My older brother got an undercut way before it was acceptably cool and even wore a bandana around the leg of his jeans Guns'n'roses style. It was all way too "right now" for me. I'm not an early adapter. In fact only in the last few months did I buy my first pair of slightly too tight pants. When it comes to social media though, once aware of it's existence, I've been part of it wherever possible, including joining #Motorama, #Bimmerchat before it was #Germancarchat, and, #GMCHAT on twitter whilst in the middle of the Papua New Guinea jungle (though I'm not as frequent as I once was).
One of my first Instagram pics is of my third child less than an hour after his birth, and, baby pictures of all my rugrats, much like plenty of others, are plastered all over Facebook and possibly Photobucket and MySpace but I've haven't looked for so long.
More recently, I've been using twitter to retweet a new video channel (PLUG!) which has it's own FB page (PLUG!), Twitter account (PLUG!) and G+ page (don't worry about that one. I don't know how/have time to use it. :D). My videos are slowly getting better but as with blogging, you've just got to stick with it and still share them in all their glory no matter the level. I also use the twitter account socially to talk about industry.
My olde Beltedradial account is my default account and can range from social politicking antagonist, to weird music RTer and general smart assery. I also have other accounts too which I use for different purposes and that is for a very specific reason: I don't get drunk at work (even though when I'm in my home office I probably could) and I don't dance at funerals.
Equally, some of my friends just don't give a shit about cars or the industry, so I did the same partitioning of my instagram accounts, one holding just food, things that scare Alex and what my 2 year old does to my furniture (PLUG), and the other, cars of all shapes and assortments (PLUG). Both benefit from pictures of my awesome wagon though (LUCKY!)
In other words, It's still somewhat necessary to behave in accordance with your surroundings. That doesn't mean you can't be naughty, but be thoughtful about whom exactly WANTS to see your nipple.
Most importantly though, is that all of these avenues, all these different accounts provide ME with entertainment, education, instruction, inspiration, horror, frustration and encouragement. All these things, though experienced at arms length (if your arm was as long as a sinewave), make up part of my view and participation in society.
So what of these types of SM users I promised? Social Media has this amazing power to connect people not just of like minds, but also those with diverse opinions and provide them with a conduit to share all but the touch, taste and smell.
The first type doesn't know what the hell is going on
The second uses twitter like a tickertape news feed
The third is a sharer
The fourth is a good SM managed commercial account which interacts with followers
These are all self explanatory
The last are badly managed commercial accounts that are purely there for exposure, in some cases just an account that does little more than serve as a landing spot for the Google search "South Nambour Widget Maker on twitter". In slightly worse cases, there are corporate accounts which use a form of forced social interaction that is an affront to the evolution of communication: "Like our page and tell us why you love unicorns"
The worst case is an account where almost every tweet is little more than a post about their last blog entry/whitepaper. Zero interaction.
I do LOVE Social Media and HATE when people try to quantify what is on it (such as by using stupid lists) and telling people how to use it. However, if you're going to use social media, at least be sociable.
This all came from a DM I received the other day thanking me for the follow. Here's the bot generated baloney and my response:
Thanks for following. When your favorite brands communicate to you, how often is the message highly relevant?
Thx for following. Was that a real question or just bot generated rhetoric? <-That's a real question. ;-)
So any hoo it's been a few days with nary a response even after I sent ANOTHER follow up message. The key takeaway here is, if you aren't participating, you're not being sociable. You're just yelling from your office window. That's not social media and I emplore you, dear reader, to unfollow this unsociable scourge.
I mean, would you really talk to this person whom ignores you and instead turns up once a day to yell at you: read my book!
It's the only way they'll listen.
Some dude called mikmakgmi and his nipple
