500 TWITTER FOLLOWERS!!?!? NUH-UH! … How Twitter is Becoming My Own Favorite Social Media

Well my friends, I told myself when I reached 500 Twitter followers, I would have a party.

Today, just about two minutes ago now, I hit that magic number.  I suppose this means I get to have a party!  What is your favorite kind of cake?  Let’s have cake, yes?  Lots and lots of cake!

Wait, what’s that?  Why celebrate 500 followers?

Oh. Good question. Well … because.  500 is halfway to 1000.  500 is a nice, round, even number. 500 sounds cool. 500 is more than 100, or 200, or 300, or 400.  Because when I joined Twitter last September-ish, I would never have imagined I’d have that many people following me by now. Because I haven’t even published anything yet! Because I haven’t even really been trying to get people to follow me!

But maybe that’s the thing: I’ve just been having fun!

I finally gave in and joined Twitter only with severe reluctance and an intense feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared, even right from the beginning, as long as I was sure to not get carried away.  (I even posted about this here!)  Since then, it’s been growing on me more and more, until I have to admit it might be my very favorite social media outlet as of now.

*GASP*

I know.  Yes, it’s a lot to take in.  It can most definitely be overwhelming.  There is a lot of “ME ME ME!” and “BUY BUY BUY!” … but here’s the thing.  I don’t follow those people!!! In fact I would have hit 500 followers a lot sooner, except I had to cull some such people and it appears they unfollowed me right back. But that’s entirely okay.  Because I found and gained more awesome people to interact with instead!

And I think that’s the most fun part of Twitter. There are some really brilliant people lurking about there, and once you find them, you can have great conversations with them. Short conversations, which is another plus. I tend to be a very long-winded individual. I’ll take hours to reply to emails these days, which is why I generally no longer send emails. I much prefer a Facebook conversation, or even better, Twitter. It’s amazing what you can convey in 140 characters when you’re forced to think about what you really want to say before you type for 20 minutes first. (Could Twitter even help authors with their writing habits by teaching them to eliminate excess flowery prose? Quite possibly! But that’s for another day …)

The point being (what did I just say about being long-winded?): I’ve met some really awesome people on Twitter, people I never would have found otherwise given the impossible size of the general Internet (never would have stumbled upon their websites) and the way Facebook now generates Newsfeeds (heck, I only see the same five people pop up over and over again now unless I dig into specific searches, ARGH), even had I found their Facebook pages, I’d likely never see their updates and they’d promptly get lost in the masses again. Thanks to Twitter’s Lists, I can keep the volume of people organized and within easy reach.

Voila!

So thanks, my fellow Twitterlings! Thanks for being awesome! Thanks for taking the time to follow me and engage in some of my favorite conversations of the past year. Thanks for your clever witticisms, great advice, useful information, handy links, and fabulous pics!

I appreciate all of you, and here’s to another great year in the Twitterverse! (oh and if we haven’t connected there yet, find me @lightning_bug_ !)

CHEERS!

*runs off to find CAKE*