Jeff Randhawa faces a problem affecting many users of social media: what the heck do you say once you’re plugged in?
I am officially on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I also have BlackBerry Messenger on my phone. My problem is, I don’t have anything worthwhile to say. When I signed up to the aforementioned social media networks, I felt a great amount of pressure to provide useful comments to the people who follow my accounts and are listed as friends. Sadly, I think I have let many of them down.
My Twitter account is beyond pathetic. Since March 6th, 2011 I have three tweets:
March 6th, 2011 – Time to start reading some classics, first up David Copperfield
July 25th, 2011 – Good to hear the NFL will not miss any games. Now just to make my daughter a football fan!
July 30th, 2011 – @ryanwhitney6 Very true but not as bad as waking up ten minutes after your shift starts!
Not exactly setting the world on fire with information, am I? The last tweet was at Edmonton Oiler defenceman Ryan Whitney, who mentioned how he hated waking up 10 minutes before his alarm went off, to which I spewed out my witty retort. (He hasn’t responded yet but I continue to wait….). In regards to David Copperfield, I have even picked the novel off my nightstand yet.
I only have four poor souls who are following me on Twitter at the moment, God bless them. They probably added me to their list hoping for substantial information, but have been left with my war with reading novels, my passion for NFL football and my lame attempt to get a professional hockey to laugh at a comment.
The people I follow are in the following percentages – 95 per cent are sports personalities and the other 5 per cent are everyone else, including friends, family, colleagues and writers. I have colleagues who provide vast amounts of quality information regarding labour market and telecommunication trends. Of course, I get all my news and sports updates from media personalities, which is more convenient than surfing all the different websites looking for the news.
But then there are some of my friends and family who provide the following tidbits:
July 29th, 2011 – Long weekend! Time to get pissed!
July 30th, 2011 – Had a great time at the Whitecaps game….
July 31st, 2011 – Need to see the doctor about that lump on my neck
Okay, so I made that last one up, but you get the gist of what I am saying. Honestly, I have never seen so much useless information in my life. I am always waiting for someone to tell me that they are about to go to the bathroom. Don’t laugh; this will happen. How many times have your heard friends tell you they dropped their phones in the toilet? It is just a matter of time before they begin telling us that they are about to go — and a part of me will die a little.
Last night I watched probably the first 15 minutes of The Social Network, the story about the founders of Facebook. I fell asleep and woke up during the credits. Being fully rested, I thought about the concept of social media and how I can use it. Like I mentioned in the beginning, my tweets are few and far between and at the moment do not provide anyone with useful information. However, I would rather keep it short and simple rather than blurting out every step I took in a particular day.
Conclusion: for the time being, I will be a follower rather focusing on being followed. I shouldn’t worry so much about the information I provide, and what others will think. There is a wealth of knowledge that is being shared and after all, isn’t that whole purpose of social media?
Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Aurora
Hi Jeff. A few quick thoughts: social media is not for everyone, and not necessary to life or enjoyment of life.
It is, however, another option for connecting with others. Each platform has a different focus and value. I equate Twitter to coffee shop chatter – very little of it is of earth-shaking import but it builds relationships, encourages information exchange, and diversifies a person’s contacts. Like all activities, the value is pretty directly tied to the input — the more a person engages on Twitter, the more they get back from others. As a writer, I love the quick and timely discussions with other writers and readers. The same goes for my interest areas like running. I follow the people I find of interest, don’t follow the millions more who don’t interest me.
And, yes, once you have established a relationship with people, they do want to know that your spring league hockey team advanced to the 2nd round 🙂 Congrats on that!
din’t I tell you so?????
Hey Jeff,
I’m a social media wallflower myself. I’m on all the sites you mentioned but have absolutely no idea why other than someone said I should be. Sharing the minutiae of my life doesn’t seem particularly interesting to me so why should it be to anyone else. It all seems like we are becoming so much more self-obsessed. If I am wrong and it does do something positive I will have to review my opinion.
Tim
Good points Tim, thanks for reading!
I often find myself thinking about posting something, and then wondering how necessary it is.
For example, does anyone really want to hear that my spring league hockey team advanced to the 2nd round earlier today?
Jeff