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This blog post isn't about what happened. It's about the thing that happened next - after the first thing had happened. Confused? Hang in there; allow me to explain. This is important because there are critical lessons here for all of us using social media for business.
To those of us who live and breathe social media every day, it is easy to forget that not everyone is as comfortable online as we are. In fact, many people have concerns about being too visible online and some don't want to be online, period. Yes, there are people who, by choice, do not have Facebook, Twitter or Google+ accounts. To my fellow social media aficionados, I realize this may come as a shock.
Social media is all the rage. All the cool kids are using it; at least, that's what the cool kids on the internet are telling us. The number of businesses on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube is mind-boggling, but the real question is how many of them are using the tools wisely?
I spend way too much time online, most of it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn. While you may not spend the hours online as I do, admit it, you are online a lot. My question to you is a simple one: How well do you really know your virtual connections?
With the launch of Google's new social network, Google+, there are many who have rushed to publish opinions about the demise of other networks, most notably Twitter and Facebook. Some have even gone as far as to shut down their accounts on these other networks to move their entire online network to Google+.
You know you've seen it. That cringe-worthy photo from your friend's beach vacation that he's using as his LinkedIn profile photo. "What in the world is he thinking?" you asked yourself. "I'd never use a photo like that to represent myself online." Really, Ms. Look-at-me-and-my-super-cute-puppy?
If you grew up with a mother anything like mine, many of your childhood memories include being shushed and reminded to use your inside voice. We had three voices, but the one we heard the most about was our inside voice. Heaven forbid we might say something too loudly and the neighbors would hear! Little did I know these voices would come in handy when thinking about Twitter.
It had been nagging me for months, though I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. Things with my work have been going well and keeping me busy, but something didn't feel quite right. I know a lot of people, more than I've ever known at any other time in my life. I spend much of my day connecting with them in one way or another.
I already know almost all of you will be in one of two camps. Some of you will immediately feel my pain and totally get what I'm talking about. Others will think I'm making much ado about nothing and ought to let go of my outdated idea of how and where content is best shared. There will be a handful in the middle; those who can see both sides, but there won't be many of you in this third group. That said, let's get ready to rumble!
Remember how excited you were when you learned that you could connect your Flickr account to Facebook so that all of your photos could easily be uploaded and shared with your friends? Or, how intrigued you were with the idea of posting every single update to all of your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn friends simultaneously?
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