Today I woke up to the notification that its my 7th Twitter Anniversary. Funny thing is I didnt realize we were married and I didnt even remember that seven years ago today on the 27th of October, I logged onto twitter, for the first time and logged out a couple of times but I never really left…….
Do you hear that, playing in the background, faint music…… voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say…
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here
You can log-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!
Nobody quite understands Twitter (not even its creators) but its provocative yet addictive…. Its like talking in a crowded room of people all talking at the same time and not even to each other but @ each other….
Its a message in a bottle thrown out in the deep blue sea and hoping someone reads it….
Twitter is a tool and like any tool and can build or destroy, depending how you wield it.
Twitter is the most real-time dynamic social media platform ever, if you doing it right you can find breaking stories way before they trickle to Facebook and Whatsapp or become viral…. If you think its just social media what other site do they read posts from on live news?
In honour of my Twitterversary, I will share 7 handy tips to surviving on Twitter
- get a decent number of followers and the only way to do that is to tweet and follow others; some will follow back.
- Some people are trolls out to get retweets, an audience, and attention….
They are like Gremlins do not feed them not just after dark… but ever
- Hashtags are your friends, use #Hashtags to find content and tweets that you relate with, (as an author I recommend #amwriting) One my personal faves is #vss for very short stories, most of my tweets are of this format and I eventually turn them into a story, my Twitter Timeline is basically a draft folder. Wednesdays evenings I host a poetry event tagged #AbWPE if you are of poetic persuasion do check it out. I have a special group of blogging friends and they use #BlogIndaba find us, find them. If you have any others drop them in comments.
- Trending topics keep you updated on …. well the trending Hashtags. You can set your twitter feed to show you:
Topics trending worldwide
Topics Trending in your country:
**For some reason Zimbabwe and a few other African countries do not appear on the list 
…….And South Africa has the option to pick Trends by city location
Tailored Trends: based on the people you follow
- I follow 5000+ people on Twitter and I have long since learnt, you dont have to read every tweet. My twitter news feed refreshes every second, and I would probably miss tweets from even my favourite twitter accounts but then I use twitter lists.
- I group my followers into manageable chunks,soon as as I add them; I have lists for blogging connections, authors, crushes, journalists, hilarious accounts and those I must never miss updates from. I simply load the list and get a form “tailored newsfeed”
For those people who say they only follow a few people to avoid their newsfeed getting overwhelmed you could simply create a list of those people near and dear to you and still follow a whole lot of other accounts….. you are welcome.
If you have any useful tips of your own do share and maybe one day we will do The Guide To Understanding Twitter
You can find me on twitter @Beatonm5
~B
PS There is a Mute Button, an Unfollow Button and a Block button: They will save you a world of drama if used judiciously….
I love the mute button though, its like blocking but without the permanent commitment, its just as good saying, I like knowing you around, though I dont really want to see you.
Becoming The Muse 
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