The AC Twitter Challenge
Why I Think I Fell Short
Later when I read AC Jelena's articles on the AC Twitter Challenge I discovered there was much more to it. There is nothing wrong with challenge itself. Finding other contributors on Twitter and promoting them is a rewarding experience as well as self-improvement for your own AC works.
Social networking is an excellent tool. By finding others that share your interests you can collaborate and promote each other. You befriend their friends and vice versa. Then as the friends of the friends add you into their network this will continually increase your audience size and promote your works even more.
I fell short on the Challenge because I'm already spread too thin and I think this is a problem that many people share. Not only do I have a full-time job, a family and Associated Content, I also make jewelry and trinkets. Originally I signed up for Twitter to help promote my blossoming side career on AC. The idea that AC would post automatically to Twitter was a good motivation to start utilizing Twitter.
Once I began my journey into the vast Twitterverse I literally stumbled across some fellow crafters. Thereupon I embarked down the pathway to a world of crafters and artisans which turned out to be immense! Belonging to that network increased my social network so fast that even today I am still blown away by the numbers.
The problem is that only a few of the crafters are also writers and vice versa. Because of this, my writing network has to be kept apart from the crafting network. TweetDeck helps with this by allowing you to create custom groups to organize your friends and their Tweets by whichever relatable feature your want to choose. Organization, however, only helps you keep track of who is tweeting. As far as ReTweeting your fellow Tweeters, and promoting yourself, you still have to take the time to do that.
Herein lies the dilemma. If you belong to two different networks, both of which you want to use for self-promotion of your works in that genre, how do you find the time to actually DO all the Tweets and ReTweets? As well, most Tweeters also post to Facebook and expect you to do the same. This spreads your time even thinner. Using the handy connections between Facebook and Twitter only cuts down the necessary time a little.
My crafter network grew so fast that it supremely dominated my writing network within a day. Now the majority of my time on the social network highway is dedicated to managing crafter traffic. As much as I would love to devote the same amount of time to building my writing Twitterverse larger, the time is just not there.
It is hard enough just to find time to write an article, let alone read other contributors' works, comment, and promote. Reading articles by other writers takes up a lot of time, even as a speed reader. As your network grows, so does the number of new articles to read. Currently, I have 224 new articles from my fellow AC contributors awaiting my perusal. I can only imagine how large that number would be had I actively participated in the AC Twitter Challenge!
It is a rather paradoxical situation. You need to read and comment on other AC contributors' works so that they in turn will read your own writings, but doing this takes time. Then to promote all the articles takes more time. Therefore when you don't have time to read and comment on others' pages, you will not significantly increase your own readership of fellow writers. This leaves you standing still on a deserted path neither going forward nor backward.
If you are like me and dabble in more than one aspect of a hobby, then you will run into a similar predicament. It will come down to a personal choice of which genre will you promote more. For right now, I am more actively promoting the thing that has a higher income potential. That, of course, may change in the future.
My currently known AC writers on Twitter:
(I apologize in advance if I place anyone here that is NOT on AC, or if I forget to place someone here that I follow on Twitter. When I created my writing group, I did not foresee needing to know who was on AC or not)
acwriter01
sabahk
acnews
KristenH_09
AC_Ashley
AC_James
AC_Jason
AC_Lisa
maxwell_payne
MichelleLDevon
I am currently on Twitter as tinkerick (http://www.twitter.com/tinkerick)
Published by Allana Calhoun
I'm a working mother who has been writing poetry and short stories since I was a child. I also do crafts and create handmade jewelry. View profile
- AC Twitter Challenge to Increase ExposureTwitter network has definitely raised my PVs. 8 more days til challenge ends - win prizes and increase exposure!!
The AC Twitter ChallengeTwitter can be a great promotional tool for writers on Associated Content. Send me a tweet to let me know what you think.- AC Twitter Challenge - a Social Quest of the HeartEverything that can inspire a poetry writer with encouragement, inspiration, and friendships.
- Associated Content Twitter Challenge Official RulesOfficial Rules for the October 2009 Twitter Challenge on Associated Content
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9 Comments
Post a CommentI agree with a lot of what you've said here. There's no real point in following people on AC or Twitter just for the sake of it. It just makes you look a bit of a fake. Danielle may be a good contact for you, if you're not already on each other's list. http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/425763/danielle_olivia_tefft.html
twitter is a good tool, i've been using it, it awesome man, lol
I have got to get hooked up with Twitter.
Time can definitely be an issue, as you pointed out so well.
Anyway "social style" networking is time consuming and difficult especially when self promoting. I have written one thing or another my whole life with no real success as far as publication. I have been doing the twitter challenge (though I still need to write up the experience of twitter to publish here per the rules). I really haven't seen much of a traffic increase to my work here, hopefully that will change. Great info and read here thanks.
It does make you wonder. I'm really happy to have met the nice people I've met here. I consider this a once in a lifetime kind of exchange, too. But time and efficiency wise - I don't know how some people do it.
I have to agree, seems like priorities have to be set and goals have to be achieved, which means putting in about thrity hours a day. Everyone is just so busy, luckily the holidays are coming and I can slow down, LOL
Wow, I never realized it could be so complicated! Thanks for the info...
You have hit the proverbial nail on the head! right now I am spending WAY too much time writing, reading, commenting, FB'ing and tweeting! Goodness, will it end?