The Pros and Cons of Twitter
(as a writer and a regular human)
I’ve never really 'used' it before but have found it to be quite
involving, especially as you can choose who to ‘follow’ on it and find all
kinds of interesting information, ideas and opinions.
This has also led to me becoming further distracted by the
upcoming UK general election, as a lot of the content on twitter is focusing on that.
I would never ever include politics in any of my stories, as I
believe children should be free of the worries of the adult world as they get
on with the busy and confusing job of growing up, going to school, doing
homework, making and breaking friendships, living with their family or whomever, and
taking on all kinds of different hobbies, facing various personal challenges, etc etc etc!
I can’t really say that I have my ‘finger on the pulse’ at
all – as following the news can take up a lot of time and I try to avoid spending
too long staring at screens. However, twitter seems a potentially empowering forum for some without a voice to ‘speak up’, if you can separate the more interesting or insightful tweets from countless other random (and sometimes inappropriate) daily ones!
If you have a moment, why not visit my twitter feed to see who I’m following and find out what some of them have
to say:
There’s all kinds of cool science feeds like ‘Physics World’ and 'Science Weekly',
links to masterful documentary makers such as Simon Schama, Neil deGrasse Tyson
and Louis Theroux, amazing images from Earth Pics, the insights of characters
ranging from Ekhart Tolle to Kurzgesagt, and regular updates from great
children’s authors including JK Rowling, Michael Rosen and Frank
Cottrell-Boyce.
I suspect you either have to be famous or ‘time rich’ to manage get a lot
of followers – something I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with anyway!
I aim to use my own twitter feed to 'retweet' or 'favourite' anything I think might appeal to any like-minded souls, while perhaps adding a few comments and observations of my own along the way if ever the mood takes me - so feel free to follow:
As for any aspiring authors reading this and pondering the use of such social media, I suppose it can't do any harm to try - although I’m not sure I’d
recommend putting too much time into it when you're supposed to be writing...
Anyway, from a writer's point of view, twitter seems potentially useful for:
- Announcing new releases
- Keeping readers up to date with potential new developments in your stories, the evolution of your characters, new cover designs, etc
- Interacting with your readers
- Increasing your 'exposure'
- Giving updates on any readings, signings, talks, etc that you
might be doing
- Interacting with other authors
- Announcing any new posts on your Blog or Facebook page
However, as great as all of this sounds, it's not all wonderful, as twitter can still be:
- Very time consuming to keep up with everyone’s tweets and
respond when necessary
- Difficult when trying to separate ‘the wheat from the chaff’
- Open to abuse – are you ready for the possibility of negative comments on social media?
- No guarantee of increased book sales
If you do decide to start 'tweeting', you might find these online guides useful:
Mashable twitter guide book
How to get more twitter followers
And for teachers, ways to us twitter in the classroom
You can also learn how to 'embed' your twitter feed into your blog page here (it's very simple, even I managed at the first attempt - see the right-hand side of this page)
Do you have a twitter feed already? Which are your favourite
feeds? Can you recommend any interesting ones for young readers or children’s authors? Please share them...
