Photo: mdgovpics, flickr
Gill Renner of Fort McMurray, AB is an avid Twitter user with a problem.
“People seem to like my content, so I can’t complain too much, but they don’t share it with anyone,” he says. “They give it a star, so I know they liked it, and they know they liked it, but no-one else gets a chance to like it because they never retweet me. It’s just so frustrating.”
Renner, who is 38, single, and childless, claims the problem is so serious that he routinely loses sleep over it.
“Most nights I’ll be lying there in bed, coming up with a real doozy. At around three or four a.m. it’ll hit me — something really clever or novel or insightful — using just the right words in the right order to make maximum use of Twitter’s 140 character limit,” he continues. “But then, I have to wait for the optimal time zone balance, just to ensure that the most number of followers have the best chance of seeing it go out live.”
The wait, he says, is agonizing. His doctor has prescribed him medicine to help with the ulcers. Social media gurus have suggested on-line tools, but Renner steadfastly refuses to use scheduled tweeting services.
“Bufferapp and Tweetdeck are for weenies. I’m engaged with my content delivery — in real time!”
Then, when the tweet is posted, comes more waiting… before the inevitable disappointment.
“I’ll just keep pressing F5 on the ‘Interactions’ page, waiting for validation from someone. I know that the screen is supposed to update automatically, but I just can’t help myself. I’ll also click on the reload button in my browser, and occasionally delete my entire cache just to make sure I’m seeing the most current data from Twitter.”
But at most, it will just be ‘favourited’ by a few individual followers.
“It’s disheartening to be ‘that guy’,” Renner laments. “I’m good enough to favourite, but not good enough to RT. They’re happy to be “just friends” but never go on a date with me. It’s the story of my life.”