Heralding from the age of creative recruitment, where leads and sales were championed through the art of face to face meetings, the closing phone calls and the golden age old rolodex of contacts, ok, I’m not that old, to embrace the wonders or there within, the subtleties in-cased in social media has been a very steep learning curve indeed.
In the beginning, we all know it was about friends and as many people you could connect to as virtually as possible, the virus like spread of Facebook and similar platforms of that time fed from our wanton need to connect with someone, anyone, we didn’t care who, it was all about the numbers baby.
However, surely this method could not be applied to our daily business process, or so we thought… well I did anyway, there was no way I was going to open up my 1million friends on Facebook to what I do in my 9-5pm, I would be unemployable!
Along came Linkedin, Facebook upgraded to business class, at first I worried about who I should connect with? What is the etiquette?
To me it was celebrities, porn, gossip and opinion
The fact you could only connect with colleagues whose email address you knew, this coupled with it’s initial feeling of being in a professional circle only invitees could join(it was early doors) gave the platform it’s business acumen and thus we all felt very business like and adhered to the invisible rules that Linkedin set-out, that’s gone right out the window now mind you.
Then came along a Spider, they called it Twitter, I myself jumped on this bandwagon immediately in 2008, I still have my original handle (is that what its called?) However, I had no bloody idea what it was, is and what I could do with it professionally, if anything at all, I left well alone, not for me I thought...
To me it was celebrities, porn, gossip and opinion of anything and anyone that I frankly couldn’t give two sh*ts about.
Oh how I was wrong, well to a certain degree, it is still full of celebrities, porn, gossip and opinion from people I really don’t give a sh*t about, but I found a little gem that shined through all that crapola!
The little star that shines like a beacon when pressed!
It has a multitude of messages and meanings all of which took me an age to work out and gain confidence in using the correct way, if there is such a way.
What am I saying when I hit the little star? Am I giving my appreciation of that post? Am I saving that post to reply to later on? No, what I am doing is giving recognition, I have actually read your tweet, out of the thousands of tweets that pass through my timeline 24 hours a day, I have read yours! It has been registered and acknowledged and I am letting you know exactly that. Doesn’t that make you feel good? Did you get a warm sensation of social media goodness coursing through your digital body?
Show me the money!
After 2 years of actually being a regular Twitter user for work and pleasure, I now post without any fear, express my opinion and share all the industry gossip, OMG, I am now the person that I didn’t give a sh*t about, and you know what, I don’t care!
I want my little star pressed, I wait for the vibration on my phone to let me know that someone has read my tweet, I need it, I feel it and more importantly, I get it!
It’s this tiny little star that shows the people I’m connected with, I’m involved in what they are doing, what they are shouting about and that I want to know more, what simpler way can you think of with the press of a button to win you more business? Show me the money!
What do Favourites make, Followers and what do we all want... to be adored.
Catch me here @NealeCP and see you in the comments.
