real friendships from twitter and through blogging. And its a good way to make friends with people with similar interests ie baking, crochet, reading.
Some of the cons mentioned were the fact that twitter seems to have become more cliquey ,it can be hard to find your way in to some twitter circles.
Timelines are now often cluttered by tweets promoting blog posts (spamming ,where the post link is tweeted repeatedly ) and competition entry tweets. So of course less interaction.
Blogging is also changing though ,many blogs have evolved from small family blogs( for example) to review heavy blogs or blogs full of sponsored posts.
There’s nothing wrong with reviews as such and some people make money from their blogs with sponsored posts , but its bought about the term blagger blogger and while I don’t like to see individual tweeters called names the fact is many tweeters now clutter timelines with pr requests asking for everything but the kitchen sink to review. Many bloggers review things that are not even relavant to their blog or their lifestyle.
There can also unfortunatly be a very ugly side to both twitter and blogging.
Just recently we’ve seen a horrid derogatory article with about a fellow blogger for no reason other than to make a very personal attack on someone who in no way deserved it.
Ive watched as a blogger did something wrong and although she did perhaps deserve to be pulled up over it she didn’t deserve what turned into a huge bitch fest about her. I felt it got a bit playgroundy as more tweeters jumped on the badwagon , Ive seen this many a time on twitter ,the playground mentality kicks in and a group of tweeters will gang up on an individual.
And then the situations like the one that happened this week, Katie Price tweeted about her cheating husband and divorce just days after tweeting about her 5th pregnancy and she was hurled so much vile abuse on twitter that it was sickening. Noone deserves that. I’m no fan of hers and sure she seems to have made some bad choices but she’s a human being.
Then there’s the subtweeting. I subtweeted once got called out on it and apologised because it wrong of me also, then the twitter arguements they can get quite heated and personal. There’s a fine line between debate and argueing for arguments sake.
Now my blog is hardly up there with the big wigs (so what do I know) and I don’t have a huge twitter following (so, again, what do I know?)
I’m also not the boss of the internet or twitter so I cant make the rules but I would like to throw a few things out there :
first and foremost remember twitter is a social media site where people came to chat, make friends, and offload. Social media is all about being social. Connect ,interact, but at the same time try not to get cliquey ,let new people in.Help newbie tweeters find their feet.
You can find amazing support on twitter don’t be afraid to reach out and look for it, ask for it ,use hashtags to help.
Be considerate of peoples timelines promoting your blog is fine as long as you don’t do it so frequently it becomes spamming. I think having a separate account where you can promote your blogs etc and spam away with competition retweets are a useful idea. It gives people the option to keep following you for your chat and interaction without feeling spammed.
Subtweeting is often not nice. If you cant say it directly to someone, perhaps don’t say it. And I don’t believe its ever necessary to carry out a very public disagreement on twitter, either block and get on with life or take your disagreement to dm or email.
If you cant say anything nice then don’t say anything atall. Obviously everyone is entitled to an opinion but noone deserves vile abuse. Its easy to do sitting behind a keyboard but its not big and its not clever. Its easy to be judgemental when you don’t know the full story. Also in the same way its fine to blog an opinion but its just never fine to blog a personal attack on somebody who absolutely does not deserve it.
As for the blagging, remember there are others blogs dying to get something to review ,give them a go and perhaps don’t review things that aren’t relevant to your blog ,let someone they are relevant to enjoy them instead. Another point id like to make is that if your blog started of as more of a journal type blog remember people came ,saw, read and followed because they loved your work don’t let reviews take over from your more personal heart felt blog posts. On the flip side if someones ‘blagging ‘ offends you , you can always unfollow .
And perhaps don’t spam time lines with pr and blogger requests. Nobody likes it and it can possibly lead to you looking a little desperate or greedy.
For my last point i would like to ask my fellow mums / dads to come together and support eachother more. We are all in this parenting thing together. Lets help eachother ,stand side by side as parents who all do things differently but all want the same thing ,happy healthy families.
As I said these are not the rules, I’m not in a position to make any rules ,just suggestions to help keep twitter the fun, informative, supportive place it is.
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