TwitFest

  As mentioned, not only have I embarked on my blogging journey (I say this to make it sound like some a big romantic adventure, not "putting myself out there",) but I've also dipped my toe into the larger social media world by way of Twitter.  I'm an avid Facebook aversionist, primarily due to an ongoing conflict between Facebook and my face. To date, there are very few cameras that seem to able to understand it -my face, that is. In just about all photos of me I am gurning in some way.( Hence the lack of picture up there in the corner.)  But Twitter doesn't seem to require an enormous and ever-increasing gallery of Gurning Me, plus I do love good text banter, so it seemed a good fit.

 Being quite a technophobe, I was bricking it, and successfully put off taking the plunge for ages, but Thursday night I might have had a glass of something and finally went for it. In addition, I was armed, having bought a copy of Nicola Morgan’s e-book Tweet Right. (What? You wouldn’t visit a foreign country without a guide book, would you? This is no different...)

So I had my instructions of How to... Twitter, and honestly I didn’t know what I had been worrying about. Maybe that was the wine.

And as the book had made it such a painless start, I sent Nicola a Thank You tweet on Friday, and then pottered off on the school run. On my return I honestly thought I’d broken Cyberspace, or Twitter at the very least. Myemail Inbox, was full of Twitter messages.  Fully expecting to be expelled on my first day, I saw that they were all Follow notifications, stemming from Nicola asking her followers to make me welcome. And what a welcome it was! I had over twenty followers within the hour.

 Admittedly, the Follow-bomb sent me into a flat-spin, as I endeavoured to thank them all personally, no doubt clogging up everyone’s Timeline, and various further acts of muppetry followed. (Apologies to @nicolamoran, whoever and wherever you are – I have fat fingers and was overexcited. Apologies to everyone else, as I’m not sure how to fix my gaffs yet. You don’t seem to be able to retract erroneous tweets...)

But here is the thing; nobody seemed to mind, or if they did they didn’t make a big deal of it. And having spent yesterday  lying in a darkened room, sticking with my original plan of Lurking and Learning, I have calmed down, and can take stock of the lovely bunch of people that Twitter can bring together.  The followers I now have -and honestly I thought it would take me a veeeery long time to get to over thirty- is a fabulously eclectic mix of people – many of them writers, but not exclusively -  who are welcoming, accommodating and supportive. How lovely is that?

As for muppetry, just as Today’s news is Tomorrow’s chip-paper, I’m choosing to believe that gaffs get buried in Timelines even quicker. Plus as one new friend tweeted – “it is supposed to be fun...No-one dies.” And hurrah for that.

And the bonus surprise? Twitter brought visitors here too – visitors who left comments! See that? That’s media synergy in action, right there. Not bad for a newbie’s first day.

Today’s Distraction Tools; Star Wars Lego, Father’s Day’s duties.