President's Corner

Tripping the Light Twitterific

Though we strive to keep our toolset leading edge, I fell a bit behind in getting into social media. Of course, I have a Facebook page to stay in touch with family and friends, and a LinkedIn page to network with my professional peers. I also help maintain the STC Sacramento Metro Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySTC pages. However, I couldn't see the point of Twitter. Who would want to know that in my personal time I'm laying another course of bricks, or when on the clock, I just made my deadline? My mind reeled at spending time relating such trivia to folks I barely know—if I know them at all.

I vowed when taking this seat that I'd get on the Twitter bandwagon to be a good source of interesting tidbits and keep followers apprised of chapter events. So, I set up 3 Twitter accounts: personal, career, and chapter.

A smartphone is only as smart as its user and the apps

Now that I have three ways to tweet, I couldn't figure out how the Twitter app would let me manage all accounts at once. Luckily, our new web master is proficient at these things. He let me know that Twitterific provides an easy way to interface with all accounts. I took a chance and bought it, and it's great! I can tweet as any of my alter egos in just two taps. It's the little things.

Tweet/Retweet

It's important when I'm tweeting as @STCSactoMetro that I provide information pertinent to our vocation. I want to be useful to those interested enough to follow me. Mostly I retweet, sending links to articles, webinars, or podcasts that specialize in writing, authoring tools, and in the use of language and design to ease the end-user experience. My tweets announce chapter events and programs we're working on, and this year we are really getting some great speakers with programs I'm really excited about. My latest tweet announced that the chapter is lucky to have Chris Wilson as our newsletter editor. I hope we get more members excited about sharing their knowledge in this venue.

Learning curve

I watch the tweets of those I follow to learn Tweetiquette. Hash signs, at signs, RT, mentions, and a dozen other symbols, acronyms and vernacular, and I wonder if I'll ever get it. It can't be any harder than learning a new piece of software or hardware. Tasks we're all familiar with. To get a leg up I purchased Tim O'Reily and Sarah Milstein's The Twitter Book, and need to read it right away so that I can get up to speed on my tweets.

In last September's program, Rich Maggiani said to set a day and time to catch up on all your social media. This great advice has enabled me to get tweet consistently. And believe it or not, that also helps me explore my newsletters and RSS feeds, expand my knowledge, and pass on what pearls of wisdom I find.

Tweeting is proving to be very intriguing. Now, I've got to read that book!

Follow me at @STCSactoMetro or, thanks to our new web master, Daniel Bews, watch our live Twitter feed in the right pane.