Rules 4 Twitter? Yes/No

Now you have a Twitter presence. You are learning your way around. 

I hope you begin to notice things about the living breathing real time community you have joined.

Isn't it exciting? 

Maybe you are still confused. 

There are still at least a dozen things you might not know. Everyone might agree there are rules to tweeting well. The confusion might begin at what exactly those rules are. 

Take the following dirty dozen list:

1.       Auto DMs

2.       Flooding Your Time line

3.       Following too many

4.       Following too few

5.       Auto posting from Facebook or elsewhere

6.       Never responding to @mentions or #FF's

7.       Ask to be retweeted

8.       Only tweeting about self

9.       RTing too often 

         10.      Saying nothing about self 

         11.      Never @mentioning others   

         12.      Not linking your website or other info in bio

Twitter allows you to set up an automatic welcome to any and everyone who follows you. 

These can be warm, welcoming and up lifting. They can also be controversial. Regular Twitter users find the time to be real and in the moment. They have begun to want the same from others.

There are extra programs you can use to help manage Twitter accounts and change the way you view the site or your personal time line. I think you can even get one program that lets you see various created lists. I tried one of the before but it was not a fit for me so I let it go.

To be seen and noticed on the site the conventional wisdom says you might want to send out three to six tweets at a time. They can be about random things, they do not have to be one message chopped up. 

Still these things add up and so you do not want people to get tired of reading what you have to say because it is all they can see on a page. 

You cannot control who follows you for the most part. How many people you follow on the other hand can say things about you. Some people follow everyone. Some people follow less than a dozen. A few hundred is best as a basic minimum.

If you learn to share about your life and pass on tidbits of good information you come across people will appreciate you. Next they will RT you, sending your tweets out to their followers. They will also respond to you. That is when you really know you are finally a well respected member of Twitter society. 

Things should feel like they are coming to you naturally by then. When I first joined I could not see the point in what is called Follow Friday. Filling your tweet box with the names of a dozen or so of the ID's of the people you love following. Hit send with the tag #FF if you have room. Others will be sharing their favorite Twitter connections too. 

Just today which is Monday as I schedule these posts for the week, I got a #MondayMention. Whoop Whoop. Gotta love being loved. Usually these kudos come from people you have RT'ed or other wise had positive communication with during the week. 

The above list is controversial because beloved tweeters usually do one or more of the things listed. We definitely have gone through phases and tried things. Perhaps that is half the reason certain activities end up on such a list. Still individual activities are usually not a huge set back. 

Individual users have their own pet peeves. Universally if you have great presence and content your faux pas against their better judgement will be forgiven.

A bonus no no: Never update your egg to a photo or an icon.

To Start Tweeting Well

Yes it is true you can extend your online platform or build one utilizing Twitter.

Once you join Twitter fill in your bio, follow well and Tweet a hello message.
  
To follow well means follow 100-500 people within the first week or so. Many if not most of them should follow you back. 

Remember to tweet whenever you have time to log in. Be helpful, uplifting or interesting.

With all the new people you are following your twitter stream will begin to flow. If you wonder who to follow think big, think globally also act locally.

Twitter will offer suggestions. You can ignore or go along with them. It is not a lifelong commitment. If you do not like what people have to say you can unfollow quick and easy.

When you find a friend or a business you like on Twitter look at all the people who follow them. This will tell you what sort of attention their persona and tweets attract. Next view all the people they have chosen to follow. Build your following list from others.

As soon as you have people following you and you have tweeted a few times you can start retweeting. (RT) Anything that comes along your time line and you think your followers will appreciate you can easily share with them.

Once things are humming along you can go check out Klout.com. It monitors and measures your online presence and influence by scanning your Twitter and Facebook if you allow it. 

Then it shows you a score and a grid of how you rate. It then details how it comes to those conclusions. It catalogs who replies to you using @YourUserID. It records who retweets your tweets. 

As you become an active, well known and respected member of the Twitter community your @Klout score will rise and then you will be eligible for @KloutPerks. 

These are fun, enjoy them!

Start talking to people using the @mention method. Put a subject, topic or idea you are interested in discussing with people into the Twitter search engine.

It will give you a list of other people talking about the same thing. You do not have to follow them to reply to something they have said.

If you followed someone because your find their bio or website empowering or you have questions you can just begin a conversation with them out of nowhere. This can be fun. Do not let it intimidate you.

Next learn to check your messages or DM’s  and @mentions whenever you log on.

Reply to their tweets that are funny, informative and or interesting.

I hope to see you #trending. Stop by and say Hello or "Tweet tweet".

