My Twitter Story: How Tweeting Landed Me a Gig

Twitter is a lot of nonsense, right? A few years ago I would have said yes. I’ve since learned that Twitter has a reason for being, one that has landed me at least one gig and has helped me to connect with people I might otherwise never had met.

I think there are a lot of Twitter users who have had similar experiences to mine.

I wrote the title to this article last March, just days after landing the gig. I put off writing it until now as I’ve been super busy with various projects including the one that brought in new business for me. My last article posted here was two months ago — never before have I gone so long between posts ever since launching this site nearly six years ago.

Twitter Gig

The gig that I got lasted just over four months, shorter than what I had expected. Yet, it was a job that came my way because the woman who hired me saw my automotive tweets via @theautowriter, one of several Twitter handles I manage. This account is linked to my main website at autotrends.org, my flagship car site that showcases my work.

Following being contacted for the gig, I submitted the required paperwork and began to write. I averaged two articles per week at $50 per article. The rate seems low, but the articles took me about one hour to write. When all was said and done, I pulled in $1,700 all because of someone who found my tweets.

More Contacts

I’ve also been found by other people in the automotive industry who were also tracking my tweets. Although those connections haven’t yielded new work, each one has raised my visibility. Importantly, at client expense, I’ve been flown to Detroit, San Francisco and to Ohio for automotive related events.

Those events have allowed me to test drive vehicles or see new products before these hit the market. Moreover, I made additional connections with other journalists including one that I believe will eventually yield fresh work. Again, this is all because of Twitter.

Social Media

These days, I’ve largely abandoned all of my other social media platforms including my long-term favorite, StumbleUpon. SU is still decent, but I need to keep my irons in fires that yield solid results. Sure, a surge of traffic to my websites is always welcome, but more important is the work that I get from my contacts, particularly through tweeting.

LinkedIn is beneficial to me for business, Facebook is ideal for family contacts, but nothing else out there seems to be worth my while.

That’s okay, because when it comes to tweeting, the proof is in the work I’ve gotten, the trips I’ve taken and the new contacts I’ve made.

Does Twitter rock? It certainly does in my world!

Related Articles

• How Paper.li Can Help Increase Your Tweet’s CTR (paper.li)
• How do I set up a Twitter account for my business? (marketing.yell.com)
• Show me the money: StumbleUpon hires a VP of sales for revenue growth (venturebeat.com)

Coming Around, Full Circle

Matt’s Musings, or more accurately this blog plus its forerunner, “The Article Writer,” has been my main way to connect with readers since December 2005. Back then, I was simply trying to find a place to consistently write about freelance writing, my chosen career path since November 2002.

I’ve strayed from my original mission and, in the past few months, have turned this site over to contributors or I haven’t posted at all. That means I’m no longer the “voice” of this blog, allowing surrogates to dispense advice, though I must admit that some of the contributors have done a stellar job in conveying useful information. Thank you one and all.

Still, my contributors are just that — guests who have something to share, but not representative of who I am. Thankful though I am for everyone’s help, I’ve decided to come around, full circle, and return this blog to its roots. From this point forward, I’ll be sharing my thoughts here from time to time, musing as in day’s past and without too many constraints. I’ll write in the first person, jumble up some of my sentence structures and violate a few style sheet rules in the process.

Baby, I’m home! And it feels good too.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, I see that I’m not the only one who has abandoned or neglected his or her blog in favor of actively engaging people via social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter. This is understandable, but distressing: I’ve gleaned so much from some people through their blogs that I’m not able to take away much from 140 character tweets or we’re just not connecting on Facebook.

I’m much more open with touching base with people on Twitter, but not so with Facebook. I’ve since limited my FB involvement mostly to family members, as a way to keep up with what everyone is doing. Even then, staying connected is done purely in a “surfacey” way — much of the information shared is of small value. Other information is strictly TMI and not something for a broader audience.

In many ways, writing has been co-opted by corporations which have established websites with the sole purpose of gaining top position in Google’s search engine result pages. Top position means selling prime advertising space including getting those coveted clicks on text and image ads.

User-generated content, as sent to Facebook means that this social media platform is the de facto point of contact for many people online. Even Google is getting squeezed as some people go straight to FB and stay put all day.

That means my audience has likely changed dramatically, with a number of my contacts no longer participating here or managing their own sites. I began to blog when the novelty was still apparent, but those days have since passed. These days, WordPress is a much more robust platform, but it seems that even with an improved content management tool, its effectiveness is being undercut by powerful, external forces.

None of that will stop me, however, as I’m committed to bringing this site back to its roots, perhaps enabling me to reach a new audience. Or at least allow me to muse as I see fit. And thank you for following me here on Matt’s Musings.