What
is a Twitter Chat? It's one hour of your life dedicated to talking
with other Twitter users about a certain subject, using a hashtag to
bring you all together and on the same page (literally).
#bloghour, for
instance, is 9pm every Tuesday. Ran by The UK Blog Awards, #bloghour features a series
of questions on one aspect of blogging, and is an opportunity for
bloggers to air their views on the topic and discuss it with people
with the same pastime. Other blog chats of note are #bdib (bloggers
do it better, Mondays and Friday nights) #lbloggers (lifestyle
bloggers chat on Wednesday and Sunday nights) and #gossipbloggers
(fortnightly Sundays. This one doesn't seem to be about blogging at
all).
Twitter
chats aren't just about blogging. You can probably find a weekly chat
about any subject. #Mhchat
covers mental health. #Manchesterhour discusses Manchester and is a chance to promote local businesses. There's probably a chat for your town. Tweetreports
has a schedule featuring a few different topics covered by various
chats. (Some of these are redundant.) Whether these will be happening at a time you're available is something you'd have to check. Remember that the English language-speaking world
operates through a few different time zones, so some will be
completely unsuitable for your schedule. British ones are usually at
times when people living in British time zones are most likely to be
free to use the computer- in the evenings.
I've
been participating in a few of these for about a year now. I've
online-met loads of great people, positive, knowledgeable bloggers
who have given me great advice. I've also found that my decade-long
experience as a blogger enables me to advise others on the craft of
blogging. I'll certainly continue to blog for a long time, but
Twitter chats I can feel myself bowing out of. Why?
Time
is a major factor. I have goals to attain with my blog, and with my
life. I'm trying to improve myself as a writer, and this takes time.
It takes practice, and it means reading loads. It also means doing
things to write about, experiencing things to carve individuality as
a writer. An extra few hours a week dedicated to this, instead of
Twitter chats, will get me closer to my goals- being known as a
writer and getting paid to write.
I've
given up time in these chats to pass on the knowledge I've gained,
and as much as people seem to appreciate it in their replies, I see
no real-world benefit, for me, from passing on this knowledge- no extra page
views, no award nominations, no recognition away from the chats due
to that participation. I'm not bitter about this, but if I want to
get such things, I need time to dedicate to moving towards said
goals.
I've
tried to connect to other bloggers involved in these chats. I've
followed plenty of these people. Some have followed back. Some still
follow me now, others unfollowed. If people unfollow me, I'll
unfollow them. (Statusbrew, if you were
wondering how.) I haven't gained a great deal of knowledge from these
chats, nor have I influenced others. No invitations to events came my
way (none that I could practically attend living 240 miles from the
capital) and I haven't met any of the contributors in person.
My
goals are finding information before the local press and sharing it
creatively on my own blog, and getting noticed by potential
employers. These ambitions are being hindered by the time I spend
chatting online. It's like MySpace a decade ago- the chatrooms, the
messages, the bulletins- did anyone actually meet anyone they
online-met on MySpace? I know I didn't. We're all older and
pretending we're professionals now, yet we're still sat there talking
to strangers over the internet. And where is it getting us? It' not
got me very far.
You're
always welcome to tweet me but I
won't sit and talk. I'm too busy.
No comments:
Post a Comment