There are a LOT of blogs out there telling you what you need to be doing on social media to “build your presence” or “build your fan-base”, There are even way too many out there telling you what you you’re doing wrong, and how you should better interact with people to not offend them or whatever…
And sure, there is probably some merit to that, but for the most part that just makes social media boring.
I’m no social media expert, and I don’t claim to be (hint, none of the people out there claiming that title are either), but social media is fun for me. This is because I don’t really care who is following me or what the people who are following me think. I’m that way in real life too, and to be honest, it makes life in general enjoyable too.
- Caring About How Important Your Friends Are - I get it; everyone wants people in power or celebrity to like them. Okay, maybe not EVERYONE, but enough of you that countless blogs are written about it. People spend actual time commenting and trying to interact with these people to try to get them to recognize their presence. The truth is, most of those people are boring as Hell and won’t do you any good anyway. This is especially true on twitter. Care less about following people who are “influencers” and simply follow people who are interesting. I follow something like 400 people (I don’t really keep count) and I definitely don’t care how many people are following me. Remember what they told you about friends? It’s not how cool your friends are or how many you have; what’s important is if they are good. <–That shit is totally true.
- Caring About Offending People - Want to know what is boring as shit? People who worry about what other people think about them. You know you have those friends in life; those people that are constantly watching what they say and worrying about whether they offended someone. Do you know what those people are doing? Not. Having. Fun. If you are worried about what people think, you are going to spend all of your time worrying and no time actually contributing to anything – in life or online. This is part of the reason I like to follow people like Kris Roadruck, NetMeg, and Julie Joyce. They say what they want and it’s entertaining and insightful most of the time. Heh, and actually, all of those people are in the online marketing field, but they don’t always talk about marketing and even when they do they don’t seem to care if they say the things that people want them to say.
- You’re Simply Rehashing Other People’s Crap - One of the great things about social media is the ability to instantly share things with others that you find interesting, funny, or whatever. Unfortunately, way too many people take this to the extreme. It’s cool, man. Share things you like, but for the love of GOD find your own voice as well. Don’t simply share something useful, SAY something useful. You have it in there, you’re just thinking too hard about point number 2.
- You’re a Follower Backer - Good God, you people annoy the shit out of me! You know who you are, Hashtag TeamFollowBack. Screw you. And you’re not just on twitter, you are the asshole on Facebook trying to friend every person that shows up in the “People You May Know”. I used to have a strict “Only if I know you in real life” rue on Facebook, but I now realize the Internets have made that a pretty dated philosophy. However, if I have not interacted with you in some fashion, don’t expect me to follow you back. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t follow someone who is interesting; just don’t expect them to follow you back. Oh, and if you follow someone, they return the follow, and then you un-follow them, that makes you a douchebag.
- You ALWAYS Have a Response - Yes, social media is about interacting with other people, but much like life, it is always important to know when to shut the Hell up. do you know what makes a great website or content? It’s not just the images and words. It’s also the white space; that beautiful area between the other stuff that helps the other stuff stand out. Social media – and life – are very much the same. Social media is a very cluttered place; know when to be the words, but also know when to be the white space.
And that’s it (well, maybe not IT, but I am done with it right now. I’m just going to go ahead and be the white space for a bit.