What I learnt from hosting my first Twitter space.
Twitter recently rolled out a feature similar to clubhouse and it was named Spaces. A twitter space is where you can create an audio meeting and have your followers join in to either listen or contribute to the conversation you’re having.
Since its launch, almost every active Twitter user has either hosted (to create a space) or joined one to listen to and/or contribute to different topics of their interest, ranging from sports to music to crypto. The use cases on Twitter NG has been crazy. Some even use spaces to host moaning competitions and as a mini court to hear the other side of the story, after which they would pass their judgement and give you up for dragging if found guilty.
As one whose interests lie in all things digital technology, rap music and football, I’ve joined and contributed in a few spaces, but this time, due to boredom, I decided to host my own space focused on having my friends join and request for MI Abaga’s (a top tier rapper from Africa) songs while I source for it and play it for them, pausing in between the tracks to decipher the bars and help him catch his breath.
Immediately I conceived that hosting a music space was the fun thing to do to ease my boredom, I took it to a group of fellow rap music lovers I belonged to and shared the invite link there for the members to join my space. Out of over 200+ members, only one person clicked and started the space with me.
And here goes lesson number one:
To start a project or anything, all you need is you, your idea and/or at least one person that shares the common vision. You don’t need the whole crowd to start.
I started the space with this one person and was playing different songs for him as he was requesting for, and before I knew it, people started joining and the space started filling up.
They started requesting to speak so they could request the songs I would play for them. At that moment, I realized I had the power to choose who I wanted to speak on my space and who I didn’t.
Here’s the second lesson:
In life, you should control who has input and say in your affairs. At every point, make sure the power to make decisions is still in your control and not anybody else’s.
People kept on requesting and I was really having a swell time. It was more fun than I expected. More people were coming in, more requests were being made, and everyone was obviously in their ultimate vibe mood. I observed that as people were joining in, some people were also leaving. I copied the invite link to the space, shared it on my Twitter timeline and my WhatsApp status.
I learnt another valuable lesson, the third:
Don’t be afraid of expansion. When you’ve attained a level of success in your business or career, it’s not a time to be complacent and relax, rather you should seek growth and expansion. And don’t be worried about those that leave, just keep doing you, those that left will return. And if they do, make sure you still have the power to control if they can contribute to your life or not.
Sharing the invite links on those platforms made the space more filled and as a result, we lost the orderliness on the space. Everyone wanted to talk at the same time, I was struggling to keep up with the amount of speakers request. The music that brought us all together was no longer heard, and the noise became unbearable that I had to use the ‘mute everyone’ button to keep everyone from talking and reduce the background noises while the music was playing.
This taught me that:
You could allow too many cooks into the broth that is your life and have it spoilt. But, it’s okay to send them out and shut your kitchen. When it seems like you’ve lost track of the vision and clarity of purpose, it’s okay to cancel all distractions and go back to the drawing board.
Order was restored and we got our groove back. In between the vibe, I noticed my laptop which was the source of the music was running out of battery and if it dies without me doing anything, that was the end of the space.
I had to do something.
Quickly I made the first person on the space with me a co-host, meaning everything I could do on the space, he could too.
With this, I learnt that:
Sometimes, if you’re tired, take a step back and assess your life from outside. One has to step back and let someone else more capable continue the good work. And also ensure there’s a contingency plan for all your moves.
He took over the job of the DJ from me without any glitch, while I listened like every other audience in the space as he changed songs and ran the whole show. Something struck me though, even as I wasn’t actively calling shots or being at the wheel, the name of the space still had my name. Every new person that joined saw my name and knew it to be my space.
The lesson from this is simple:
Optimize for legacy. Live and build with legacy in mind.
The groove continued, and the vibes were on a hundred. Bars were being deciphered, people were requesting for songs and everything was going on smoothly until…
What Twitter would later describe to be a technical issue occurred and we were all kicked out of the space. Without prior notice or afore warning, our fun was cut short and against our wish, we were all forced to stop and leave. Maybe twitter got jealous of the way we were having fun and needed to yank us off its space.
Whatever reason it was, I learnt the ultimate lesson:
It’s never your space. Do all you can while you still have access to it because when the time comes, it will take you unawares and cut off all the fun you were having.
