Because, sometimes, 140 characters IS enough.

I suppose this blog post is an extension of my Twitter "Follow Friday" recommendations.  It's important (to me) that I write this post as I have decided that this year is going to be the year of changes for me.  I intend to really knuckle down with the studying for my degree with the Open University and I'm going to try and write a lot more - and that includes promoting myself a bit.


Social Networking (which I've written about before) - mainly Twitter - is the ideal platform for this because it allows you to show off your talents to a wider audience, most of whom you probably wouldn't meet in your every day life.  It also allows your Twitter followers to pass on any writing links that you tweet - therefore extending your audience even further.


Anyway, enough beating around the bush.  In the past six months, I've been lucky to connect with a number of fabulous people via the "follow friday" hastag (#ff or #followfriday) on Twitter.  This basically means that you tweet a list of all the people you think are worth following - they gain followers, they reciprocate, you gain followers and so the experience of Twitter is enhanced for everyone.  Also, I've joined a couple of writing groups (Judiths Room and British Mummy Bloggers) via links and recommendations on Twitter and widened my reading audience far further than I thought possible before Christmas.


From this, I've met a number of fabulous people who have enriched my life, they've put up with my drunken tweets on a Friday night and allowed me to bombard them with blog links and YouTube links.  Two people that spring to mind are Jaqui (@wonkynana) and Paula (@peabee72).  They "get" me - they understand my sense of humour and happily act as my Personal Assistant, touting my blog around cyberspace. 


Whoever said that 140 characters wasn't enough to get to know someone was totally wrong.  But I think you have to accept Twitter for what it is; and it is what you make it.  I laugh on there, I cry on there,  I get drunk on there, I discuss reality TV on there but, most of all, I have friends on there.  Real friends.