Social Media should not be about you.
It should not be about you getting a high Klout score.
It should not be about you getting perks.
Social Media should not be about you gaining ground as you tear others down.
It should not be about you calling out everyone (and their mothers and their fathers.).
It  should not be about you scraping money off of people who believe you can help them.
Social Media should not be about you building your case as to why you are the greatest human ever.
It should not be about you making a list.
It should not be about you bad-mouthing a list you didn’t make.
Social Media should not be about you and your ego.
It should not be about you finding a platform where  you can feed unadulterated BS to other people who may buy it.
It should not be about lying to see if you can get away with it.
Social Media should not be about you recreating definitions to better suit your purposes.
It should not be about you offering silver bullets.
It should not be about you maliciously spreading rumors that ruin peoples’ lives.
Social Media should not be about you. It should be about the people you help, the companies you grow, and what you are able to accomplish with this new and powerful tool.
Image Credit:Â http://www.flickr.com/photos/foenix/1327718719/ via Creative Commons
You have said it perfectly! It’s about helping, teaching, guiding. Marcus Sheridan did a whole post about teaching instead of “selling”, and that’s really the size of it. All else is pontification.
@MillerFinch thanks Miller. That Marcus is a smart guy. I love it when I am on his wavelength. And yours 🙂
Would love to know what sparked this one which hits the mark as usual Margie. Only thing I would add is “Social Media is not about territorial pissing.” Apologies for the term but I believe it is what they actually call it. Cheers!
@BrandFlair Nothing “sparked” it. Just general musings. Yes, territories are big in the online world. I view it kind of the way the Wild West was settled. I own this part of the sky and this part of the land. Now come at me. It’s very silly.
That is why I am building http://www.authenticsociety.com
If I can’t piss on my own territory, I don’t want to live on that territory @BrandFlair As we’re finding out now, the “kumbaya crowd” as the social media do gooders are sometimes referred to are starting to get outnumbered by the “what can I get out of this” crowd.
@NicWirtz @BrandFlair There is one flaw in modern social networking today. With all the social resources (members), the websites are doing absolutely nothing with them, other than interaction with friends. There has never been a time like we have today, and people are not being connected on largest social networks, it’s just some sort of a contest in posting messages. We need to re-think this paradigm, for the lack of a better word, if we want to put these resources to a good use.
@GregSidelnikov@BrandFlair Funnily enough I’m following a similar thread in a journalism group on LinkedIn.
It might appear as though nothing is being done with the huge opportunities presented to us through social media but it is having a huge effect on complimentary industries.There’s four times as many PR pros as journalists now. The US has lost 60,000 journalism jobs in the past 5-6 years. The ability to self-publish has made some industries obsolete and caused massive changes in others. Social media might be unaware of its impact and the constant self-justification articles are beginning to grate but I agree, actually finding a use for the platforms, networks and ability to self-publish is critical.
@NicWirtz @BrandFlair I love LinkedIn, and I agree with their values, but man… when will they hire someone who can do user interfaces? I don’t mean to go on a rant but It always amazes me how a large corporation with all the money they can spend often fails to make a simple thing happen. For example Facebook still doesn’t allow us to chat with more than one person at a time, it can’t keep more than one tab open. I think these companies should put more focus on the quality of their products. Their product is social networking, and chat is an essential element of communication. You simply cannot afford for something like chat to be broken.
@NicWirtz @GregSidelnikov@BrandFlair I agree. The congratulatory nature of social media can get a bit grating, especially when you see a lot going wrong in said online world. The truth of the matter is that social media is definitely a force, and it could be a force for good, but for now it seems to be hedging more to be a force all about the individual. It will be very sad if it keeps evolving on that road.
@margieclayman @NicWirtz @BrandFlair I think in a way it’s like this: Imagine searching for a website on Google just to find that website, and once you open it… it says to you “Look, I made a great website. Ok, the show is over, folks.”
We can find all the people in the world on social network sites… but we can’t really do anything “about it,” just continue chatting with our friends we have already known. Yet, for things….that we need to find the expertise of others, we go to Google… even though we are all already connected on social networks!
