Twitter and the #ToyShow

For years, Charlie was annoying me about Twitter, telling me how great it is. Twice I signed up to see what all the fuss was about. Twice I followed a few people and watched my Twitter feed to see what would happen. I felt like I’d joined a conference call late, and on a bad line, so I was only getting snatches of meaningless conversation from random people.

My confusion grew even more when I accompanied Charlie to a Twitterfest party. I was surrounded by people who seemed to think Twitter was #thegreatestthingsinceslicedbread but they were too busy tweeting that they were at Twitterfest to explain what the big deal was to me!

Last year when I started Mama.ie, I set up @mamadotie as my accompanying Twitter account and fed my RSS feed into it and then ignored it for the most part. (Oddly enough that approach didn’t gain many followers!)

And then this time last year, something magical happened. I was messing around with the Twitter app on my phone when I spotted that #ToyShow, which I was watching, was trending. Curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the hashtag to see what was going on. It was like a veil was lifted! Suddenly instead of watching the Toy Show by myself, I was watching it with hundreds of people. And we were all chatting about it. “Did you see his jumper?” Oh yes we did – not only that but we’ve all got an opinion on it!

My favourite part of the Toy Show is always the “precocious” little kids who review the toys. Honestly I cried laughing at the commentary on Twitter accompanying some of the reviews.

So that was it, I was hooked on Twitter, and it was all thanks to the Toy Show.

Can’t wait for tonight’s show! #ToyShow here I come!