The first bump occured when I replied to Felicia Day’s post about being a woman in geek culture. I only got a few new follows, but I had dozens of replies that day. I had no idea that she would reply, or that others would include me with their conversations with her.

The next group of followers hopped on board, because we were all discussing the Mars rover landing. I happened to tune in as NASA was waiting for the first data from Curiosity, and I had a fantastic time joining in the conversation and experiencing that connection with other people.

Finally, I accidentally expanded my network by vicariously living through friends who had attended this year’s BlogHer convention. Suddenly I was reading the posts of and conversing with other blogging ladies. Is that geeky enough for ya?

I write quite a few articles about social media strategy and SEO, and I know how important engagement is but, to be perfectly honest, I usually only chat on Twitter with people whom I already know. I add existing friends, and while many of them are geeky bloggers, I don’t spend a lot of time concerning myself with the trending topics. My new followers make me think that this might be a mistake, especially if the goal is to strengthen my blogger network. Plus, I’ve really enjoyed those conversations and new topics.

So, there you have it. If you accidentally want a bunch of new followers:

• Tweet a celeb
• Geek out about NASA
• Talk a lot about a convention you’ve never visited

The post How I accidentally marketed myself as a geek appeared first on 7and1.net.

I was a little sad, somewhat annoyed, exhausted and a whole lot of angry. So I did the adult thing, downed an entire bottle of alcohol and posted all my angry, man-hating thoughts for the world to see on Facebook/Twitter.

This is not an apology.

I mean, it was annoying, I can give you that. But I am not sorry. I needed a night to not care. I needed some time to refrain from being the responsible adult. I needed to express anger and I needed to let myself feel sadness and I needed to let it all out — which I pretty much never do.

Luckily, I did so in a pretty entertaining way and no one seems upset with me. In fact, the general consensus is pretty much that I would be a hoot to drink with when, you know, I wasn’t full of angry hate. I think anyone who knows me even moderately understands that I am not that person. I have tried so very hard to be responsible, mindful, positive and strong in the past couple years. I’ve made great strides but sometimes I needed a reminder that I don’t have to be those things all the time.

Last night, I found support from some awesome people, who I would expect to be there, and some awesome people who surprised me by being there. They all surprised me by telling me it was okay for me to feel and act the way I felt and acted because they understood.

I also knew that I would sleep on it and feel better in the morning. Which I did, more or less. Some of the things that set me off didn’t matter in the morning light and some of them are going to make me feel a little blue for a while but none of them are the end of the world or even any worse than anything I’ve had to handle before. And I guess that makes me feel pretty good. Maybe I just needed to check out for a little bit but I’m awesome enough to know how far out I can go and able to reel it back in when I need to.

What happened last night won’t be a regular occurrence, thankfully, but last night needed to happen.

The post Last Night appeared first on 7and1.net.

Dear twitter now that I know
I will never wonder
how are my blogging friends
or my pals from down under

The beauty of twitter, you see
is having the easiest way way
for those who mean the most to me
to keep me up to date

Now when I see new tweets
I think it’s pretty sweet
Because my friends can easily say
what they’re doing right now, today

Twitter, my friend I hope you forget
and forgive the sin I did commit
Without you, my mind would be stewing
not knowing “What are you doing?”

The post Ode to Twitter appeared first on 7and1.net.