Social networking and micro-blogging offer are an immediacy that cannot be rivaled by blogs.
E.g., Twitter forces you to frame your thoughts in 140 characters or less. It is all about NOW. Similarly, your Facebook status needs to be updated pretty regularly for anyone to care.
Tweets are much more ephemeral than blog posts. You need to find a way to pay attention or you will miss them (tools like TweetDeck and Twhirl can help you manage Twitter streams). And, unlike blogs, repeating thoughts verbatim – your own, or of others via retweets – is not frowned upon.
With Facebook updates and Twitter you know very quickly if your missives strike a nerve or not.
It can be a real rush, to post an update and have it resonate across your networks and see what people respond to.
On the other hand, perhaps they are not responding. You may have too few followers and need to work on building your networks. Or, maybe you are not posting things that are interesting, or writing in a way that grabs attention.
On that last point, it helps to think in terms of headline writing, or writing subject lines for emails that draw responses, and applying some of the same principles (see my post Writing Headlines that POP!)
You can also watch what others are posting and responding to and take note. What tweets grab your attention? Which ones drive hordes of replies and retweets? What Facebook updates cause many to write on the person’s wall?
That is why these forums are great labs for attention, and for sharpening your skills. If you are in the communications business, as I am, it is good to study these things.
One quick anecdote, I had an amusing exchange with my sister on Facebook. She poked fun at one of my updates, and then my sister in-law chimed in. I replied through wall-to-wall exchanges that I would change my status because the whole thing was getting irritating.
My sister chimed in “don’t change, we love the gregarious Bob!” I honestly had no idea how many people were watching my Facebook updates or wall. So I was a little surprised when people I ran into in different walks of life shortly thereafter – family, friends, colleagues – started calling me Gregarious Bob.
Eerie and wild, this world of blogging, micro-blogging social networking. It is a little like being a kid in a candy store if you work in communications.
