Messages in Bottles

[faustfatale]

Social networking isn’t optional for writers these days. No point bitching about that. But I’ve been noticing something odd lately on both Twitter and Facebook and I wonder if it’s a more recent development or if it’s been there all along and I just didn’t care enough to notice

Comments

[ext_164950]

It's always been there.

It's like walking into a room with fifty people only five of whom you know well. You crack a joke and most of them look at you like you're crazy.

The more people who follow you, the bigger the crowd gets, the more diluted it becomes.

Eventually you're explaining every joke to every moron who doesn't know what's going on.

In Twitter at least there's no way to control that. Facebook you can lock all your messages so that only certain people see them. But that kind of defeats the purpose.

So I pretty much just ignore everyone who looks at me funny.

And I don't get annoyed by posts that expect continuity. If I want to know what's going on I'll see if I can find the previous thread. If not, okay, guess I missed that bus.

There'll be another one along in a minute.

[indigotea]

I have a twitter account for my business, but it's not really my primary form of communication - one of the reasons I'm not fond of it is the disconnect that can happen with such an influx of data, just as you describe. However, an approach that might work for you is to create specific hashtags (ex: #faustfatale, #ffsuper) to designate posts about a specific topic; that way people can click on the hashtag, and see the posts in some form of continuity. It's an idea, at least - give 'er a whirl!

[whiskeychick]

I was going to suggest the hashtag dealio to help readers who are lost and have the motivation to figure it out. Using bit.ly to shorten a URL within your Tweet that links to an intro post or what not may help, too. But generally, there's always going to be a segment of the population who hasn't had enough caffeine nor background to know that Iguana Boy is an inside joke. However, learning about contextual interpretation in fourth-grade English class would be good, too.

On a side note, since I am a regular follower, your posts have allowed Dean to invade my dreams. Not necessarily a bad thing. #hottotrott
~WC

[dumblemop]

If I'm confused by an ongoing conversation, I usually just go back a bit in that person's stream to figure out what they're talking about. Unless they're spammers, most people have at least some continuity among their tweets, and looking at a particular one in context helps a lot if I've missed the background because I was away from my computer or just lost it among other tweets.

Sometimes hashtags can help-if someone's talking about a Kate and a Sawyer and a Locke, I'm pretty sure it's a LOST reference, but if it's a joke that relies on more intimate details of the show, putting #LOST on the end of it lets me know I don't need to worry about figuring it out because I've never seen it.

I also try to remember that for popular streams and any particular tweet, half the people got it right away, and half the people that didn't asked about it. If someone has hundreds or thousands of followers, they just got several hundred questions about it. I don't need to add to that deluge.

And when all else fails, Google is my friend.

[cheekytubemouse]

Yay! I love encountering people on the 'net who actually utilize common sense.

[erg]

Do your thing. In some cases, let your fan base course correct those who ask "Why is Scooby so excited by that dog biscuit?". You're allowed, need, should be able to, have flow, a momentum, and folks will learn they need to flip back a page or two, if they want to understand how we all got there with you

[ext_392818]

I spend more time on Twitter than most other places (Facebook tends to be a dumping ground for the occasional Twitter post that amuses me), and I found pretty quickly that interaction on Twitter is kinda like working the room at a large party