Our blog and website have been around for all of 3 months. When we started this, our goal was to blog about triathlon, running, Pilates, good healthy food, and cover electronics in triathlon and running. So far, it has been a blast. We’ve been warmly welcomed to this niche of the blogging community, as you would expect if you are involved in triathlon, running, or Pilates. People have been very kind as we struggle to find our way through learning to create a website and start blogging. I’m sure many of you have all been through this. There are many lessons learned, most of them the hard way. But, as I said, its still been a blast.
One of the items that was foreign to all of our group was Twitter. At the start, we had 3 contributors to the site (it has grown since to 4). Of the original bunch, none had a Twitter account, or had ever used Twitter. So, it was up to me to dive in and get us started. It was like stepping into a foreign land. So, to start off, you need to pick your Twitter name. There aren’t enough letters allowed to spell our whole name, so I guess we should have gone with a shorter blog name. Oh well, live and learn.
The first time I looked at Twitter, my thought was, “Why would anyone want to do this?” It looked like a bunch of meaningless one liners. But, as I said, I needed to give it a try. It definitely takes time to learn the lingo. Once I start to understand it, I started to feel a little more comfortable.
So once I had a Twitter account, and I understood what @,#,RT, and FF meant, the next question was, “Who do we follow?” For a while, I started following anyone who was remotely connected to running and triathlon. It’s still a learning process for me. So, after following the a few people, I did a web search and found a website at wefollow.com. This website allows you to search by tag to find the most influential websites, and the websites with the most followers. I don’t know how accurate it is, but it’s fun to check out. I entered two tags, triathlon and running. The next 4 images come directly off of their site.
So, how many of these do I follow? Not very many. I seemed to be more interested in following individuals than organizations or big names. It comforting to be in a community of like minded people who are focused on the same things that you are, and it’s good to know that there are more people out there like you. It’s fun to read about how other people train, cook, eat, struggle with training time and everyday life, get by, and get better. If you look at our blogroll or Twitter, you are more likely to see everyday athletes living life than some pro athlete’s or organization’s website.
Yes, we are still babes in the woods when it comes to Twitter. Just this week, we learned about #runchat and #trichat. We’ll give it a whirl. If there are other things on Twitter, or anything else you think we should check out, let us know. We are slowly narrowing down our focus, and we will find our niche. At the very least, its been fun.
But you know what? We’re hooked. I find myself checking Twitter more often than Facebook. So, if you are into triathlon, running, Pilates, cooking, healthy food, fitness electronics, and are relatively normal, follow us at fitnessElectron on Twitter. If not, please pass us by. Happy tweeting!
John
