In my first serious post, I visit a female blogger and vlogger whose post today made me think. Here it is, first – you watch it and then I’ll talk:
My first reaction when I read the title was, “This is SO CORRECT.” – and naturally I clicked. As it was the first video of hers I’ve watched, I found her accent really neat. As she talked about the reasons why a person shouldn’t feel pressured to Twitter, I felt a disconnect.
The video isn’t very long at all — which I like. It was to-the-point and didn’t have a hint of “old spice” so I craned my neck to see it from her perspective. Twitter is a place to connect with like-minded tweeters. If you join Twitter without a destination or goal in mind, you will be lost. If you remain lost on Twitter and receive no validation through followers, you soon quit and view your Twitter time as useless to you.
Simple enough, and true enough. But not the whole picture.
And that’s where I realized that this disconnect I was feeling on the reason one should not join Twitter is larger. It has to do with The Internet. Yes, capitalized. Many feel that The Internet is a place you go to visit your friends. But those who “get it” know that The Internet is a place you go to visit your friends. You see? A good question to ask a person thinking about joining Twitter is: “Are you INTO the internet?” Because when you are into the internet, you go there for fun. You really explore. You treat the internet like a community, rather than a strip mall.
If you’re not into the internet, you make friends and then socialize with them online. You go to the chatroom and forum together, you shop around in the boutique social networks together, you point and snicker at the wild personalities, and you leave together when the place gets lame. Your friends lean on each other, looking around the clique, taking cues from one another.
If you are into The Internet, then you go online to make friends. You see it a whole different way. You walk into a forum, a community, a twitter hashtag and shake hands with a stranger. Suddenly it’s 3 years later and you JUST NOW met that close confidante in person. That is the power of The Internet — of Twitter — if you want it to be. But you have to be INTO the internet. You have to be open to socializing with people you don’t know over one common interest. Random? Political? Non-Profit? Product? News? Hair? Innovation? [subject]2.0? Performance? Literature? Artist? Engineer? It could be any one of these or any other interest. If there is a common bond, does it really matter that you’ve never shaken hands??
So, no you don’t need to join Twitter, but you also don’t need to already have a network in place to feel comfortable there, either.
Make sense?
Very interesting post, Jillian. The video to me is kind of a “Well yeah” reaction. If you don’t hope to get anything out of anything you do, you probably won’t. If you don’t really want to achieve something using a tool, you probably won’t. It’s like a person who buys a really nice toolset who actually has no intention of building anything. It doesn’t make much sense.
To your point though, you are right on the money. I only knew 2 people who used Twitter when I first started (I think my marketing talk has since scared them away, actually). You create your own community and make of it what you will.
Just like you are doing, my friend!
(I told you you wouldn’t be a flash in the pan, silly head) 
Thank you! yes, I started Twitter with no friends (I once was totally anti-twitter, can you believe it!?) and simply barged in on enough conversations that you guys accepted the fact that I was here to stay!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Marjorie Clayman, Jillian. Jillian said: Considering Twittering? // Don't be skeerd. http://ow.ly/2NLne #in [...]
I know way too many people who use Twitter to meet new people and get their news of the day. Twitter is a place to consume media, so it is as natural to be a consumer as it is to be a creator.
That being said, it took me having a purpose on Twitter to really GET the power of Twitter, which is different than the utility of Facebook. But does everyone need to be on these social platforms? Only if they want to stay connected and informed. And a word to those social media pundits that like to tell us all the right way to use it “who died and made you god of Twitter”. I say have fun tweeting or forget it.
Kat I totally agree. Twitter is a place to give…so it must also be a place to receive! Some people are 100% givers, and some are 100% takers. And we need the whole spectrum all over the internet – whether on Twitter or on any other online community.