I became a Twitter member June 16th, 2008. A friend of mine “invited” me to join and, at the time, I had never heard of Twitter. I remember thinking it was a strange concept. Why would I want to announce to the world what I am doing throughout the day in less than 141 characters? It sounded like a waste of time.
Anyway, I wrote one tweet that day, something about typing naked. I am sure the friend who invited me, my one follower, didn’t appreciate the visual.
I left Twitter like my cat feels- neglected (My cat only thinks she’s neglected, but really she is well taken care of and well fed. Gotta fatten her up for Thanksgiving).
I have had an aversion to social media in general mainly because of the whole time-wasting aspect of it. Not too long after joining Facebook, I started wasting an hour a day to learn nothing new about my friends. Occasionally, I would learn about marriages, deaths, cool trips and relocations, but most of the time I learned who got a new fake pig on their new fake farm. After that, the last thing I wanted to do was maintain a presence on Twitter.
Then I published a book. Every article I read said you need to get on social media to promote your book. I reluctantly returned to Twitter like Gomer returning to Hosea (That’s a Biblical reference for all you heathens).
I have discovered the wonders of Twitter, the ultimate tool in shameless self-promotion. Twitter allows interaction with people I’ve never met. Before my return to Twitter, I was trying to go back to the old well of friends on Facebook. I am sure I’ve pissed some of them off trying to continually peddle my novel.
On my first day back with Twitter, I had two people follow me just because I changed my profile to reflect my writing endeavors. It was as if a whole new world had opened up to me and I was Jasmine giggling on a magic carpet ride.
Now Twitter no longer sits neglected. Instead, I use her like Rooster Cogburn used Blackie (That’s a True Grit reference for all you heathens). And, if you are a new self-published author, I invite you to use her too.
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