Social Media: Where Do We Go From Here?
So you’ve got your blog. You’re on Twitter. Accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, Plaxo and countless others are kept up to date and keep you networked with your peers. The question keeps coming back… what’s next? What does all this time interacting and connecting with people accomplish?
After all the hours involved in networking and connecting with people you start to wonder what the payoff will be. Twitter seems like a time sink, Facebook is flat-out a bad college prank, and blogging is more demanding that you thought it would be. Is the payback just a little link love, or a couple hundred Twitter followers? Maybe it’s feeling good about answering a couple dozen questions on LinkedIn Answers. It still hasn’t changed you yet has it?
Are you sure?
If you’ve stuck with it for awhile I bet you’ve found it easier to connect and reach out with people at work. Maybe writing project plans or documentation is a bit better than it was before. How about a few technical skills - if you’ve done any customizations on your blog I know you’ve been working on HTML at the very least.
Ok, these are just a few small things that you may or may not have noticed along the way. What’s the bigger payoff? I dunno - but it’s that unknown something that’s attracted you into the mix. There is potential on multiple fronts, from connecting with people, learning about things, growing as a person, even simply having a hobby. Social media doesn’t mean any one thing, and doesn’t have to be business related.
Since there is no one definition of social media to any one group or person, it never stops growing; morphing into something new with every additional person and service. Heck “social media” is not even a good name for it, it really just kind of stuck because we use new “social” tools that use different types of “media”.
It’s an exciting ride. One I encourage you to explore, even if you think it’s a bunch of hooey. There are many smart people out there that would love to share ideas with anyone who would listen. And that is what it really comes down to. Social media is people and ideas, the tools are incidental and change with the whimsy of the crowd.
Where are you going from here? What’s your next move?
Photo credit: *davierae*
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Comments
Comment by Rick Mahn Hi Paul,
I suppose some people may indeed have a clear idea of what they’re doing next, and I want to congradulate them on that! Like you I look at all the updates and traffic from the various sites and wonder what’s wrong with that picture. There is so much to do to keep up with it all that it’s beginning to be detrimental to the end-game.
Anyway, I hope it’s not too painful to think through! My best to you.
Regards,
Rick
Comment by Joanna Young This is a great piece of reflection Rick. At times the ‘noise’ can be overwhelming, but the benefits are huge if we focus on what matters to us, on the learning we need to do or ways we want to grow and develop. I know I feel a heck of a lot more creative and confident from my interactions on blogs & twitter than I ever did before. Some of it is writing every day, but it’s mainly the interactions with such fascinating and generous people all over the world.
Joanna
Comment by Rick Mahn Joanna,
Thanks for the kind words - your take on being more creative and confident because of blogs/twitter rings true here as well. Personally, I still need to work on writing more often, and that’s my biggest focus at the moment. The interaction with so many new Twitter folks has helped me start to find my way again, and I hope I don’t lose that direction as I have in the past. Generous is a great description of the people we meet in this super-connected world. They’ve taught me so much, and I love learning.
Rick
Comment by wren For me, each of those things has a different goal and even within the confines of each one, people can fine tune their own desired use.
Personally, the quality, not the quantity of friends/followers is what matters. I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m looking for authentic dialogue, sharing mutual interests, and a dash of networking and humor. For those who’s livelihood depends on networking, I imagine it is tuned differently, though quality should still be relevent, otherwise it’s just a bunch of noise to sift through.
I made some great friendships during my first online social experience - a local bbs back around ‘91 - friendships which have endured to this day.
I like Facebook because it is what Classmates and MySpace should/could have been. I friend only actual friends - people I know IRL or those I’ve built up an online friendship with over time.
I like LinkedIn because 99% of my contacts are people I’ve actually worked with. I’ve got a track record with them and they with me. It’s worth noting that on my team at work, 5 out of 7 of us worked with each other at other companies. IMO, it’s the best networking tool out there.
I like blogging and Flickr because this is where I find those with shared interests. I also establish local connections. Twitter helps with that somewhat too. Twitter can be whatever you want it to be. I’ve gotten advice on products, info on local things going on, and heck, it’s where I heard about you. I get my dose of humor there too, from @mikedoe.
My mother, one who often fears her pc it seems, is starting to get into social media by way of various groups. She’s a quilter. There’s a whole quilting subculture and she’s met people IRL and gotten advice and the cool thing is there are people her age getting into this too.
My next move? Winning the lottery so I can be social all the time. 
Comment by Rick Mahn Hi wren! No problem, and create points. I too have been finding that my local connections are more relevant day to day than my “remote” connections. Hope that lottery plans work out!
Hi Rick
That’s a really important question your asking and I suppose for some people the answers can be quit succint and for others it’s a matter of justification in concrete and practical ways. As I write this my inbox is full of updates from the various Social Media Sites that I’ve choosen or perhaps “find myself” involved with in one way or the other. Anyway, once again I find your article insightful and requiring some (mayhaps painfull) thinking. Excellent Post. Thanks (I think)
All The best
Paul