Why I Twitter

If you are a friend of mine you know I love talk radio. Usually I am tuned into 710 or 770 a.m. Christian radio. However when I dial it back to 650 a.m. I hit the hilarious Armstrong and Getty. 
 
It does not take much to make me giggle but be that as it may. One day a few years ago I heard them chattering about getting on Twitter and I was intrigued enough to set up a new account.

Fast forward to last year and I realized it could be a great way to help network for the start up I was involved with. That is even the reason I started to blog…but oh how life brings changes.

Never the less here we are now and my Klout score is rising. About 6 months ago I began to see a problem I thought I could address via the medium of Twitter.

I created a blog and new account to get to work. SingleMamma4God was thus born. It is hard to be a single mother. It is hard to walk by faith. Families are struggling and hurting. That is universal. 

I had already created two successful online communities. One on Yahoo for homeschooling parents the other a Christian singles group on another web site. In the latter group I began to hear stories I had no idea about. 

Some of the things I heard I thought only I was feeling. Other things I would never have imagined were an issue especially in this day and age.

Armed with this information I wanted to enlarge my reach. Having a focus outside myself helped me bring my Klout score to 50 which I think is acceptable for someone without a hard sell. 

There is a lot of nonsense going on via the medium but there is also a wealth of potential. Unlike Facebook or Google+ you can create an identity or go with a name and brand you have already established.

I followed maybe a few hundred people with my 1^st account but have scaled back and been neglecting it while building the new following. I would rather talk about things of faith than anything else. 

At the same time I do not feel the need to flood my time line with endless Bible quotes. I prefer to share and see tweets with perspective on how scripture is changing, empowering and affecting lives.

Twitter is fast moving and dialed into the goings on in society. Whatever is trending in the news or happening on television you can search and see rolling through time lines. 

When there are problems on other social networking sites people tweet about that too. I love being in the know. I love all the random to big name people you have an opportunity to get connected to.

If you are looking for a new medium to establish yourself in keep reading this week. I will share all that I have learned in the next few days

Divine Creations on Assingments

One of my classes this quarter is Homiletics. I am not feeling the rhetoric. I further do not have the fear of public speaking disease.


Long before God sent me to Bible college I was taking stock of my life. I asked myself: What am I willing and able to do that is needed in society? What am I interested in and capable of that other people shy away from?

The answer: Public speaking. Americans hate that like they hate taxes and going to the dentist. At least with modern dentistry you can get sedated to not feel or even be aware of the process while it is going on. The Don't be nervous. Imagine the audience in their underwear. advice just pales by comparison. lol

Me on the other hand I channel the fear of all the people cringing at the idea of being a public speaker when they sit listening to me as I get up to present. Yes, I am an odd duck. If I were a man it would naturally seem like I was destined to be a preaching, teaching pastor. As a woman I have no idea where this bold assertiveness is going to take me. The last thing I heard about it was "think bigger" than anything I have ever seen. YIKES

I can truly say that seems hard to imagine. A new idea came to me just last night however. It can't hurt to keep on trying.

I decided to avoid a ranty sermon on singles in the church, for my presentation last week. I went instead with something I felt led to share about a young church worker I met at Impact church. When I began to sit next to her and befriend her over a couple of weeks she reacted like I had gone out of my way somehow. "No one else has ever done that." She told me.

It reminds me of the teenaged boy my life intersected with. It would almost make me seem clueless that these signs keep following me. Except that my scriptural text included the story of Jesus and the woman with an issue of blood. He did not know anything about her until she reached out and touched him.

Now it just so happened that she was single this woman I met in church. When my presentation was over the single women in the class shared how they really identified with her. The singles in church message came out anyway. hahahahaha Amen

Laughing

I was sitting in my Old Testament class this week. A classmate commnented on my laughter being a part of the classroom experience.

Yes indeed if you read me on the web you see LOL or hahahahaha a lot. I really do love to laugh.

I laugh because I can. I laugh because sometimes it is either laugh or cry. I laugh to release. I laugh because I am tickled pink and I got joy!

This joy that I have the world didn't give it to me and the world can't take it away. I have joy because It is well with my soul. My circumstances seem like a cruel joke in many ways. Still I wake up every morning and some time during the day I can be found giggling and laughing.

The Bible tells us laughter is good and healthy. The Bible records that Sarah laughed when she heard the idea that she was going to have a child after all her years of barreness. When I was reading about that one day I realized the Bible also says Abraham laughed about the whole idea as well. Genesis 17:17

I do not think they were mocking God. It was just a thrilling almost silly thought like a dream as they were aging and had seen no sign of bearing their own child.

