SOCIAL MEDITATION
How to Leverage COMMON SENSE to GUIDE YOUR CAREER
As much as you’d really like to reach into your screen and throttle someone, there are some thoughts worth making clear.
I believe most of us think we’re rational human beings. We didn’t get this far on just good looks and charm, right? That’s why it’s difficult for me to see peers, colleagues and even those I admire put something out onto the “public community board” of social media, that to me, is cringe-worthy.
In some cases, it comes back to haunt them (which I’ve seen a lot of recently), in other cases it does not. Because not everyone believes it to be cringe-worthy. But for those it does, it becomes a rabid groundswell to “cancel” someone and essentially cut them off from opportunity, and in some cases, ruin their career. Maybe it’s warranted, maybe it’s not. Humans are far too dynamic in their behavior for such judgement.
I’m not sure social media is the best platform for public discourse. Each application has limitations that in some ways are not easily understood. Some people have beautifully harnessed its power and built, an all too often used word, “brand” around their output. Good for them...as long at they can maintain it.
Sometimes People Drunk-Tweet
We all have moments of weakness where we let emotions fly. Sometimes we get too clever for our own good and we get sucked into an online public volley of words and feelings. Mistakes can be made, and the consequences can have an adverse effect.
To me, I see it as you and your device (computer, smartphone, etc) alone in a room, sending whatever message out into a void. Seems perfectly harmless, from that POV. But the truth is, every piece of information, wit, witticism, and emotion you put out there is your “brand”.
A brand can work one of two ways: It can be what you are known for consistently over time OR...like a cattle brand you can be marked for life.
The Necessary Evil of Individual Marketing
Marketing is just that and yet, social media is the easiest form of doing it these days. Especially for creatives like me who don’t embrace marketing.
It affords us the opportunity to craft something across the different platforms to use their strengths in getting your work out there. BUT...there really is an art to marketing.
Based on my own research I believe you have to honestly engage, create relationships, some lasting, some fleeting, but connecting is very important. Selling mode, has a disingenuous whiff that people tell immediately. That’s why marketing is so expensive in other venues. It’s hard to get around the thing that people want to ignore.
Some people are wizards at marketing; I am not a wizard. Far be it for me to tell you HOW to do this, as you can see by the very few followers I have. There are websites and YouTube channels dedicated to this stuff that may be worth watching.
That being said, here’s the point of why I’m writing this.
At a very basic level, setting GOALS and PARAMETERS around social media can help keep you ON MESSAGE and avoid social pitfalls.
Generally, I practice it this way:
I want to INSPIRE
I want to TEACH
I want to SHARE BEAUTY
I want to PROMOTE
and STAY POSITIVE while doing it
These tenets are essentially the basis of whatever I do publicly. They are my SOCIAL BRAND, if there ever was one. I don’t engage in POLITICS or RELIGION in any public forum (just like my mother told me as a child) and I’m not a fan of “piling on” in some kind of “takedown” of another individual. There are already too much noise and negative behavior as it is.
Ask yourself this: Do you really want to contribute to this kind of social pollution?
At the end of the day, I’d rather be DOING SOMETHING IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD...than REACTING TO SOMETHING IN A BINARY WORLD. But this is how we get the word out about what we do.
These days, you are essentially a trackable, traceable individual whose shared opinions can culminate into an imbalanced picture of who you really are. It’s really not much different than the data collected based on what you click on in your browser, or how long you spend on a website.
But among friends, in private, you get to be a FULL-SPECTRUM HUMAN. You can be read and understood in ways you can never (currently...VR is coming people!) be understood online.
Putting our best foot forward by keeping those, what we may call “emotional truths” to ourselves and others in private, will not only be helpful for you professionally, but personally, may relieve unnecessary stress.
Engaging in a volley of opinion these days in this 2-dimensional world of social media is not our best form of communication. Getting information and response is its greatest strength, but humans are far too complex for this kind of distillation.
Your mileage may vary. If you’re in the business of taking a strong stance, and that is how you build your following and brand, then let it fly. Good luck.
As creatives, looking for a source of income, an opportunity to work, collaborate and be an upstanding citizen, you might want to take note.
But yet, this is only my opinion. 🙂
=s=