31 Tweets, 6 Followers, Following 24

I had heard about Twitter before I started this class. On July 4th, my brother-in-law told me about his use of Twitter. I didn't understand everything he told me but that day I began a Twitter account. Today is August 6 and I have sent out 31 tweets thus far. That is not many in the grand scheme of things.

I came across an idea in the reading I have been doing about Twitter. Angela Maiers presented her Twitter Engagement Formula. She uses a 70-20-10 formula.

• 70% - in 70% of her tweets Angela shares resources, retweets others ideas, shares links to blog posts and websites. Angela says "Successful learning in the 21st Century is not what you know, but what you can share."
• 20% - in 20% of her tweets Angela responds to and connects with friends on Twitter
• 10% - in the remaining 10% of her tweets, Angela chats about her life. This would be the "going for breakfast to the High Level Diner" kind of talk.

I have not analyzed my 31 tweets. I suspect that most of them would fall into the "life chat" category. Today for the first time, I retweeted a resource. Today for the first time, I replied to a friend using @ with their user name. I would like to try to emulate Angela's Twitter engagement formula as I continue to use Twitter.

After I created my Twitter account, I immediately found my brother-in-law on Twitter and started to follow him. He then followed me. Then I was looking around on Twitter and found Nadine (except her user name was something else then). I noticed that she had a beautiful flower background for her Twitter home page. I started to follow Nadine. Then she followed me. I then sent her a direct message to tell her I liked her flowered background. I tried to figure out how to change my background. If you go to my Twitter account (just search for Ruth

Cover of The Best Laid Plans

Elliott), you will see that I succeeded in changing my background. It is a photograph from our trip to the Dominican Republic for a wedding in January of 2009.

Gradually as I went along I discovered more people to follow on Twitter. As soon as Jennifer said that Mack Male would speak to our class, I began to follow him on Twitter and on his blog. Terry Fallis (author of The Best Laid Plans) sent me a message on my blog when I mentioned his book in it. I followed him on Twitter. Then he followed me. I made a mention in a tweet of the Calgary Herald's story about digital nomads. That day Calgary Arts Development started following me. Some other people have followed me as well but when they follow me, I take a look at their Twitter home page. If there is any foul language, nudity, or crudity of any kind, I block their follow. Thanks Heather for the follow. My latest follower is a dead guy--John Quincy Adams. He was the sixth President of the United States. It sounds a little creepy to say he's following me but that's what it says under my followers on Twitter. The museum which stores Adams' diaries are publishing his line-a-day journals on Twitter. They started yesterday. I read about it and decided to follow him on Twitter. Today I notice he's following me back.

Now we come to the 24 people that I am following. (It's funny. I just checked to see who Paula Abdul is following on Twitter. She annou

Image via Wikipedia

nced on Twitter this week that she was leaving American Idol. Yesterday she was part of two trending topics at the same time. I didn't realize that you could hold your cursor over the little picture under following and see the name. Paula is following Ryan Seacrest.) Some of the people I am following came through the above stories: my brother-in-law, Mack Male, Terry Fallis. Then I started to read names or see things in blogs. I wanted to hear more from that person so I checked if they were on Twitter. If they were I looked to see their most recent tweets. Then I decided whether I wanted to keep listening or not.

Somehow or other I came upon Tim O'Reilly. He really likes to recommend resources. So he has given (since I've been following him) three lists of women to follow. I have clicked on each link, read a little from that woman, and sometimes even checked out her website or blog. Then I have decided whether to follow that woman or not. I would say Tim O'Reilly is directly responsible for the fact that I have more women than men in the Twitter people (or is it Tweeple) that I am following. Thanks Tim.

Already I'm starting to appreciate that Twitter breakdown (Angela Maiers' 70-20-10). If someone is only ever saying what they ate or where they went, I will probably not stick with them for too long. As well, if someone shares good information but does not give a link, I don't like that. For example, yesterday someone said, Read good report on " ". But there was no link to the report. It did not name the report or say who wrote it. It was like a dead end. Those don't go over well with me. I guess it I knew the person who wrote that, I could question them and ask for more information. At this moment in my Twitter journey, I don't know how to do that.

One person I read suggested setting goals for Twitter and your use of it. I think after this class ends, I will decide how much and how often I wish to tweet. I think my voice will mainly be heard in the longer form blog. However I believe there is a place for micro-blogging as well. Even if it is just for sharing resources, I can see Twitter continuing to have a niche in my digital world.