Social Media's Role in Our Collective Conversations

Having recently attended a conference where the speakers focused primarily on women's role in politics, the biggest takeaway was the reassuring validation of a message I have been promoting for close to 2 years now - social media is an integral part of how we manage our interpersonal, business and political conversations. 

On the business and political side, when used properly, social media can be a critical enhancement. Used improperly, it can have a long lasting negative effect. From a marketing and, of course, a political standpoint, numbers (or followers) do matter. In the end, it is how the marketer analyzes those numbers and responds to them. More and more people are on the Internet via tablets, smart phones and laptops for their news and information. Less are likely to respond to print or television ads. They are more likely to share and comment on posts streaming on their Facebook, Twitter, and Google + feeds. A two way dialogue needs to be established and nurtured between the marketing or political campaigns and the potential supporter/donor or customer early on - sometimes before there is a declared candidate or an actual product/service in production. 

Our own interpersonal social media interactions are clearly more complex.  Over the years, I have had several people tell me both publicly and privately that social media is nothing but senseless fluff and of no consequence to our personal lives. On the surface, maybe it does come across as just another form of mindless entertainment. However, strip away the layers of Candy Crush posts, Bit Strip cartoon self portraits and, of course, the endless Grumpy cat images; every post we make, like or share is a reflection of who we are. The simple fact that you have clicked on the link to this post is an indication that you participate in social media in some form or another. All too often we come across posts, tweet, and images from online friends that may violate every rule of good taste that we had ingrained in our subconscious.  How we react online to such posts is a reflection of who we are and how we view the relationship we have with these friends.  The same holds true to how our friends react to our own posts.

We need to accept the fact that we are all part of a collective online conversation. The sooner we accept this, we can do away with the notion that social media is a passing fad and has no effect whatsoever on our lives.