Have you ever noticed how much complaining there is on Social Media sites about, well, Social Media?
It gets to feel like you’re hanging out with Homer Simpson’s dad sometimes, doesn’t it? Ohhhhhh I have so many people I need to get back to. I have blogs to read. Facebook is such a time hole. And ohhhhh the Twitter. Makes my back ache with all the typing and the chatting.
Does this strike anyone else as kind of…weird?
A lot of people kind of pick on me because I seem to be in every chat ever in the universe. “Don’t you get tired?” I get asked a lot.
My hands certainly don’t appreciate the one tweet per minute I tend to average during a chat, but you know what? I don’t care. Do you want to know why?
It’s fun.
When I think about the people I respect in this crazy mixed up world of Social Media, one commonality strikes me on the head as if I was in one of those V8 commercials. They all enjoy this stuff. Various reasons, sure. But the joy, the passion, the personal satisfaction they get out of doing this stuff is apparent. Look at the passion that my friend Stan (@pushingsocial) talks about all of the time. Or how about all of the passion and love that Suzanne Vara (@SuzanneVara) puts into her posts. Maybe take a look at Sterling Hope (@ambercleveland & @kaywhitaker) and how clear their passion is in all of their blog posts.
Social Media is a lot of work. That’s true. A lot of us are here because of professional reasons. That’s true. There’s a lot of time and dedication in this particular brand of soup. Very true.
But seriously? If you do not enjoy blogging or tweeting or Facebooking, you are not doing yourself any favors by tweeting about how much you hate tweeting or blogging about what a time investment Social Media is. Nobody wants to read about how busy you are. After all, they’re busy. I’m busy. We’re all busy.
I started noticing a difference in my Social Media reality when I decided to approach it as if it was a virtual extension of the most fun job anyone could ever ask for. And that’s how I still view it today. I enjoy talking to you. I enjoy learning from you. I enjoy helping you out when you’re in a jam. Do I hope that I get to network with some people or companies that I could work with in the “real world?” Of course. But I don’t sign in to Twitter with dollar signs in my eyes. I sign in to Twitter and I say, I wonder if @Dwesterberg is around. I wonder if @ellisvalincomm has posted today. I read blog posts by folks like Chris Brogan and Jay Baer and Trystan Bishop (@KnowledgeBishop) because they teach me and because I have a ball getting a view into their brains.
Are you having fun? You’ve entered the most amazing cocktail party you’ll ever get invited to. You can rock in the fetal position because there are too many people and the music is too loud, or you can get on out here and dance.
You know where I’ll be, right? 🙂
Image by Jereme Peabody. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/peabody111