As we delve ever deeper into the world of social media, it's all too easy to get seduced by the lure of the 'in crowd'. You know. The elite, the ones who got here first, the ones whose names are (rightly) synonymous with the words 'social', 'media' and 'community'. And don't get me wrong, I'm an avid follower and disciple myself. I'm here to learn, and why not learn from the best? After all, the greatest strengths of social media are the notions of shared knowledge, the collective good, the earned trust belonging to those who've been in the trenches for a while, the power of the community to shape experience in a positive manner.
But somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that the more you follow, listen and learn, the more you risk being unable to form your own opinions, lest they fall foul of popular social media opinion, or expose you as a fool/newbie/dissident. You find yourself eagerly lapping up the latest top tips or insightful commentary (all very useful and well, insightful, of course), without taking a moment to stop, breathe and think before you RT@.
How valuable is it really to share without shedding your own particular piece of light on a topic? What about taking the time to formulate your own opinion, create your own piece of content and share that instead? Or if you can't do that, why not comment directly on the author's blog post, share your own opinion and then re-tweet, with your added goodness thrown into the mix? What happened to everyone's own honest opinions on stuff?
Am I totally off base to suggest that the rise in social media channels has also given rise to a new penchant for 'repeat after me' learning basics? It was never meant to be this way, and I'm sure it's not the intent of the original authors. But the herd mentality is slowly infiltrating the system, when ironically, social media was supposed to herald the dawn of true self-expression, down to the micro 140 character level. Are we all too intimidated by the gang that's already here? Or is it just all such good stuff, that we hold our our bowls and say: "more of that please"?
Sure, we all need to feel part of a community. And yeah, duh, that's why we're all here. And it's a powerful, beautiful thing. Just make sure your own voice is heard.
Great, insightful post Louise. Really gives us something to think about.
Posted by: Laura Jones | July 14, 2009 at 07:36 PM