On Social Media

I've been pretty active with social media for some time now.  I've been on Facebook, BizNik, Linked and several other properties for years.  I joined Twitter in November of 2008 and I am by far most active there.  A key driver for me to dedicate the time to filling and updating profiles was David Meerman Scott's book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.  This book struck me in a very profound way and wish that I had read it far sooner than I did.

Prior to reading Mr. Scott's book I operated very much in the old world of face-to-face networking events and traditional word-of-mouth to build my reputation and do business development.  This is a highly inefficient and time consuming method.  After all you can only be in so many places at once, and you typically run into the same people over and over.  Additionally there were no SEO benefits.

What surprises me is the number of people that don't understand the power of social media to be a Force Multiplier to use a military term.  This was really brought home recently with my own family.  I've wrote quite a bit here on this blog about my relationship with my family.  I do so not to air my dirty laundry, but in an effort to humanize myself.  The aftermath of my return to family gatherings this past Easter, which I wrote about previously, lead to a string of emails from my brother.

He meant well, and just wanted to know what was bothering his big brother.  I had already written about it here and saw no need in duplicating my efforts by retyping it in an email.  I told him everything he needed to know about what I was going through and what I'm doing is on my blog if he wished to read it.  I'm not going to go into the full detail of the conversations that took place afterward, but let's just say that he didn't get.  I love him, but by his clear lack of understanding of the medium I choose not to go into it further.

Come to find out he had been BCC my cousin on the emails and now he was chiming in.  Neither of them understand why I've made the decisions I've made, nor why I did not feel the need to explain them.  The overall tone of the conversation from their end was really one of a lack of understanding of what social media is and how and why I use it.  Their perception is that it is all fake, not knowing that on Twitter the fakes are very quickly identified and brushed aside.  They think its just a group of shut-ins hiding behind a keyboard not knowing all of the Tweet-ups I've organized or that real relationships are the mantra of the medium.

Twitter has brought some amazing people into my life.  Many of whom I count as dear friends.  I've built relationships with like minded people from around the globe and I am grateful for that.  This blog and social media as a whole are a way for me to communicate to a global audience.  Could I use it illicitly and only put a positive spin on things of course, and I openly admit that some times when I need a check up from the neck I do.  What's wrong with a little positive reinforcement every once and a while?