John Mayer at Berklee on July 11, 2011. (Photo: Berklee College of Music)
I recently read coverage of singer/songwriter John Mayer’s July 11th lecture at his alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Mayer returned to his Boston music school to share his ups and downs musically and with his celebrity.
Mayer touched upon his once obsessive use of Twitter, which he eventually had to abandon. Berklee Blogs reported from the lecture:
“(Mayer struggled) to curb using social media, which should have been an outlet for promotion but eventually became an outlet for artistic expression. Mayer shared that he found himself asking himself questions like ‘Is this a good blog? Is this a good tweet? Which used to be, is this a good song title? Is this a good bridge?’
And possibly more alarming, Mayer realized that pouring creativity into smaller, less important, promotional outlets like Twitter not only distracted him from focusing on more critical endeavors like his career, it also narrowed his mental capacity for music and writing intelligent songs.”
Most telling was this direct quote from Mayer:
“I stopped using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”
Even though I’m tone deaf, Mayer’s insights regarding Twitter hit home for me as a sports writer. I devote so much of my time engaging my sports communities via Twitter, and having worthy and in-depth conversations there. I’m using ideas and thoughts on Twitter that might be better explored via my sports blog.
It is an easy rut for sports bloggers to get stuck in. You leave some of your best material – the discussion of a player’s role on a particular team, a discussion of how you would set hockey lines, who you would hire for a vacant coaching position – on Twitter. You might not even realize you are putting your creativity priority on Twitter, but step back and look at what discussions you’re spending a lot of time having on Twitter. You might be leaving a lot of topics there that you could be having on your blog.
Remember that even though Twitter has exploded with popularity, not all of your blog readers are there. Consider about expanding on topics you’re discussing on Twitter on your blog. Or write about a topic first on your blog, then share the blog post via Twitter and let the post generate the discussion. By putting your blog as creativity priority one over Twitter, you may not run into difficulty finding time to post or coming up with post ideas.
Start by asking yourself: Are you using your blog or Twitter to “riff” on sports? Is whatever one you’re using the one you want to be using?