Tagged: @bloggers_guide

August 5th, 2009

This Twitter Business…It’s Shady

I’m feeling a bit shady this morning for an idea I have in managing my Twitter accounts. Yes, that’s plural. At last count, I have 11 Twitter accounts that I am responsible for. Four for work. Two for the cats. Three that are “mine.” One for the business. And one for SGFblogs.com. Don’t judge me.

The accounts in question this morning are my* accounts: sarahjoaustin, tweeples_guide, and bloggers_guide. First, let me explain why I have these three personal accounts. I started with sarahjoaustin, which was fine until January when Twitter hit the social media radar and everyone and their mother (including mine) joined Twitter. I follow a lot of people I know personally, and I’m pretty liberal in following anyone in my geographic area. Until Twitter’s new popularity sprung up, I tweeted at my whim about whatever I liked, including blogging and Twitter and other social media news.  Over time, I was friends with more “real-life” friends than before and a lot of those people aren’t keen on getting an article about blogging or Twitter or social media news every other minute.

So I first created bloggers_guide, and a month later I created tweeples_guide. Both were created to I could share the helpful and interesting blogging and Twitter and social media news as I liked. I have been pretty diligent in finding such resources for the last six months.

But I took a break from blogging in July, and I declared Google Reader bankruptcy, deleting all** of the feeds I was subscribed to. Like many people, I don’t use a lot of discretion when choosing what to add to gReader, and eventually, there is just too much to read. My theory is this: After deleting all these feeds, the blogs I remember liking and reading regularly are the blogs I can resubscribe to because they obviously left an impression with me. I added anew those blogs this morning. Most of those are personal blogs that I read for myself, but I switched up what I did for my Twitter and blogging resources.

Instead of subscribing to them via RSS, I tracked down the blog/author on Twitter and began following them with either bloggers_guide or tweeples_guide, hoping they’ll a) tweet links to their recent posts and b) provide links to other resources, too. Essentially, these accounts are resources for me because of who I follow and resources for others because of what I tweet.

So here is my question: Am I complete scum if I unfollow those friends who are not resources to me on these accounts? Here are the pros and cons I came up with:

Pros

  • A concentrated stream of blogger- or Twitter-related information for me.
  • A list of Twitter- or blogger-specific resources for my followers (the Followers list).
  • A less cluttered RSS reader.

Cons

  • Getting the same tweets across multiple accounts.
  • Hurting/breaking some “relationships” on my side accounts. (But I don’t dialog with those accounts much anyway.)

This is my quandry today. Any insight to my problem?

* I say “my” accounts because while I maintain administrative rights to them, I’ve also given Linden exclusive permission to tweet for tweeples_guide and bloggers_guide as she fancies.

** All RSS feeds except the ones from websites I administrate.

December 13th, 2008

Why I Separated My Twitter Account: Three Reasons to Consider

I found myself and BloggersGuide.net at a crossroad this week: To tweet or not to tweet. That was the question. I’ve had a personal Twitter account for about a year, and I’ve kept it pretty well up to date with personal musings and activities and the feeds from my personal blog and BGnet. But I also use Twitter to keep my Facebook status up to date, so my personal Twitter audience is much larger than the 50 or so followers I have on Twitter; my tweets also go to my 300 or so friends on Facebook.

And that was the problem. By promoting BGnet with my Twitter account (and therefore Facebook), I was publicizing to a whole group of people who a) had no interest in Twitter and b) had no interest in blogging. And as a professional writer, I can tell you that the first thing we’re taught in our professional writing classes is to know and address your audience.

At the same time, I asked myself, Sarah, do you really want to separate your Twitter account? You know yourself. You’ll probably start separating all your other accounts, too. This could get really hairy very quickly.

These thoughts are valid. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, and when I commit to something, I go all out. But there are three reasons I separated my personal Twitter account from my BGnet Twitter account, and they are reasons you should consider as well:

  1. Time. I spend a lot of time online, and it’s very easy to let the line between personal and work activity become gray and fuzzy. By separating my Twitter accounts, I’m ensuring that when I’m working on BGnet, I’m solely working on BGnet. And that makes tracking the time I work on BGnet so much easier.
  2. Audience. My BloggersGuide.net Twitter account is directed primarily to bloggers rather than my miscellany of friends. While I’m sure my friends don’t mind an occassional BGnet plug, they don’t want to be inundated with articles I’m reading or conversations I’m having with other bloggers. At the same time, the Twitter username @bloggers_guide communicates that the account is about blogging whereas @sarahjoaustin only communicates that the account is about me.
  3. Content. My personal Twitter account is filled with all things personal: what I’m doing at work, what I’ve just posted on my personal blog, what I’m doing on a Friday night, etc. I want to do the same thing with my BGnet Twitter account: share what I’m reading that pertains to bloggers, promote BGnet, and network with other bloggers.

So my question is: Did I make the right move? I can think of several bloggers/tweeters off the top of my head who keep their personal and blogging tweets together, but I think there’s validity to keeping them separate. What about you? How are you handling your Twitter account(s)?

 

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