Twitter is the Gateway Drug to Blogging

I confess.

I love social media.

And just between you and me, I may be addicted.

So far:

I don’t drive and Tweet.

I don’t drink and Tweet.

I have never referred to the pound symbol as a hashtag.

I don’t auto post across platforms.

And, I don’t have a dog named Twitter or Retweet.

But:

I have been known to awaken in the middle of the night and check my Twitter stream.

I maintain two Twitter accounts.

I have 2 Klout scores.

And, a few years ago I tweeted anonymously while my wife was pregnant at @MyWifesPregnant by First Time Parent.

I must admit, Twitter has led me to other social media.

Yes, a gateway to other social sharing.

“If social sharing is the addiction, then Twitter is the gateway drug.”

I follow a diverse crowd on Twitter.  While still within my focus, it is a diverse crowd nonetheless.

I have Twitter Top Lists of my favorites for personal branding, social media marketing, social media marketing professors, marketing professors, and others.

At random moments of leisure, such as standing in line at the grocery store, post office, or Chipotle, I pull out my iPhone and go to these “go to” Twitter lists.  And, I read.

This reading begets:

(1) Content that demands to be retweeted.

(2) Content that is saved in my Evernote for re-reading, or to add to the e-readings list in my marketing courses.

(3) Ideas for blogging and blog titles that are saved in the Notes app of my iPhone (then on to a word file and saved in Dropbox).

(4) New blog RSS feed discoveries to add to my Feedly folders.

(5) New people to follow and/or add to one of my Twitter lists.

Yes, it only takes a few minutes, but this quickly feeds my social media addiction.

And, of course, these quick hits of Twitter satisfaction led me to my second favorite social media activity: blogging.

With all the ideas brewing from Twitter use, I feel strongly in need of an outlet for my somewhat original thinking and potential creativity.

For several years I have maintained a blog on Posterous about my geekiness for creativity, creative thinking, and ideation.  Posterous died and I moved everything to a WordPress blog, bought my domain name I Geek for Creativity, and heavily used it as an example in my recent Social Media Marketing course to teach blog set-up, blog posting structure, curation of others’ content, social proofing, social sharing, SEO,  personal branding, and more.

Then, a funny thing happened on the road to life-long learning.

In the middle of learning more about personal branding and social media marketing while marketing my I Geek for Creativity blog and teaching these subjects in my Social Media Marketing undergraduate course, I developed a love for social media marketing and all the continuously interesting and techy, nerdy, geeky topics surrounding these subjects.

So, I repositioned my name based Twitter profile for this focus.  I also did the same for continuity and personal branding across my other most addicting social media platforms: LinkedIn and Google+ (sorry Facebook and Instagram, I only use you for family and friends).

I also discovered the amazing benefits of using the  Flipboard and Zite apps on my iPhone for discovering great focused content, and the use of the Buffer App for easy (maybe too easy) social sharing.

Surprisingly, my social media addiction has almost completely gone mobile.  With the exception of actual blog posting, most of my social media addiction and activity is thru my iPhone or iPad Mini.

After several months of feeding my addiction in this newer focus and with one month of it accomplished while traveling in China (yes, I learned to Tweet thru the great firewall of China), I have jumped headfirst into a new and second blog.

With this new blog, Digital Self-Marketing Advantage, I will funnel my social media addiction toward the topics of professional and academic interest and experience (personal branding, social media marketing, skills development) rather than the personal interest topics of my first blog (creativity, creative thinking, ideation).

“Welcome to my new blog. This blog is my brain on social media.”

Your feedback is welcomed.

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Denny McCorkle @DennyMcCorkle

Professor of Marketing, Monfort College of Business at University of Northern Colorado

As a nationally recognized and award winning Marketing Professor in the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado, I help students, professors, and professionals to gain a Digital Self Marketing Advantage through the use of social media marketing for personal branding, job search, skills development, career advancement, and life-long learning.

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