Twitter: Is It Working for UU’s?
Category: Unitarian Universalism - General
Hi UU readers and bloggers, please excuse the dreadful pun (I swear, it was an accident!) and share your Twitter-related wisdom.
Do you use Twitter to promote your Unitarian Universalist blog and/or to follow other Unitarian Universalist blogs or tweets? What tips do you have for UU’s about making the most of Twitter?
There are a number of Unitarian Universalists on Twitter. Here’s a list of those I’ve found so far, with the names of their blogs in parenthesis:
AliCF
Anna Belle Leiserson (of “Happy Web Diva”)
Daniel Harper (of “Yet Another Unitarian Universalist”)
Dubhlainn (of “Druuid”)
Hafidha Sofia (of “Never Say Never to Your Traveling Self”)
Jacqueline Wolven (of “Moxie Life”)
Jcadow
Jeff /Psyprof
Kaleigh (of “The Musings of Yet Another Working Mom”)
KerryBerry
Michael Carnell (of “Postcards from Myself”)
Otenth Paderborn (of “Tenth Life”)
Pamela (of “UUSoul”)
Radioactive Fox (of “Quiet, knave…”)
Rosemary Bray McNatt (of “Rev Rose” and “Trustee Talk”)
Scott Wells (of “Boy in the Bands”)
Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute
Please comment or e-mail if there are others to add to the list!
My own experience has been somewhat lackluster: I hopped on to Twitter in late January, after reading this article by Darren Rowse about how Twitter would bring rainbows, sunshine, and everything good into my life. But so far those things have not come to pass (at least not due to Twitter). I send out updates about new blog posts and it’s nice to reach a few more readers through Twitter, but I’m eager to learn more creative ways of using Twitter to promote Unitarian Universalism and UU blogs.
April 30th, 2008 11:57
I’m on Twitter, but cannot seem to get it to work on my cell phone, and have no idea why.
April 30th, 2008 11:59
I really wanted to use it too, but found that it just doesn’t keep me engaged. I think if I was living in the city and got tweets on my phone it would be more valuable. I still update it every once in a while… but it just doesn’t seem like a priority.
April 30th, 2008 12:49
I’m on Twitter and a UU, but don’t have a UU blog.
Given the brevity of tweets, I’m not sure that the medium is a natural fit - I’m not convinced UUs can restrict themselves to a mere 140 characters… :wink:
April 30th, 2008 13:19
I don’t think it’s that important, expect perhaps en masse at a big event like GA and aggregated for a non-Twittering audience.
Other than that, it just scratches an itch.
Milage will vary, so it might be better for those who live on their phones.
April 30th, 2008 14:11
Oh, btw, I meant to add: I don’t use Twitter as a way to talk about UU stuff. I use my blog for that. I use Twitter when I want to make some remark that I consider too inconsequential to make a whole blog post for.
April 30th, 2008 15:20
Hafidha, thanks for letting me know that you’re on Twitter, I’m reading back over your feed and I like it!
Also, thanks for the suggestion to use Twitter for ideas that don’t quite make it to full-blog-post level, but that you still want to share.
Jacqueline and Scott, good point that whether or not one has a spiffy phone with lots of text-messaging capabilities has something to do with it.
Scott, using Twitter at GA…that’s intriguing. I’ve always thought we should have a cell phone directory for GA too.
Ali, thanks for reminding me of your feed; I already follow you on Twitter, so I should have remembered to include you! You’re on the list now.
May 5th, 2008 11:44
Hey, thanks for the link! I am still trying to get the hang of Twitter and what I can, and should, be using it for.
May 7th, 2008 15:25
Hi Michael,
You’re quite welcome! I’m still trying to get the hang of it too.
May 14th, 2008 20:42
I’m the flesh-and-blood person behind Otenth, my twitter and Second Life name. My experience is that twitter isn’t good for “promoting” anything, especially in the absence of relationships (RL or not, deep or not).
What it is good for is dropping little tidbits into one another’s lives: I’ve blogged this, I found this great place, I’m going to be here; or to mine your relationship network for wisdom: has this happened to you? what is the best X? where can I get Y?
I have yet to be at an event with a group of fellow twitterers. I think that’s how twitter really took off, one year at SXSW, and I could imagine it being useful among a group of friends: I’m at A, it’s dead. Hey, we’re at B, and it’s hopping, come on over!
And although I do have a fancy phone, I don’t have tweets delivered as text messages: too expensive, not enough immediate return. Maybe at a conference. I do use the web browser on my phone to check twitter, but I actually use something called twitterific or my browser on my computer. I also have a twitter client inside SL, where twitter sometimes approaches the “group of friends at an event” scenario.