Twitter: Follow Me, Follow Me Not...

Nope, I don't mean to ruffle Twitter, the social network's feathers. But as a member, why is it that I'm always left feeling like a bird brain in regards to gaining more followers? Yeah, maybe it's my lack of site knowledge, or that I'm a late joiner and the early birds already got the worms. But since birds of a feather flock together, it shouldn't be all that hard to attract heaps of peeps or followers, right? With some thought, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by featuring a couple of my parodies in hopes of gaining the attention of those with a similar sense of humor. So to begin, has anyone else wondered if the blue twitter bird isn't guilty of a little identity theft? I mean, will the real Tweety bird please stand up?



No matter how much I tweet, tweet, and tweet my little heart out, I still feel like twitter-dee and twitter-dum when it comes to the world of Twitter. Sure, it's easy enough to create an account and become an official member of the Twitter community but still there seems to be a missing ingredient needed in my twitter bird omelet. I know, I'm not alone as I stare at my Twitter homepage all the while twiddling my thumbs wondering 'now what.' If it ain't chickens, its feathers, so when I'm not worrying about enlarging my Twitter following then I'm wondering what to say in a 140 characters or less. So I'm asking the social media gods "am I putting all my eggs in one basket or is there something wrong with me and my peeps?"




Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not posting short text messages solely to lure followers! Really and truly, I don't want to create a fake persona. I want you to follow me, or follow me not based upon if you connect with me as a person. Definitely, I'm no celebrity but I am a good egg! Not perfect, but wholly authentic! But still, that's not all I am. Sure, I'm a mother, cancer survivor, parodist, and author. And I'm not just any author, I'm an Indie Author. My latest work is my memoir, RAW: One Woman's Journey through Love, Loss, & Cancer. But still that's not all I am. Boy, oh boy, that's such a difficult question to answer. "Who are you?" Think about it!



Still, if you take a bird's eye view of Twitter, you'll see a membership of 645,750,000 people chirping away looking to be heard. Admittedly to date, I've viewed new followers as a feather in my cap, or an achievement. Talk about having egg on my face! I just need to keep reminding myself to focus on being myself and not worrying about gaining a larger audience, or any audience for that matter. It seems no matter what social media site you join -- Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, even Pinterest you'll find a lot of people looking for followers, or people to like and share what they have to say or offer. No doubt, this phenomenon will continue to be prevalent on social media platforms in the future. I myself, refuse to be afraid to show who I really am. So with that said, I've decided to flip the bird to the world while saying "Follow me, or follow me not...@fionaburkefinn."

Fiona Finn is the author of RAW: One Woman's Journey Through Love, Loss, and Cancer.