I avoided Twitter! I have heard about it for a long time on ActiveRain-people twittering each other at conferences, commenting on how fast a conversation reaches everyone and how many responses they get to a question. If I joined Twitter, that would be the final straw that broke by blogging back! But, it is here to stay!
Finally I started commenting "I have heard about it and can't ignore it any longer" - and yes, "I will join this weekend" (when I had more time). Or, "I have bookmarked this post and will come back". . . (you know the rest). I just knew I would get swallowed up, eaten whole, spit back out and none the wiser. It would be one more thing I HAVE to do to be the good social media realtor that I need to be and can't quite be-like the grown ups. I know there are many of you out there saying exactly the same things. Is there no end . . . will I ever reach anywhere and feel I have finally arrived somewhere? The answer is NO and Twitter really freed me up to escape all the chatter. And here is my story.
As you can see by my points, I am hardly an active blogger as compared to so many on ActiveRain. Why I don't blog so much is that I get very serious and significant about what I blog about: Will it contribute to the community-there's such great stuff, will mine be OK, will it add value? Has it been posted before (I spend time searching to make sure)? Will I write it well (I majored in journalism)? Will people think it valuable (I don't want to game the system)? It looks boring, let me add a picture (I spend another half hour or so looking for the right one). And where do they (top bloggers from who I learn so much) get their ideas anyway?
It is a moment of celebration when I find something that hasn't been posted before, I find a fun picture and it reads like it deserves a Nobel prize-maybe I will be noticed, acknowledged, appreciated for my efforts and get a lot of comments. I think you get the picture on how long it takes me to write a post-did I say I am a very serious and significant person about my life . . . and a perfectionist.
When I started to Twitter, I lost all the significance. When you can only use 140 characters to say something, it doesn't leave much room for all the crap significance. And, now I know where everyone gets all the new ideas - they are in a live real time conversation on what is going on in the world. You are literally listening to the pulse of what's new-top people who have created and gotten on board the latest technology and actively communicating about news breaking events. And there is the personal side-we are people who want to be connected and make a difference in a very big small world.
In the chaos of it all, in the overwhelming onslaught of so much media, technology and my concerns of not being good enough, I found my voice. One tiny voice in the hugest space gave me the ability to just be myself-it is just too hard to be anything else. Did I say-I LOVE Twitter. When you follow so many people (some have thousands), how can you possibly keep up or worry about it all. I have had a conversation about the weather in Minnesota, commented on someone's picture about snow, read a post by someone I follow on ActiveRain and commented from Twitter. Since this is Twitter for Beginners, here are the very basic things that you need to know to just jump in and the rest will come.
Just join Twitter-even the bio is tiny - you can change it any time-just remember-don't be significant about it. @kimwood wrote a 5 part series on Twitter that gives step by step instructions. The link is for part 1 and each part has a link to the next. I read it after I joined Twitter (to make sure I did it right LOL). I am one of those "types" that rarely read directions first.
Next you want to "follow" and be "followed". Once you do this, you see the true value of Twitter. I knew @BradAndersohn was on Twitter and so he was my first follow and he followed back. Then I went to Twitter Search and typed in @MissyCaulk and a few others. My nephew read a Facebook update that I had joined and he followed me. Once you have a couple, you can see who they follow and some of the responses from people in their profile and see if you want to follow them as well. Once you click "follow" under their profile picture, most will follow you back. You will get e-mail alerts that people are following you-if you like their short bio and a few of their tweets, you can follow them back. To get you started, here is a recent post about some top people to follow from Nestor & Katrina Gasset on Top people to follow. There is also an advanced search to find topics of interest - you don't want to make it all about Real Estate. I have found many other ways to search but this is the beginning.
Finally - how do you manage the chaos - not that you really can--like I said, that is the beauty of it--you get what you get and you don't get what you don't get and that's just how you get it-a bit like life--I like to call it "Being vs. Doing". I really dug in and explored Twitter for two weeks before writing this. You will never read all the Tweets that flow by (unless you have a very narrow world) but I do want to make sure I read certain ones so I found Tweetdeck. I didn't like the black color so you can edit the settings.
There are a lot of applications to manage your tweets and more on all this in a "Part 2 For the graduates of Twitter for beginners". Just download tweetdeck soon after you have a few follows to create groups. I currently have five groups. The first group is the Twitter stream of all you follow. I look here when I first log on and might comment to a few people. Mostly I look at my groups. I have an ActiveRain Group (whoever I choose to follow); a local group (a local search to network in your community)-in this group, I include my family; I have a Twitter group (I follow many people who write about Twitter and technology); lastly I have my favorites-you can bookmark the tweets you want to come back to later and take a closer look.
There you have it - if you have been on the fence, think it is just too much, it's never going to stop--it isn't--just dive in and enjoy the Twittersteam. Don't forget to follow me @tishhouse.
Royal Oak Realtor selling Real Estate in Southeastern Michigan. TishHouse sells Houses - selling Oakland County Real Estate with RE/MAX Showcase Homes in Birmingham, Michigan. Helping People in a challenging market by specializing in Short Sales. See what my clients have to say about my extraordinary customer service
For about 40 years, Kerry Borgne has decorated his home for the holidays - the past 30 years have been at their current residence at 1948 Washington St, Birmingham, Michigan. Kerry made Snoopy characters himself along with a friend and Jan's sister. Jan Borgne, Kerry's wife, said they were out a good part of the morning after the big winter storm this week shoveling the snow off all the decorations. 
Following people from ActiveRain was the first step. I listened to