I almost always tweet my Instagram pictures, but now I'm not so sure if I will anymore. I read this article from Mashable that said including pictures in your tweets leads to a retweet, UNLESS its an Instagram picture, which will be far less likely to be retweeted. (Here's the article I'm referencing: http://mashable.com/2013/10/07/retweet-photo/) Womp. Womp. Womp.

I learned that reusing content across platforms is a good way to gain milage on your content, but now I can't even use my Instagram pictures on Twitter, which is a basic standard I have been doing since I began using Instagram? I mean I get that it makes it obvious that I am reusing it, as well as having to open a new platform, but that seems like a pretty big difference to go from much more likely to be retweeted to significantly less likely to be retweeted.

Clearly this perplexes me, and makes me wonder: am I that lazy that I can't just use the internal picture setup in Twitter, and then go Instagram it? But then again, are people that lazy that opening an extra window rather than seeing it directly on Twitter is that much of a hassle?

I tried this morning to tweet a picture and then Instagram it, but it just feels so forced putting it on two places separately. Also, by the time I tweeted it, I already decided it wasn't important enough to need to be in two different networks. So maybe having to break up the instant tweet from Instagram will make me reconsider what content is truly important to share.

Or maybe I'll just continue to be lazy and stop caring if I get a retweet.

So now that I'm running my own independent beauty consulting business, I decided that I needed to back it up with social media. This was a natural inclination, as social media is my daytime profession. Plus, I had it worked out in my head that the more I sold online, the less legwork I would need to do in real life. So along came my alter ego, Sara at Mary Kay. She has this fancy little fan Facebook page and a Twitter handle to match. I went through and invited my friends to like the page and gave about a 10 second thought as to what to schedule onto it. Then I turned my sights onto my new Twitter persona.

I really saw Twitter as my outlet to new fans for many reasons, such as Twitter's longer history of hash tags, trending topics, and a general attitude that its not creepy to follow strangers. So I went Twitter-crazy. @SaraAtMaryKay went through and followed almost anyone talking about makeup, Mary Kay, skincare, or even just in the geographic vicinity of Richmond. Then she started retweeting like it was going out of style. Just to top it all off, she started mentioning lots of people that she whimsically decided would be interested.

Then Twitter blocked @SaraAtMaryKay.

Down went my non de plum. Thankfully, it only lasted for about an hour, and @SaraAtMaryKay was back in the game.

One may assume that after being blocked for being considered spammy, you would breathe and reign in the crazy Twitter horses. Nay. @SaraAtMaryKay continued to trek on. I had that account go through my real account and follow everyone that I thought would want to follow my makeup persona. I did a bit more retweeting, and just like that I was suspended (which means that you have to sit through several days of Twitter jail while they decide if you are allowed back on the site).

I was livid. How was I going to launch this great new endeavor if Twitter keeps taking me offline? So what if I condensed an entire day of reasonable Twitter engagement into an hour? So what if I spent my lunch hour blowing up the feeds of my followers?

Then it hit me.

Twitter is about people. No one wants to see me throwing myself at them. It was basically Twitter trying to tell me I was being desperate and needed to get my shit together. Basically I was being that drunk girl at a bar that just won't shut up so that everyone else can enjoy a bit of discourse. She just keeps blurting things out and hoping someone latches on to at least something she said, when in reality they're just rolling their eyes.

Sometimes, there can be too much enthusiasm. It's great that I wanted everyone to know I was selling markup, but I needed to direct all that emotion into digestible packages. I wouldn't want people doing that to me, so why was I doing it? Better yet, I work in social media, so how was I so deluded into thinking that this was okay?

My best answer is simply one word: enthusiasm. It's hard to gauge how much is too when you're excessively excited about something. Not everyone will want to hear about your passions 24/7. That doesn't mean they don't want to hear it, just that they want it in moderation. Keep your readers in mind and just consider: how pissed would you be if someone blew up your feed with all the content you are producing?