We can, instead, use better social profiles that have a purpose…and connect people with people, not just people with friends and coworkers. I think, as of right now, people social networking is much more superior in the offline world, than it is in the online one. Trivial things people do in the real world, such as introducing each other are not evident in social network sites as features. Why not?
@NicWirtz@BrandFlair Definitely. Then again, maybe it was always like that and we’re just noticing it more. It’s hard to tell 🙂
Great post, Margie.
@danaCreative Thanks sir!
Margie, you already know that I agree with you whole-heartedly. I don’t have anything to sell, but I do possess some knowledge and more than a few years of experience that might do someone else good. I am also a life-long learner and strive to continue to learn new things, look at things from a different perspective and be challenged in some of the thoughts I may hold as truth.
Social media is a great tool. But it’s like everything else in our lives, the tool is what you make of it. If our goal is to just make a buck, or make a list, then we have missed the opportunity to meet some great peoiple and learn some valuable life lessons. That is not to say there is anything wrong with making the money and mining your list, we all need to make a living, but then its just about business opportunities and the next sale, and not about sharing life.
I guess that makes me part of the “kumbaya crowd,” but that really okay 🙂
Martina
martinamcgowan
@Doc_1 I am not convinced that kumbaya and making money have to be mutually exclusive. I think the real unmined greatness of social media could be the ability to merge those two factors. It doesn’t have to be just one or the other. People these days like to think in just black and white with no grey, however, and so we end up with, “Well, I like to engage” versus “I like to actually make money” arguments. It’s unfortunate and unnecessary in my view, but I guess we’ll see what happens 🙂
I LOVE THESE!!
(snicker snicker snicker)
@girlygrizzly nice 🙂
“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.” ~Nietzsche
@Anne Marie that could sum up social media pretty well 🙂
Great post. You have a following of loyal fans because you are trusted, and would never commit any of the above social media gaffes!
@Moxiereviews Thanks for that. I hope you’re right 🙂
It’s a small bugbear but an annoying one nonetheless. I despise people saying, “my followers” or “my community”.You can’t own people, we managed to stamp that out a couple of centuries ago and by very definition, a community cannot be owned.
We’re all part of varying communities but nobody can own one.
@NicWirtz You are making a very good point. Social network sites often use “follow”, “like” or “+1” buttons as if their life depends on it. In small-scale scenarios, when liking friend’s posts (which is where it got its start) it makes sense, but when things go macro, the whole idea becomes absurd. Now everyone is “+1″ing and “like”ing everything, and it no longer makes any sense. Still the micro level interactions with friends benefit from “like” function the most. I think instead of focusing on 10000 “follow” buttons, people should be given really good tools to socialize online… and then let people decide what they will do with those tools…socialize and do what they naturally will.
@GregSidelnikov@NicWirtz Good point, Greg. Doesn’t it seem weird just to tell someone “I like this” now? Where is that thumbs up button?
Crazy, crazy world we live in.
@NicWirtz I only say “my community” as I would say “My peeps” or “My friends” or “my turnips.” I would never claim another person. Unless they were named Sven and gave really good massages! 🙂
Long blog entries should not be about telling people what they shouldn’t do; blogs should be guiding people in a direction toward what they SHOULD do.
Telling people to make a right turn at the light is clearer than telling people not to make a left.
@ProducerMatthew Hm, this doesn’t really add to the conversation, does it? It seems out of context. We are not discussing blogs and…well, this blog is not long. It uses clear language to express the author’s frustration with, perhaps, what can be called hypocrisy, of social networking. It is a serious issue, because when social networks don’t put focus into producing value for its members, then they are probably not going to be around for a long time. Are they wasting our time? Or do we need a social network revolution that will finally make social networks purposeful? What can we learn from examples such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter?
That sounds like anything Margie won’t do! 😀 On a more serious note, it is a tough job getting out of the ‘me-zone’ with almost every social platform requiring you to claim your community, followers, lists, friends and etc. Everything is me-centric just as how Apple is i-centric today.