I love Twitter, although I am by no means a prolific user compared to those who have somehow found the time to post 10,000+ tweets! I am not new to the social networking site, having set up an account a couple of years ago. However having only tweeted around 600 times, I feel like I have probably not experienced the best that Twitter has to offer. I think that Twitter is a site that undoubtedly gets better the more you use it. Although you can just follow people and never tweet yourself, this lack of engagement can make it a very one-sided experience.
Following the #UoS23 things feed has renewed my interest a bit, since before this I hadn't tweeted since Christmas and had no inclination to either. Much of this is due to a reluctance to fill my feed with boring facts about routine activities (still better suited to Facebook I think!), although I have mainly used Twitter for promotion purposes, firstly when I was doing my PhD, using it as opportunity to connect with fellow PhD students and academics, and more recently to promote a store I have on Etsy. For these purposes, Twitter is brilliant. I think if Twitter is used predominantly for networking and following people with similar interests then it can be a very valuable tool. On the other, less serious side, Twitter can provide pure escapism and there are plenty of people out there worth following just for laughs.
Back to #Sot23, I did enjoy the #filmlist activity, as any opportunity to talk about films is most welcome, although after this initial discussion things seemed to go quite flat on the feed. I am hoping though that conversations between colleagues I have followed and who have followed me back will continue and don't simply end after 23 things is over.....
On a related note, I wonder if the library should promote their Twitter feed more as the number of followers is significantly lower than for the Facebook page. I have noticed this number going up more lately, but I suppose in terms of considering target audiences, students will tend to flock to Facebook first. The trick to gaining more followers on Twitter is of course to follow more people - and Tweet very regularly! Something to bear in mind perhaps???
