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Today, I am writing a crossover post because I believe it is relevant to both my Do Svidanya and my Mommymeandering blogs. My apologies to anyone who subscribes to both.

Dear Girls,

I changed your diapers, taught you to talk, make your beds, tidy a room, ride a bike and drive a car (Dad was a player too!) Now our nest is empty and we are called for advice and help far less frequently.

Now I have written a book (technically my second), and after years of researching, writing, editing, and rewriting, I thought I could put it on a shelf and move on to other projects.

Then I realized that if I want to sell this book to anyone other than a very close circle of people who have watched my writing journey from the bleachers, my hard work is far from complete.

So I joined the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, mainly because of my anxieties with what I had written. I was shocked to discover that the twitter account I had set up in February for the sole purpose of voting for Carly’s MTV dance was now being followed by someone in this support group.

After a brief moment of panic, I decided that just maybe learning to tweet would help me. I learned about the 140 character limit and tweaked my twitter profile by adding a relevant photo, a short bio, a link to my blog, and brief description of me.

I found a few people to follow and posted a few tweets. Not much happened, so I concluded it was time for me to approach the three of you (and Carly, who started this mess!) for some assistance. Ah, the tables of teacher and student have suddenly turned.

Casey sent me several how-to-twitter articles, and all of you explained that hashtags. (Aka “the number sign” or a “tic-tac-toe board”) are critical to bringing readers to one’s tweet. She made the following analogy: “Think of tweeting like going to a cocktail party. You have something to say, so now your goal is to find people to want to listen to you.”

Yesterday, I deleted a tweet I had tweeted earlier in the day which was relevant to today’s news (and therefore quite awesome I thought) since it was about Grandpa, Joe McCarthy, and Donald Trump. I replaced my tweet with another which differed only in the addition of hashtags.

“Have you no sense of decency?” Said to #McCarthy but just heard it said abt #Trump. Who read my story? #genealogy” 

 It is really difficult to condense my thoughts into 140 characters! I don’t even know if it makes any sense!

Did it help? Perhaps, but I am not convinced. I see no difference between the number of viewers of my hashtag tweets versus my virgin tweets.

So I will analyze more successful twitterers (is that a word?) and try to entice more people in twitterland to follow me. I appreciate your help but believe that the skills Dad and I taught you trump (you may laugh here) the lesson of how to tweet.

Next I will move on to a lesson by Kelly of how to promote my brand using Facebook ads. This is more her forte than tweets.

In the end, you all owe me. Disregarding the driving lessons, housecleaning lessons, and learning to talk instructions, the years spent changing all those diapers is why you all can never do enough to repay me.

                                                                        Love,

                                                                        Mom