People laugh when they are happy, they laugh when they are nervous. Wouldn't the idea of a late stage child make you nervous? Don't babies make you happy?

I have even heard the Holy Spirit can give people a spirit of laughter. I think that sounds wonderful. My mother would say "Watch out if you ask God to show you things to laugh about. You could find things amusing you all day long."

Our emotional well being is important to God. He wants us in the right frame of mind. Most of the people I know do not live alone. Even those that do have jobs and must interface with the community. Levity is needed. As the family of faith we are supposed to bring it and the light of love. What does the world have? Nothing we need and a lot of pain with buckets of drama.

People are waiting for Christians to live the difference. Live lives that are enviable. To bring them in with acceptance and care. We should be able to laugh ourselves through silly mistakes or inconveniences and appreciate the humorous things going on around us.

Be released to joy & laughter! What have you got to loose?

Big Banks? No Thank You

During my early 20’s my best friend from junior high school who still had family here in Sacramento lived out of town.

One day while visiting she asked me to deposit some money she was leaving behind into her local bank account which she had not transferred over to her new location.

Being the helpful good friend I had no problem running this errand for her. This was a few hundred dollars we are talking about here maybe two or three. This woman knew me. I have never tried drugs. I do not like to drink. Our relationship is not built with mistrust and disrespect.

I went to BOA. I stood in line and handled my transaction like any other patron. I got a receipt for the business I was doing mostly as a formality since it is what I do when I bank. The teller and I had a pleasant exchange. I knew I was on security camera.

So nothing could have prepared me in the coming days for my friends’ frantic phone calls. The bank had no record of her money being deposited. 

I could hardly fathom this idea. It was not like I dropped the cash in the ATM. I had dealt with a live employee.

It also was not like something that has happened a few times at my small local bank where the computers are not up to speed so a hand written receipt is given. 

No, I had in my hands computerized output showing the transaction had taken place. This was only slight consolation to my friend as she spent days wrangling with BOA to clear up the problem.

I was just floored that a bank could lose cash. Call me naïve but that is not a mistake I want to wrap my head around. 

Not only was that off putting but then my friend and others would tell me: when these kinds of mistakes happen then their mega predators do not reimburse for fees or anything.

It took a few days and many phone calls to clear all this mess up. Had I not gotten a receipt or my relationship with my friend been more volatile this could have been a disaster. 

I know when she first called me in a panic she fully believed her bank. 

Initially she just thought I had not gotten around to making the deposit. Next I am sure it was driving her crazy being out of town having the best friend say one thing and her bank saying something so opposite.

Unacceptable. Not at all worth having a branch on ever corner and ATM’s by the dozen. 

It is much more soothing to bank where they know your name and treat you like a person. I know some people get involved due to auto or home loans. The rest of us have much more choice. 

Find a local bank. 

Find a credit union.

I Need A Parental Vacation

My daughter has just left the house and that is ok with me.

I have been feeling like a parent recently where I have to put up with non sense and lay down the law because that is what parenting is all about.

Oh I cannot wait for the homeschooling conference that will be here early next month. There will be some respite for teen parents I am sure.

I am teaching her as much as I am learning myself. As creatures we respect the authority that is held before us. Nothing much more or less. She says I am getting meaner. No I just know she has gotten older. The stakes are higher.

I have been telling her for years that as her mother I am watching and taking note of the things she does. Sometimes it seems I am being hard on her over something minor but when it has become a repeated habit or is part of a bigger trend that is the reason. Not just some mood swing or negative attitude I picked up for the day.

I was having another conversation some place else about teenagers and curfews that pulled something else up out of me. Anger about my childhood or young adult years. I can see Jesus but I can also see my mother LOOMING over me. What I can't see is my father and that is just as much a problem as anything else.

It took me about as long to realize this, as it did for my daughter to verbalize she was mad at me for the way her life is, my father neglected some of his duties which negatively affected my up bringing.

Where was he to reign in my mother and let me spread my wings a little??? Silent and unaware. sigh

Be ware when something seems so one sided especially relationship feelings. They really should be shared equally among the responsible or involved parties.

At least I am wearing a fun summer dress I got cheap for the season. Even painted our nails yesterday. I do not think there is a color of the rainbow we are not wearing between the two of us. LOL

I even still have brownies left over from Wednesday baking.

We were going to run errands but now I am home alone with the cat and she is off doing her community service hair braiding. She has a good heart that kid. She does hair and child care for free.

Her dad and I both ask...."Are you getting paid for this?" and she just looks at us like who what??? hahahahaha