Lessons Learned on Twitter

I've been using Twitter for some time now as my primary social media marketing tool. I think it has helped my stock music business, although that's somewhat difficult to quantify. It's also provided an opportunity to express myself in numerous ways. I have a chance to tweet my gratitude for people like you who support my work. I can highlight things that are near and dear, especially the healing power of music. I've heard that trolls on Twitter are the most brutal of all on the Internet, but fortunately have not had those sorts of problems.

There are great things about being on Twitter. Last week, for example, to celebrate the induction of Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I did a sort of Yes lyric "tweet-a-thon." I tweeted out snippets of Yes lyrics (mostly from off the top of my head) from across their decades-long catalog. The biggest thing this experience taught me is that you just never know what's going to catch people's collective fancy. The lyrics I expected to have the most impressions, those from classic hits "Roundabout" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart," were not the most popular. Instead, the most impressions (by far) and interactions went to this tweet:

As we flow down life's river
I see the stars glow one by one
All angels of the magic
constellation
Be singing us now#Yes #RockHall2017

— Bruce Smith (@thisbrucesmith) April 7, 2017

Obviously, there are a lot of people whose spirits were touched by these last lines of the song "Hearts" from 90125. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to connect with fellow Yes fans across the Twittersphere, even if only for a moment.

The other lesson I've learned is less happy. For all of the connection that social media provides, we are still provincial and isolated in many ways. In recent weeks I've tweeted my sorrow and mourning for victims of senseless violence in three different places: St. Petersburg, Egypt, and Syria. The St. Petersburg tweet attracted far more attention than the other two. It's easy to rationalize this as the result of more Westerners on Twitter. Yet any taking of innocent life is an abomination against all of us, no matter where it happens or who perpetrates it. Until we as individuals treat all of these things the same, nothing will change at the social level.