Twit or Tweet?

Ok, so Twitter is all the buzz these days. It’s infiltrating every part of my life and I don’t think I can stop the rapid spread. As a marketer, I like to keep in the loop about all things Digital, so I signed up for a Twitter account so see what it was all about. Within a matter of hours, I had 10 followers. Hey, I thought, that’s interesting. People are interested in my life. Then I thought, what is so interesting about my life and how much do I really want to share? I already feel violated by the hundreds of photos my friends like to post of me on Facebook and I so rarely update my profile that I couldn’t even tell you what’s on there about myself. Then I asked the question, “How social do I really want to be?” I’ve been wrestling with this concept for a couple weeks now and it only took an episode of Seinfield to help make things clear. In “The Kiss Hello” episode, Kramer posts the names and photos of everyone who lives in building in hopes of allowing everyone to better get to know each other and greet everyone by name and offer a warm embrace when they pass each other in the hallway. Jerry finds out quickly that this is more than he bargained for when he is greeting with a kiss by every female in the building and even Kramer plants a fat one on him.

I don’t want to be greeting with a kiss (unless you’re my husband) and I don’t necessarily want everyone to know everything about myself. Whether you trying to meet new people, share some information or trying to promote yourself, there is still a fine line between being interesting and being annoying. I mean, does anyone really care that “I’m at dinner with the hubs,” or “just about died running the hills in Shawnee Mission Park?” Will they be waiting by their phones for the next Twitter update from lwhetter? I doubt it. I would love to inflate my ego and say that those who follow me are fascinated by my life and want to know all about what I do on the weekends, but even if that were true, I just don’t think I’m ready to be that open. You hear all the time about celebrities whining about how they have no privacy and that they are constantly being stalked by the paparazzi and finding unwanted photos posted of them online. And yet, the average person is exposing themselves on their own; willingly divulging intimate details of their lives in less than 140 characters.

I may have a Twitter page, (please feel free to follow me if you’d like) but don’t expect to see 20 “status” updates a day. I am going to ease into the Twitter phenomenon and see where it takes me. I think I’m going to stay somewhere in the middle when it comes to sharing myself online. Somewhere between the timid smile and head nod of closing myself off to the world completely and the kiss hello approach that is too social. I like to think of myself as the “Pound It” of online socialization.