>> Appreciate Craftsmanship as a Thousand Small Gestures
How many microscopic adjustments are made to a sculpture before it is complete? How many stitches go into a fine garment? This is the level you must achieve: down to the individual character. Simplicity serves two purposes: It creates a much-needed filter for the writer and limits the cognitive load of the reader. Judge your simplicity three ways:
1. Read it fast.
2. Read it faster.
3. Skim it.
Simplicity. Simply stated, keep it short, keep it relevant. Sagolla is probably one of my favorite writers of all time on this topic. It is so easy to get off track and branch out when you have such limited space. It seems only natural to make several posts in order to get your point across. However, readers don’t want to have to string several posts together. They want all the information they need in one take. This also brings me back to the concept of staying true to your brand. If it doesn’t have to do with your brand…why are you talking about it? I once heard everyone should practice the 90/10 rule. 90% of the time, your content should be relevant to your brand. The other 10% should let your personality shine through. Think Sagolla would agree?
>> Pipe Up Just When It’s Quiet
Everyone loves the peanut gallery, the people who sit back and heckle the speaker with some pointed wit. Twitter is like a giant game of improvisational comedy: there are no rules except that you should make people laugh or think, and preferably both. …poor writing has no place here, it does not survive. This is evolution, this is sink or swim, this is game time (65).
It’s true! EVERYONE loves the peanut gallery. Sagolla’s point about Twitter as a sink or swim network really hit home with me. If you’re not tweeting about things that make people laugh or think…why should they follow you at all? To them, you just become part of the clutter if you’re not putting out noteworthy content. It goes back to that little question that been in the back of our minds all semester: What value are you bringing to your followers?
>> Reinforce, Don’t Replace, Real Life
Most of the time, short messaging does not create friendships, only contacts. Real friendships are created via shared experiences. It’s been said that Facebook is for people you already know, and Twitter is for people you want to know (32).
I’m going to have to entirely agree with Sagolla on this one. The fact that all of my friends on Facebook are people I already know is something I never really thought about. I have always been aware that Twitter is more about networking and connecting on more of a business level than Facebook but simply stated in those terms, Sagolla explains it much better than I could have. Through Twitter, I have found several contacts that I don’t personally know or have never met before. Yet, these people bring value to my life in the sense that they are able to lead me to the resources and educate me on subjects I am seeking to learn. I can honestly say, not because my FB friends aren’t intelligent (they are), however, that I have learned more from people that I barely know through Twitter than I have through people I know personally and communicate with often.
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