Giving up tweeting for one week

I’m thinking about giving up tweeting for one week, and instead write out all my thoughts and reactions on my blog.

So far this year, I’ve been having a lot of fun blogging more. In the past decade when I have an idea, I would head to Twitter and blurt it out. Now, writing out my thoughts and reactions in a slightly longer form on my blog feels more enriching.

Benefits of blogging instead of tweeting

1. The ideas get a little more developed
   No more limits of 280 characters
2. The blog posts are archived forever under your control.
   I absolutely love having ALL my blog posts going back to 2001. I also have all 25,000+ comments left on my blog. All in one place.
3. Other social channels get utilized more
   The blog posts can get posted across several different channels instead of just Twitter.
4. All comments are forever archived in one central place.
   Although I suppose if I’m posting links across different channels, the comments still do get splintered.
5. Potential ad dollars
   There’s always the potential that a particular blog post might hit it big in Google, and thus get a good amount of traffic, and some ad dollars. It does add up.
6. Waste less time on Twitter
   Spend more time developing out thoughts.

Downsides of not tweeting

1. Quantity of ideas don’t get published
   I have over 900 blog drafts—and that’s during the time when I would tweet quicker ideas. What will happen if I don’t tweet the quick ideas? Will they get backlogged into my drafts? I’m betting that if I make it a habit to quickly write up a blog post, then the blog drafts will actually go down, while the published posts will go up. YAY!
2. Less opportunity for interaction on Twitter
   Twitter is a conversation medium. Not a broadcast medium. At least, that’s how I like to use the platform. By not posting native tweets with my ideas, I’m just posting broadcast links to my blog posts. Maybe I can bridge the gap by tweeting a couple replies to the initial tweet with the link. Each tweet can have a little clarification and further explanation.
3. Quality of your tweets go down
   This is very related to point #2. Since tweets are auto-tweeted, I can’t put in multiple images. It’s sorta generic to do the auto-tweet. But like I said, sometimes I’ll do a couple replies to the auto-tweet to give more personality.

Action plan

During this week off Twitter, I’ll continue to read Twitter, and reply to comments. I just won’t write native tweets. The only native tweets I’ll make are the ones tweeted by WordPress when I publish a new blog post. Currently, my WordPress is set up to post to @spudart on Twitter, my personal profile on Linkedin, and the Spudart Page on Facebook.

In fact, this very blog post was going to be a tweet announcing my week-long test. But the draft just got so long, it has to be a blog post. Very fitting!