Is Social Media Really Social?

I manage 4 Twitter accounts, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, … and some days have a reach of more than 2 million. Does it make any difference? Am I engaged in important discussions with a few, many, lots? Are there people who have influenced my thinking or who I have touched? Are seeds planted or is there too much fertilizer? If I wasn’t using Hootsuite I couldn’t possible stay connected to any of my tweethearts because the stream of updates is rolling past at a rate of one every 3 seconds. Using search criteria reduces the number of updates per minute but eliminates anything that isn’t tagged with my categories. does this mean I am ignoring you? Are you ignoring me?

Maybe I’m not supposed to stay connected to thousands (thank God) but to find a few new contacts every few weeks from the array of tweets and updates. Let serendipity reign and trust that I will ‘meet’ who I am supposed to meet. I have met hundreds of new people over the past few years. Some I have gone on to meet in person. Some I have worked with as a result of meeting. Some I consider colleagues, some acquaintances, some friends. I consider my social media friends every bit as valid as those I only know in the f2f world even if I have never(may never) met f2f. Those relationships have all the aspects that I expect; caring, challenging, celebrating, curiousity and a bunch more words starting with c.

Social media is really social if you handle the relationships the way you expect f2f relationships need to be nurtured.

Make Today Remarkable, by celbrating with a social media friend,