Tuesday, March 29, 2011

What Does My Twitter Bio Really Say About Me


I discovered Marian Schembari through a YouTube interview done with her by Joanna Penn. After watching Marian's videos and reading a few of her blog posts, I got to thinking about how my Twitter account looks to people. I’m interested in a lot of things and sometimes I wonder if I turn folks off by tweeting about so many different subjects. Can any of you, or maybe Marian herself, let me know if I’m harming my potential readership by being all over the place with my tweets? In addition, my blog posts fall along the same lines. One day I’m writing about a relationship and the next day I’m writing about my decision to embrace the natural texture of my hair.

Let me provide a little more information about my subject matters.

Mother

I am a mother first and foremost. I’ve held this title for nearly four years and I’m still learning how to be a good mother. By no means am I perfect, but I’m doing the best I know how and I hope my son appreciates it when he gets older. I talk about some of the outings we go on and some of the funny things he says in the course of a day. At times I even ask for advice concerning my child’s education or why he may be behaving in a certain way.

Writer

Writing was a part of my life long before I became a mother. I write poetry, short stories, unfinished novels and of course blog posts. My desire to be a professional writer is the number one reason why I joined Twitter in the first place. I have met writers at various levels. From professionals to aspiring, from traditional published to self-published, from fiction to non-fiction and everything else in between. No matter what level the writer is on, I learn something from all of them on a regular basis through their blogs, YouTube videos and conversations with them on Twitter.

Reader

Before I was a writer, I was a reader. Reading was my first love (Some of the stuff I read as a youngster led to my first love with a boy but that’s another story.) Many times I tweet links to blog posts that I find interesting or about a book or ebook that I’m reading or have read and enjoyed.

Thinker

Things are always popping into my head, even in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s a story idea or a lyric from a song that I can’t get out of my head. Sometimes I tweet these lyrics and sometimes I post a link to the video on YouTube. When something ways heavy on my mind, I write a blog post about it and link to it. (Which is what I’m going to do with this post).

Natural Hair

I didn’t even know there was a such thing as a natural hair community until I got on Twitter. I had been toying with the notion of growing my relaxer out but I really didn’t think much of it until I ran across a couple of tweets with the hashtag #naturalhair. When I clicked on it I saw a legion of nappy headed, curly haired, kinky haired African American women that had cut all of their hair off or were in the process of growing the chemically treated hair out and trimming it a little at a time. From joining and participating in this community, I have learned so much about my own hair. Sometimes, when the mood hits me, I even create and then link to my own YouTube videos.

Relationships

Most of the poems and stories I’ve written over the years have dealt with relationships. Some of the relationships were really good and some were so bad that a person was on the verge of going to jail before they took anymore abuse from the other person. (Been there, almost did that.) Sometimes I pose questions to tweeps requesting their opinion on something I had been thinking about and that I plan to write about.

Family

Even though my son is the only family that actually lives in my household, I see my dad almost daily and my baby sister once a week. I encounter other members of my family a couple times a year. Sometimes it’s pleasant sometimes I vow not to see them for maybe two to three years the next go around. A lot of times I respond to family related tweets because I have been through or personally know of examples of similar situations.

Social Media

Last but definitely not least, I am addicted to social media. From Twitter to Facebook to YouTube and all of the blogs I can stand to read. Social media feeds my all of the previously mentioned items. If there is something going on in my life that I can’t explain, I Google it and get all kinds of answers as to why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening in the future. My dad thinks the internet is the devil but maybe if I told him I learned how to deal with his crazy antics from some of the things I read on the internet, he would sing a different tune.

Well this is my spiel for today. Let me know if you think that I should narrow my range of subjects, if I should only tweet or blog about one thing or if you love my flighty-ness and think I’m the best thing since sliced bread was invented. Please don’t lie to me.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting blog! This my first time actually reading a blog and I like. Your blog is very inspiring and I am also #teamnatural : )

Susie McCray said...

Well Teamnatural sister, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope you stop by again sometime.

JMJast said...

I love Marion, her blog and Tweets and I've been trying to plly some of her advice to my social media use, but I'm not an expert by any means.

I think what is really crucial is to be clear what it is what is the message you want to broadcast - your mission statement. As long as you're sure what it is and you stay under this umbrella, you may get away with as many various subjects as you like.

As for your bio - I found there at least 6 things I could easily relate to- enough to click on that 'follow' button :)

Susie McCray said...

@JMJast
Thanks so much for your comment and the follow.

I don't have an official mission statement (adding to my to-do list) but I definitely try to be consistent in what I talk about on Twitter as well as on my blog.