Getting Rid of Twitter

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Stephen Fry has just announced that he’s quitting twitter after a Bafta jibe.

Now nothing so dramatic has happened to me to make me contemplate getting rid of my twitter account.

It’s just simply that I don’t use it anymore. I’ve never used it personally, only ‘professionally’ as a writer, and several reasons present themselves to convince me to get rid.

One. I don’t use it. Two. The twitter community is too vast, your thoughts – and tweets – can easily get lost in the plethora of comments that get posted every second. Three. It may be a great writer platform, a great way to connect with other writers, and with readers – but if you don’t use it – and don’t have the time to use it to it’s full advantage then the positive is no longer so positive.

I wish I did have time to use it fully. I wish I had time to build a writer’s platform on twitter, but…alas I don’t.

At the beginning it’s probably a good idea to build an online presence by engaging with writers/readers in many different ways. Not that you’d keep with all these ways, if you did then you wouldn’t have time to write – which is what writers are supposed to do right. : /

So at first, that’s what I did. I got on WordPress, on twitter, on Goodreads and on a few others that now I can’t quite remember the names of. And I found the ones I like to use – WordPress and Goodreads – so I’m sticking with those.

I think writers – especially the ones trying to make their mark – find themselves under pressure to create a vast and complex online presence, so that they are able to connect with as many people as possible. That seems like the answer. But you run the risk of either doing nothing but networking – or spreading yourself too thin. If you have so many platforms to think about then you can’t (or at least it’s extremely difficult) make that mark that writers (or anyone) so desires.

But concentrating on one or two platforms means that you don’t spread yourself too thin, and you are able (or so the theory goes) to have a greater online presence.

An online presence for me is not just about how many different network platforms you are on, nor how many followers you have (of course that helps), but about how you engage with the followers you do have, and putting content up there on the world wide web that people want to engage with. That it’s not all about ‘Look at this – check out my book’.

An online presence is not something that happens over night, it does take time and effort. So why not put this time and effort into just a few ‘projects’ rather than loads – you may find that the rewards can be huge.

And so swinging full circle back to the beginning – I’m getting rid of twitter!

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