Tomorrow is my first day at school. And I’m so excited I have no words. But I do have some ideas of things that need to be expedited. This was definitely a Twitter weekend. I needed to step up my tweeting activities. I’d fallen off for a while but I know it’s important to get back into it—for work as well as play.

social media preparations

TweetDeck
I’ve been working on finding writing jobs and everything I read lets me know I’m practically writing in a vacuum if I don’t promote my writing. So I decided that I needed to step up my tweeting game by insuring that I get the most out of my Twitter client—clients, now.

First I signed on for a TweetDeck account. Usually, I just dismiss the offer to sign up but I was curious. Research on the subject yielded none of the information that I was looking for. So, I decided to try it out for myself, and wow!

TweetDeck lists a directory of all the Twitter lists set and all I had to do was follow. So I surfed a few and found one that I wanted to add, just to see how it works. It showed me how easy it would be to connect to pre-established groups. I’m still getting used to it. But I put it aside to start using a new Twitter client.

HootSuite
I added HootSuite to my social media arsenal. It was really easy to sign up and start using. There’s even a setup for Google Chrome’s browser. That’s important to me because I am using it more and more, since Firefox is crashing on me regularly, especially when I’m writing in my blogs.

With my cell phone, I don’t miss much. But I still wanted something that was web based and therein fully portable from computer to computer. It works out great. And I think one of my favorite pieces is the Hootlet button that you add to your web browser.

It’s great because that makes it really unobtrusive, and in the right place all the time. I don’t have to open another application or switch tabs to tweet about a page I’m reading. I just click the icon and it loads with the page’s information. I edit the comment as I choose, select the account(s) I want to post to, and let it go.

collecting my thoughts

Everything running together in my head meant my journal writing went into overdrive. On top of regular busy-ness, the impending deadline,  there was drama that popped up that I had to deal with. It threatened to derail me with frustrations and didn’t need to be, but were present just the same.

I wrote out all my thoughts and feelings and true to form, I began to unwind albiet two pages into my writing session. Hey, I had lots to work through. That was Friday. Yesterday’s session wound up being about what I wanted to do with my work, after I’d signed up with Demand Studios. It eventually led to social media.

It was a productive weekend. So I’m content because I face the all-important first week, with an important task well in hand.

3 questions: Which Twitter client do you use on your computer? What do you use your Twitter account for? And when tasks and life stuff get to be a bit much, what do you do to regain your balance?