Twitterholic

I have been tagged (although I never felt a thing) by Kate at The Five Fs Blog who originated this great meme on the subject of Twitter. Thank you to Kate for the opportunity because as with all addictions it helps to talk about it…

My relationship with Twitter has been one of ever-growing dependency. After my earliest dalliances I became more and more hooked. As of now I can’t really do without it. I am twitchy when I’m away from it. This is testament to the great followers and friends I have, right? Anyway this is me:

When did you join Twitter?

I joined on Monday 2nd February 2009 at 7.15pm

Why did you join Twitter?

Twitter was getting some coverage across Facebook and was being mentioned in education circles. I really didn’t have any clue what it was for. As with Facebook I just wanted to see what the fuss was. The experience became all the more rich for having like-minded friends on there. That took a while. I found it important too to expand the useability. By that I mean make Twitter mobile and use the third-party apps out there to enable the genuinely conversational aspects. It’s funny to think in the early days I would do backflips if I got an @ reply. Now it would be terrible NOT to.

Who is/was your first or oldest follower? Who did you follow first? Tell me all about them.

My first follower was seemingly Sally Reynolds (@sal5oh). Sally is a fellow school governor and we both contributed to an online governors’ forum and knew each other from Facebook. I think Sally joined Twitter about the same time. She’s a chair of governors at an academy in Wirral. Similarly my first friend was Feargal Hogan (@FeargalHogan) via the same connections. He’s rugby mad and lives darn sarf. Neither of them became hooked by Twitter like me.

Do you have any celebrities following you, or have you ever had a DM from a celeb?

I’m not aware of any celebrities following me. The celebrity tweeter thing is rubbish really. Very few celebrities interact with their followers, who run into millions sometimes. Those who use Twitter as a promotional tool and who get someone else to tweet for them don’t get it. I’ve had a couple of tweets from well known people such as @TasminArcher, @NickyCampbell and just this evening @JonSnowC4 (after I light-heartedly accused him of being pissed on set). Okay, so it is quite a buzz but it isn’t what I tweet for. My non-celeb followers are the real stars and make Twitter the experience it is.

If you could follow anyone not on Twitter – alive, dead, real or fictional – on Twitter, who would it be?

I’m already following them. See above. That said, I have a couple of friends who don’t tweet and I wish I could persuade them otherwise.

Which came first? Twitter or blog?

Twitter by about three months or so. Naively, I didn’t see the potential for cross-referencing the two at first. My blog withered on the vine a bit until the beginning of this year when I restarted it, began using the power of Twitter to promote it, and via the blog was introduced to lots more Twitter friends. Both the blog and my Twitter family have grown hand-in-hand at an incredible rate.

Now over to you. In time-honoured fashion I’m tagging:

Julie (@Kailexness) at All About Us

Rachael (@InceyWinceyMum) at InceyWinceyMummy

Nickie (@Nickie72) at Typecast

Claire (@purpleclaire) at Claire’s Brussels Blog

Danny Gartside (@Danny_Gartside) at Danny Gartside tumblr

Sarah (@soggous) at The World According to Sog

Answer the questions, mention who tagged you (ie me) and spread the love to other tweeting bloggers.

…and YOU, dear reader, if you want to do this, leave a comment below.

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