OK, I give up, I am on Twitter.
Twitter is www.twitter.com. It allows you to answer the question, “What are you doing?” in less than 140 characters. So, for example, this morning I wrote, “Katherine Wertheim is writing the spring appeal letter for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic in Santa Barbara.”
Twitter is the newest entry among “social media” or “social networking.” The idea is that people actually want to know what you’re doing. Frankly, I can’t imagine that anyone really cares, with the exception of my sister, who asks me each day when she sees me anyway. My mother cared, but she has passed from this world, shuffled off this mortal coil as Shakespeare wrote. On the other hand, two people had already asked me to join Twitter, so obviously someone thinks it’s relevant.
I joined because we were discussing social media at an AFP committee meeting yesterday (Association of Fundraising Professionals), and the idea of Twitter came up. Then I came home and there was a third request in my inbox, and I threw up my hands and said, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all that ilk reminds me of the days when there were car companies like Tucker, Dodge and Oldsmobile. Tucker is gone, Dodge is still around, and Oldmobile lasted many years but has gone now, too. I think some of the social media will last and some will go under. Right now, it’s impossible to tell which will be which. So here I am, participating.
If you want to Twitter and see what I’m doing, I’m at www.twitter.com/KathWertheim. (It won’t allow enough letters for KatherineWertheim, and enough people know me as Katherine that it would be weird for them to see me as KathyWertheim, AND you can’t put Kathy Wertheim with a space in it, Twitter doesn’t allow for spaces.)
If you would like to comment on social media, fundraising or board development for nonprofits, please email me at katherine@werth-it.com or put a comment here on my blog at www.werth-it.com/blog. And you can link with me on Twitter @KathWertheim.