No Time for Tweeting

Freelancers spend a lot of time getting potential clients to notice them and, hopefully, hire them. We join professional organizations and subscribe to job boards. We post free ads on Craigslist or pay to advertise with search engines. Sometimes we even spring for a print ad in a relevant publication. We post little tidbits on Facebook. We blog. We tweet. Seriously, it’s a wonder we ever get any actual work done.

In the undercooked pudding that is the online universe, it can be difficult to get noticed by the right people. (Please note that when I say “the right people,” I mean “the people who will gladly pay me to write or edit something for them.”) Hence the posting, blogging, and tweeting. It’s all about showing potential clients that I’m for real, that I’m more than a Web site with some testimonials and a list of prices. I’ve blogged for about two years now and have been mildly to moderately successful at it. People actually read what I have to say, and once in a while they even e-mail me about it. A few of them have hired me. I count blogging as a successful, even essential, endeavor. Facebooking and tweeting, not so much.

I’m a lousy Facebook friend. I do remember to post things—mostly about articles I’ve written—a couple of times a week, but I rarely check up on my friends. I long to play Farmville and have virtual snowball fights with them; alas, I never do. I’ve joined groups on Facebook and have become a fan of various things on Facebook, but I don’t keep up with any of them either. My Twitter activity is even worse: I signed up, tweeted exactly once, and (in the ensuing six months of inactivity) forgot my login and password. You might say I’m a failed tweeter. I could end up as a failed Facebooker too, but I’m still trying to turn that one around. (I’ll be a better friend—I promise!)

Failure is not something I accept easily, but I’ve pretty much put my tweeting failure behind me. You have to choose your targets, and in my spoonful of virtual pudding, I choose blogging, with the occasional Facebook post thrown in for variety. Tweeting? Who’s got time to tweet?