Yesterday I opened a Twitter account @jlevinegrp.

This is a big step. For months now many of my valued blog readers have asked me if I have a Twitter account so they can become a follower. So now I can shout out, “Yes, I do. Hope to connect with you.” Several factors coincided to move me to act now. The first is already stated. I am so grateful to all my blog readers and those who take the time to leave comments on the blogs. One hundred and ten thousand of you in the last three months! Thank you for being so loyal and proactive. Not all the comments make it onto the blogs, maybe I am too discerning a censor? I approve comments from people who use a personal name (as opposed to a business label), I try to catch and trash all the porn and references to porn, and political or other, propaganda. Unfortunately I can’t approve those in a language other than English (I don’t know what they contain) but do approve the occasional comment in French. If someone left a comment in Afrikaans or Dutch, I can respond to those, too.

Secondly, the pressure and temptation to be a member of a social network is overwhelming. I am a social person, I love forging connections, networking, and as I wrote in a previous blog, we live now largely  in a brave new world on a LCD lit screen that we hold on our hands, balance on our laps or spend hours with on our desks. Addiction, did anyone say the word, addiction? This pressure only increased when recently I received an e-mail from an older friend, whom I mentioned in that same blog as being an unlikely kindle owner, asking me to be her friend on Facebook. This was a revelation to me and I decided (as they say) that I had better get with the program.

The third reason is that school is out for the summer and I have time finally to plunge into my other life–writing–which I daresay will increasingly have to include tweeting and monitoring tweets. In fact a respected book publicist I consulted recently told me that part of the twenty thousand dollar publicity package she could offer me to promote my latest book (her lowest price package) would include setting me up on at least five-seven social network sites that I would have to monitor and respond to. No thank you. Firstly that is an outrageous amount of money and secondly I think I can set up myself where I choose. So my first choice is Twitter. Why? I like the name, I love birds, and that is what the stunningly gorgeous humming bird does, it tweets.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This

Share this post with your friends!