How Much Twitter Is Right For You?

 Michelle Maura is an Organizational Psychologist, singer and Yoga teacher. She practices Mantra Yoga Meditation and Hatha Yoga, while studying Yoga philosophy. Michelle shares her thoughts on her blog Thoughts Are Things, while also contributing at Intent.com. She focuses on the importance of looking at the positive side of every situation in life and always moving forward. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/michellemaura.

 

There are infinite uses one can give ...

to Twitter- from online marketing, to sharing interesting information to filling in moments of boredom or loneliness. There are also varying degrees of Twitter usage- there’s the user that will go online for 20 minutes a day and check older tweets as mini emails, there’s the person who logs on after every break to update others and themselves on the day’s happenings, and there are the hard core users who use software like Tweet Deck or have apps on their mobiles to notify them of every tweet possible, audio alert and scheduled tweets included.

Whether you are new to the vast and still growing Twitterverse or already feel established your tweet space, you might have asked yourself this question just how much Twitter is good for you. Here are a few questions that might help you get your answer.

  How much Twitter is good for you?

Are you using social media to establish your product or company on the market, and would like to enjoy the advantages Twitter offers?

Are you aiming to promote yourself because you like the idea of being a microcelebity?

Are you going through a lonely stage in real life and hoping to meet fellow tweeters and feel more connected?

Are you engaged in your goals and activities and simply like the additional social advantages of Twitter?

Are you only looking to share information with like minded people, or learn new things from those who think differently?

As you see, the uses of Twitter can be as diverse as the amount of personality types that exist.

There are also many reasons to enjoy tweeting. Twitter was intelligently designed to make you want more. Remember these programs are designed by people who study the psychology of social media and who wish to expand the amount of users as well as frequency of tweets. But everyone who was once a child knows that you can’t have all the candy you crave. Sometimes “no” can be a healthy addition to your Twitter vocabulary.

The idea is for you to find your own motivation and balance it out with fulfilling your responsibility, hobbies and aspirations in your own life. If you can do both things successfully, happily tweeting without feeling that it has a vacuum effect while taking away valuable time from your achievements, you are on the right track.

Can you manage to use Twitter productively without giving up your achievements in real life?

Here are some tips to make your Twitter experience more fruitful, while making sure you have time for yourself:

1. It’s OK to miss some of the action. Unless you have nothing to do with your life, chances are you’re going not going to be able to read every single tweet of everyone you’re following. That’s fine. Twitter conversations can be similar to chat rooms, but they can also be similar to email. You can check @replies and direct messages sent to you at a later time.

2. Use a Twitter application to enhance your tweet management. There are various applications that can offer a more organized experience of Twitter, rather than just using the web site. These applications, such as HootSuite and TweetDeck, separate the general stream of tweets from those mentioning you, into two categories: public @replies and direct messages.

3. Create a tweet bank. You don’t need to wait for some tweet time to come up with your tweets. There are things that you want to share in real time, but there are other things that you can decide in advance. Make a list of websites, blogs, pics, news, quotes and anything else you that is of interest to you and might be of interest to your followers.

4. Schedule some tweets in advance. If you don’t have the time to tweet as often as you’d like, there’s no reason why you can’t. There are a few sites like Twuffer and HootSuite that allow you to write your tweets in advance and schedule them to be posted later. For example, you can schedule a tweet to be posted every hour, or as often as you’d like, without needing to worry about it.

5. Take a Twitter break. Set a few times a day when you can check in with your tweeples. For example, a few minutes of your lunch break, while you’re resting. Update yourself with what’s going on, and share anything you’d like to comment on about your day/work/other. Be sure to be reasonable with the amount of time you set aside. It’s good as long as it doesn’t take away time from a more important/urgent matter.

These are just some ideas to get started. Feel free to add your own as you see fit. We can enjoy the benefits of Twitter while making the most out of our lives too.

The trick is to find a balance that works for us.

 

Post Author:  Michelle Maura  /  Web:  Thoughts Are Things  /  Twitter:  Follow Me!

Hide