When you go back, back, back, waaaaaaaaay back into my archive of blogs, you’ll find plenty of them talking about what social media can be IF we choose to make it so. And that is…SOCIAL. For some out here on Twitter and Facebook, it is a product pitch site to reach your marketplace. Others on Pinterest and Instagram are less about product hawking and more about sharing…EVERYTHING you might want to learn about somebody, and in most cases, more than we would ever possibly want to know. But tossing out information or photos and then running back to take cover to see where they land, isn’t really SOCIAL media. It’s more like skeet shooting.
How social is your social media? I’ve always tried to straddle somewhere between personal and professional when engaging on Twitter and Facebook. One thing that has always impressed me the most about the writing community I frequently interact with has been some of the truly giving and insightful friends I’ve gotten to meet along the way. In fact, if you scroll back to about 2 years ago out here on this blog, you’ll find some very cool guest blogs I was able to arrange with some of these awesome individuals. I’ll be promoting these past blogs over the weekend in fact so people get a chance to read some of the valuable insight they shared. But I realized just the other day, I haven’t been doing quite so good in the social department lately out here. I’ve hit a rut. I think it happens when you’ve been anywhere for as long as I’ve been tweeting and blogging. Long before writing books and spouting micropoetry, I was out here, launched a presence on Twitter in 2008, which would make this tweeter 7-years-old. Hmm. I didn’t realize that. And my author profile is the same one that started as a magazine editor and then an out-of-work-but-trying-hard-to-survive freelance writer and editor until finally the author and pop culture obsessed nut you see before you now.
Call it a virtual ‘seven year itch,’ but I think it’s time to give back a little. It’s time to get social again and remember what these platforms are all about, and that is community. So… this blog won’t be a long one today. And it’s more a result of me chewing on a thought than really asking you to do so, although I do encourage you to think about your own presence in social media. Heck, it’s not even Friday anymore when it’s posting, so I guess I’m breaking all of my self-imposed rules today, aren’t I? Heh. But I will tell you that over this summer, I intend to bring you some guest blogs in a special series here at my website. It’s my way of returning to the roots of what social media is really all about — connecting. Connecting people with other voices and ideas and various parts of the world, and that’s precisely from where these voices will emerge…anywhere and verywhere. So look for that multi-week series a little bit later this summer.
In the meantime, why not invest some energy this weekend catching up with a few people on social media that perhaps you lost track of for a while? Or you could take part in a movement I’ve been trying to get others to hop on board #SupportiveSaturday, an alternative to #FollowFriday to garner some interest in bloggers or writers or particular individuals or organizations you encourage others to support in some way. It’s time for us to change up what we’ve always been doing, pull ourselves out of our ruts and routines and auto-posts and get creative with our getting social. Join me? Happy weekend, friends. ~ Chris
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