Why You Shouldn't Hesitate To Ask Twitter For Help

Today, tornadoes tore across the state of Georgia. I’m currently residing in Dublin, GA for familial reasons. This morning I woke up to the horrible sound of a train. However, there are no trains where I live. I immediately went to my window where I was greeted with an unfamiliar site; a tornado was headed straight towards my house.

Fortunately, it immediately diverted to our backyard and missed the house by mere inches! Once things calmed down, I immediately Twittered what was going on and didn’t check back in for a few hours.

Lightbulb When I did check back into Twitter, I was greeted with numerous thoughts, prayers and well wishes. However, I was also in the middle of a problem. My family and I couldn’t afford the ridiculous hotel rates in the area. So, I went out on a limb and asked my Twitter friends for help. I received more than enough donations for my hotel room and used the rest of the money to buy goods for the other families on my street that were not able to leave their places.

Fears That Create Hesitation

It never hurts to ask for help. However, one has to keep in mind that this is a virtual world. Because of this, people may not be willing to help for fear of being scammed, especially if the help pertains to money.

At the same time, though you may consider your online followers as friends, it’s still a shaky line as to what that really means online. Sometimes you only know people for what they do and not necessarily for who they are. This can cause users of social networking tools such as Twitter to hesitate to ask for help.

Weighing In On Importance

My thoughts were, if you can ask for help about anything else, why not ask for help for more serious issues? Wouldn’t people be more willing to help with that instead of the superficial calls for help that one normally makes compared to more important issues? Without the help of my Twitter friends, I might still be struggling to find a place to stay for the next 2 nights. Thank you Tweeples! And a huge thanks to NewsCred for a nice donation that helped feed 4 families on my street!