I joined Twitter in 2009 but found 140 characters difficult to communicate with.

I’m not known for my brevity and I just left it alone and concentrated on Facebook.

When I created an app for Chef Miguel Maestre, I launched his social media via Facebook and Twitter and posted as a slightly mad Chef for around 18 months to help build up his ‘tribe’.

In the beginning Miguel, who is a funny, extroverted Spanish/Australian Chef wasn’t interested in social media.

In the end, his wife told me she would gladly throw his smartphone out of the window, as he was forever checking his Twitter follower numbers!

He now works regularly for a very popular programme on Channel Ten, here in Australia called ‘The Living Room’.

Miguel has become extremely successful, and deservedly so.

While we were making the ‘app’ he told me about his experiences as a young assistant working in a kitchen in Scotland.

(My spiritual home)

He would spend literally all day peeling onions – having moved to Scotland to further his career and ambitions.  It was hard and boring work, but he stuck at it.

One of the many upsides was that through being there he met his lovely wife Sascha. Fifteen years and two children later all that chopping has paid off.

I went to watch one of the live tv productions of ‘The Living Room’ and it was, as these things always are, very slow and repetitive.

In between takes, things were pretty boring despite the guy who was doing a pretty good job at warming up the audience.  He got me onside when he said they had ‘Kate Bush’ in the front row. Meaning me, apparently.

That won’t mean a lot to most of you reading this, but she was a singer that was one of my contemporaries who I quite admired.  But I digress…

So, during one of the breaks, I said to Miguel “don’t you find this a bit boring?”

No, was his reply, chopping onions for 8 hours straight is boring!

He is now travelling around the world on many wonderful adventures for the programme.

The point being, he put in a lot of extremely hard work to get where he is.

So, my ‘what if’ moments?

If I had followed through with Twitter, and taken the advice of a few people who said when the app was launched, set up your own social media business you would be perfect for it.

If I had only known, that the way to monetize apps was to offer a ‘lite’ version then sell in options. But nobody had worked that out back then.

But I don’t regret a thing.  You only learn from the things that don’t come easy.

And I had a huge amount of fun visiting Miguel’s restaurant in Manly.  Even at 9am in the morning, the music was loud, the staff were enthusiastic as they prepared for the day ahead and the beach was just in front of us.

I’m having another go at ’social media’  and using what I have learned.

Like Miguel with his onions, you have to shed a few tears to get to where you want to go.

Onwards and upwards!