Having finally entered the world of social media (albeit kicking and screaming) I gotta say, it’s pretty darn fun.  Twitter took me a while to understand why I was even on there and I can finally say that now “I get it.”  It’s for:

1. Giving a quickie of how you feel, just for the hell of it.
2. Announcing blog or website updates.  I’m following Coolrunning and Active.com among others and they’re basically touting posts or articles every 1/2 hour or so.  It’s cool though, click what sounds interesting, ignore the rest.  I won’t lie, This is actually the main reason I’m on there, to get people to this blog and The Gifted Runner.  No shame in that as long as you post other stuff, too, you don’t want to be a totally selfish tweeter (though tons of folks and companies are).
3. Sharing interesting web finds. People post quotes, articles or funny pictures.
4. Sharing your daily run report.  Some people, like my pal Progman, link to their running logs, which is pretty cool.

What’s appealing to me is that tweets can only be 140 characters at most.  Such a limiting framework makes it easy to jump in and you don’t have to think of what to write or how best to say it like you do when writing full paragraphs.  Also, you don’t have to be involved with real conversations.  Occasionally there’ll be a message directed towards you or you’ll reply specifically to someone’s tweet, but for the most part, it’s a one-way deal.  Very easy with no emotional investment…just my speed.

If you want to try it, here are a couple tips:

To get followers

I have 47 followers right now, which is very modest, but considering I’ve only been on it 10 days, not bad.  Followers are the people who follow your tweets.  It’s one thing to spout whatever’s on your mind, but the fun comes in knowing you’re being read.  You can follow people anytime but to have people follow you requires some action.

One way to do it is to go to a guru with your interest, like a famous runner or coach, click the followers link in their profile and start following the first couple pages of people that come up.  Some will follow you back immediately.  I only did it once on my first day so it’s pretty effective.

Another great way to find people with your interest is to do a search on “running” or “marathon”, then follow whoever looks interesting (I admit to following a few guys just because they’re cute).

Saved Searches

Speaking of searches, another way to get more followers is by including a search tag in your tweet which means way more people will see it than just your followers.  For example, yesterday I wrote  Just got back from my long #run. 18.34mi @ 8:47 pace, half road, half trails. Tomorrow’s recovery run will be heaven. #running #marathon

You can click those links to see that they take you to searches on those particular words. So all you have to do it is put the # before whatever word to make it a search link.  If you’re writing about some great thing you made for dinner and want other cooks to see it, write “yum, just made a fabulous stew from cows eyeballs #recipes”  Like that.

Make A Cool Profile Background

I just did this yesterday. If you’ve got a graphics program, you can make something and upload it, otherwise, there are lots of free online Twitter backgrounds you can get and some that even let you create your own online.  Here’s a google search if you’re interested.  Having your own background can help advertise your site or blog and/or make people more likely to want to follow you.

So that’s a little taste of my experience so far.  The cool thing is I don’t spend hardly any time on it but am getting about 5 new followers each day, seems that posting about my run using the #running tag gets people interested.

Back to the blog…

Tobey asked how to get those avatars by your name when you comment here or on other blogs.  I posted the link in my reply comment but it’s worth reposting here so everyone can get one.  It’s called a gravatar and you go to http://en.gravatar.com/ to get your very own.  It’s simple, free and fun because no matter whose blog you’re posting on, you can adorn your fabulous comments with the identifying picture of your choice.

And that’s it for my Monday blab.  Have some great runs, all!