Twitter Fear

I always knew it would be scary starting up my own company.

Quite apart from the crippling fear of failure, and the possibility of losing my little all, there is the unholy terror that is the Trade Fair. Or Fayre, if you are slightly connected with the wedding business. That is a dragon I have yet to slay - 22nd April is looming ahead like a monstrous storm cloud, I'll tell you all about it afterwards.

Funnily enough though, I was quite looking forward to promoting the business online. "That's the fun bit!" said everyone cheerily, and like a muppet, I believed them.
After all, I'm quite a confident, outgoing person. I like parties, and socialising, and I could chat for Britain. For heaven's sake, my day job is in Sales! I even met my amazing boyfriend through an online dating agency. What could possibly be scary about Social Media?

The other thing that is wonderful about online self promotion is that it is faceless. No need to worry about spots, spare tyres, unfashionable clothes. It can be done whilst wearing a soup stained Betty Boop dressing gown and milk-bottle spectacles if desired. And frequently is. After all, the internet is the greatest self-reinvention tool ever created. So that was settled; from now on I was a six foot, blonde, groomed, uber business woman. With a mole, like Cindy Crawford's. What fun!

Well, no. The one thing nobody tells you, and that I never could have guessed, is this; Twitter Is Scary. No really, it is. And I'm not talking about the racist cretins, or the haters, or the trolls that slither about on our social media sites everyday, I'm talking about normal, everyday people. People like me, promoting their businesses, chatting about what they are watching on television. Terrifying.

The thing is, I was expecting it to be rather like Facebook. But of course, if you're like me, then the big difference is that everybody you "Friend" on Facebook is actually a friend in real life too. Or at least a member of your family, which isn't always the same thing, but at least it usually means you've known them for ever. Whereas I know about 4 "real" people on Twitter. The other 14 Followers I have managed to amass - I know, I'm not doing terribly well - are Professionals; Wedding Planners, Bridal Magazines, Word Lovers, Event Organisers and so on. Even setting aside my slavish gratitude for them Following me, they all seem to be genuinely nice people. They are enthusiastic about their work, they support and promote other people in their work, they don't bitch about people (well, unless they really, really deserve it) and all in all they are all round decent folk. So, why so scary? I hear you cry. Simple; they all seem to have known each other for absolutely ever. They tease each other, encourage each other in their diets, ask about their pets, laugh at in-jokes, and even occasionally meet up in the actual real world. And there I am, the new girl, trying hard to fit in and be accepted, whilst at the same time panicking that I am coming accross as really needy and desperate.

I don't know if you ever changed schools when you were young, but if you did you will recognise this feeling immediately. The feeling that everybody apart from you is in on the joke. The feeling that, try as you might, your rucksack will never be cool enough, your hair never tousled enough, your accent never quite right. The conviction that everybody is always two steps ahead of you, and that there's nothing you can do about it.

Well, that's what happened to me on Twitter. The minute I metaphorically stepped into the cyber playground, I was suddenly 13 years old again, tongue-tied and scared to smile for fear people would see my braces and judge me. I feel that all those strong, loud, intelligent, funny women out there in the 'Twittersphere' can see right through me and my tentative Tweets that take me so long to create. I feel as though I'm an imposter, a Twitter virgin. They can't possibly know this, and yet I feel that they do. I feel that I'm interrupting if I join in a conversation, that I'm Following the wrong people, that I'm pretending to know all about the cool things I only heard of last week. At this rate, within a week I'll be hanging out in the science lab at breaktime with the child who smells of eggs.

Oh, the worry, the worry. If anyone has any suggestions for boosting my coolness rating they would be gratefully received. You can even have my yoghurt at lunchtime.