Guest Post – Are You Too Mean for Social Media?

This month’s blog post is brought to you courtesy of Pippa Davies (aka Mrs Motivator). Pippa is a psychologist and trainer, a multi-talented lady who is not only a published author (including ebooks for Kindle) but who has offered the benefit of her wisdom to all manner of companies including the likes of John Lewis. Pippa runs a successful blog and is always involved in interesting projects. Enjoy!

‘I’ve broken my social media cherry’ says a friend, after his first blog comment. ‘There’s no stopping me now…’

A few weeks ago, Helen Reynolds wrote a great guest post here and said ‘ the mistake you can’t undo about social media is not being here’.

But are some of us just too mean to join in?

Working in two projects currently side-by-side – one traditional media and one new media – has brought home some differences to me:

• trad media is paying me a low fee – not negotiable; the new media project is a joint venture, with us sharing risk and profit
• trad media excludes me from some relevant discussions and input on feedback; the new media project keeps me in constant conversation
• the trad media project is patriarchal, risk averse and places very little value on me as content creator.
• the new media project values content creation and its creative exploitation – but can get carried away with digital possibilities while forgetting marketing, sales and getting the stuff to the right people…

But the most striking aspect of the trad media approach is that very early on in the project I accepted a line of ‘ You are vital to the success of this project. But this is our product. You will be paid for what you do in it and that is that’.

Yes, I was mugged by flattery… so much so I missed the complete absence of any sense of sharing.

The most important reason for joining in with social media and sharing in my book, is that it is fun. To join in for the hell of it and to get conversation is a good enough reason… after all, it is our socializing that civilizes us.

BUT… it also brings us:

• a much clearer idea of  the tribes we associate with and those we do not
• the surprising revelation that your closest rivals or even enemies will engage with what you say, avidly – and can be your best customers…
• great opportunity to experiment in how we conduct ourselves, like deciding…
• do we share laterally as equals? or share downwards using our exceptional critical thinking skills and expertise? or share upwards saying ‘arrrggh please help?’  or ‘my life is incredibly mundane’ repeatedly…
• to play roles of entertainer, news broadcaster or analyst
• a chance to share stuff that makes us look good and shows our humanity ( and boy, do some of us do that pragmatically)

So the word ‘share’ occurs four times in this description. But if our self-image is vested very heavily in an idea of ourselves as ‘expert’ and we feel defensive, perhaps because of age, or status and relevance shifts in our speciality…then this sharing will be difficult. Our vulnerability will make us mean.

There is only one way to tackle this : jump in, do it and learn as you network.

It’s not too dramatic to say that for some, professional survival will depend on it.

So my trad media friends – very soon I’m waving ‘farewell’, while urging you to do this.

Get on down here and come on in, for the comments can be lovely…