The Art of Tweeting Curling

Since I had the live Tweeting during today's game (@TeamZissouCurl) I will make the update short and sweet:

Team Zissou Wins!

Now, onto to the real subject of this blog, the art of Tweeting Curling. So I actually have about 3 Twitter accounts, one personal, one business, and one for the pets (which I have completely abandoned). Out of all my social media avenues, I use Twitter the least. (I only really post on the business Twitter since that actually makes sense to me, and that's maybe once every few weeks when I get inspired.) I have never really joined the tweeting band wagon, and here I find myself live tweeting the games for about 2 hours straight. It's hard work!

Maybe I am getting old, but I have to say it was challenging to get up to speed on everything. First of all, I am unfamiliar with the platform. Thank goodness Jen was there so she could explain to me how to edit my posts. Otherwise, I would have wasted a lot of time clicking around on my own.

In the past, I have attended various seminars on social media, search engine optimization, etc. I still don't truly understand the # and @ signs that everyone litters their posts with. All I know is that if I write something, I have to leave enough room to include #ArenaNats which can be kind of annoying when I start running out of space.

I am not really good at abbreviating things especially from the very beginning. I like to just dump out the thoughts and then edit them shorter later. It becomes a problem when I fall behind with the descriptions and the curlers are moving onto the next shots. So I've learned to just keep an eye on the number of characters I have left. When I get close, I start making adjustments or just hit "Post" if it is too much of a hassle. I still find myself rewiting lots of things...

Tweeting and watching curling at the same time is not advisable. I sometimes miss what is being called as I am finishing up on a post. Again, Jen is my life saver when I have to confirm information or if I had questions about what really happened with a shot. I've learned that it is easier to post the result of the shot rather than interpret what was being called and if the shot was successful or not. Thus, I avoid most of the misinterpretations when reading calls on the ice.  (Learned that lesson from day one when I guess a curl around a guard what not a great shot after all...LOL)

Lastly, it is even more so challenging tweeting with a toddler and a 3 month baby. I knew it would be hard, but it is actually insane.  What was I thinking?  Overall, the babies have been pretty good. Halia slept all throughout game three so my only challenge was keeping Leianna occupied. Behind the scenes, I'm changing diapers in between shots, cleaning up spilled water over my keyboard, scrambling to find new and interesting toys (4 plastic cups) for Leianna, feeding Leianna, making sure she doesn't touch anything with her dirty fingers... Jen was a BIG help with being a 2nd pair of eyes and playing with her when things got a little busy. Thank you, Auntie Jen!

Overall, tweeting went better than I expected, and it kept me very involved with the curling game which I love watching. It does require a different way of thinking and writing...my life has benefited from this experience though I am not sure how yet. Live tweeting kind of reminds me when we live webstreamed our games (which I think was a way easier). I think we should do that again...

Hope you enjoyed some behind the tweet information. I figured I should change some things up with the blog.

Tomorrow is a very early game, so the girls and I will not be there.  We will continue to tweet during normal hour. Until then, this is Domino signing off.