Social media is the pen pal of communications

I profess to have this inside scoop on social media.  Yet how can I be?  Especially, since I work full time and was launched among the sweat and tears of looking for work, five years ago.  (Yawn, you've heard it before:  it all started on Linked In where I met Sandy who guided me into Twitter, graciously introduced me to people on the clicking edge of social media.  The rest of us were soon to be groupies, drooling at the incredible talent this world we live in together is so talented!!  

Aren't we all so lucky that we don't have to rely on our TVs, newspapers, magazines, radio any more.  Well, certainly, we are an information consumption oriented folk who may eventually be considered the early adopters.  Long long after the visionaries sat around a library table, having a few beers together, deciding to join forces to prove a point to the rest of the world.  Passing notes is not disruptive, bad behavior is rarely found among day dreamers,

Yet, what is this world it has become?  You can't get into trouble for passing notes (unless you are Donald Trump, or a raging has been star), because there is this BIG THING called social media.  Where you can speak your mind, share what you know, share what you love, share what you consume, want to consume, whether anyone is listening really.  Well, at the start anyhow.

That is at its core:  it thumbs its nose at conventional discipline for doing what others perhaps expect you to do or be.  Good things happen to great people is its mantra.  Why there are people that become overnight sensational storytellers, photographers, authors, writers, historians, foodies, models, lonely hearts clubbers retired from the frump frumping of the you should be out doing something beat.  

Embarrassingly, there others that take to airing dirty laundry, opinionated beyond reason because they aren't being held to question .... often.  There are some that may have some fame, notoriety who won't settle to being a small number .... they want to have a very BIG ..... numbers represented by followers.

Heavens, a young lad in the middle of nowhere to most people (until the world finances crumble remembered its name) Canada, to get young tweens (pre-teen 9-12 year old) girls hearts to tremble with love and adoration, who could go off and actually achieve fame and fortune, if not always good.

It is a place where so many can share one shadey association by saying or doing some stupid things that can get you minimally laughed at, smirked about, quoted, replayed, rewritten, if not quietened to the hummmm and tsk tsk of a once adoring audience or group.


Social media has created a revolution of expression, artistry, music, events, global proximity that has never been seen before.  Imagine ... in just a few years, our kids will site library visits as a mandatory curriculum field trip, like we used to visit museums in our time.  

The most notable are honorees immersed and embraced by every form of traditional medias who are feeling overwhelmed driven into survival mode, clambering for funnel of advertising revenues that are being distracted elsewhere.  

 As a study on millinial short attention spanners dropping their parents methods of obtaining news.  Where anything called Daily news, Daily mirror, Daily anything falls into the background of THE NOISE.  The noise is created by individual people of all ages, all cultures, all races, all types of family dynamics, domestic arrangements, from the learning to the learned are the ones who matter now.  They can decide what is important by creating #hashtags that catch on like fire, drowning out some of the noise we need to hear on health, economy, poverty, bullying, violence.  

Are we creating a world that we are creating our own robotic existence?  Do we only pay attention to those that think the way we do.  Where the heck did guru come from?  Do we open our empathy or does it increase our apathy.  The scientists, not typically known for gregarious characteristics, may be drowned out by dishonesty, falsehood, scams, SPAM, and the loudest of all:  PICK me, SELL me.

Like children with a gift packaged in a gigantic box, we are only playing with the box:  the computer, and rapidly being overtaken by smart phones.  The complicated and cumbersome are being tossed for the aesthetic more pleasing, better working, customized, following partner that goes everything, asking for so little:  just read, like, share, write, communicate, post, blog that it has to give you.  So portable, easy to access, quick, painful, joyful or hopeful these little instruments allow us to read, look, watch, admire, visualize whatever we love.

Like masters, our behavior lends the devices our respect, finances, images, opinions, hearts, needs, and lessening humility.  

The real geniuses of social media are the ones that use it as a tool to communicate, teach, share, inspire, motivate others to want to be better.  Not just hope to be better.  We only get better when we interact with others.  The fact that we have such a great opportunity to gravitate towards those that tend to share our own ideals, visions, outlook, positions on important matters, or less important matters.   

Has an elementary child ever heard of the term of PEN PAL?  

Does anyone really have to wait for a music CD to hit a retail store anymore?  With iTunes, Spotify and the whole she-bang, their kids will never have heard of half of the things we have now?  How about a wallet (there's an APP for that), an album (you download a song, not an album, you silly), or wondering when their favorite author will publish their next novel (oh dear, um, sorry if you don't read from your smartphone or tablet).

How many of us have the anti-social in our lives?  The ones who have discovered a text message (sms) is far quicker than an email, haven't quite caught on to an all persons in persons meeting without having to spring for flights, or hotels, or airport parking to join with their colleagues for an immediate and important conversation virtually personal appearances by all with 100% attendance.  The ones on a teleconference call are the cousins to the emailers.  

In all of this midst, it is confounding the advertising gurus and disgruntling the brands who want to be captured, not optionally, viewed or read.

Well, one thing is certain and obvious to me.  We're all adapting together and trying to draw in the outsiders and refusers to get on board.  A key board that is.

The #bestofeverything launch: September 20, 2015

Doing this was quite awkward.  Writing, being, expressiveness has been cloaked by the persona.  Creating a perception of someone between a fairy godmother and a twenty-something.  Full of charge-de-vive and anything is possible exhuberance.  At this quiet ponsive self-reflection.  Behind the mask of the sparkled green eyes, contently knowing that she is her own person.  

Gently casting aside any of the doubt, uncertainties she swallowed whole.  There grazed tiny bursts of wrinkles were like minute soft brushes of an artist's touch.  A rarity to see any pretty face to have light shadows in the precise right place at her cheek bone, eye brow, ski slope nose, with ski jump cut off to glide down to the lips.  The lips were neither unnaturally full or meanness thin.  

Businesses want unique and vibrant new approaches to win in the competitive environment.  It was not what anyone would have imagined.  Someone who could have been voted in as "least likely" could write without limitations.  Calm over reception, and patient on a growing following, she started to write for her heart.  Knowing that to glide gracefully into middle age, with a kinship of followers.  Those so many brilliant contributors to our world:  you deserve the #bestofeverything .  I have sprinkled #bestofeverything around the web and social media world.  

Without any doctorate, she was insightful and could burst forward and upward such incredible tales, art, photography bounced over into social media integrity.
Support good causes.  Promote the good things that the citizen's of the world who are kind, creative,, inspiring, knowledgeable and tuned in.  Landing firmly on instinctively what they craved.  To create a means to which the online or social media could decide for themselves what is popular, good, motivational, spiritual, inspirational so that readership grew.  

People everywhere turned their Twitter, their favorite bloggers, InstaGram to take the temperature of the world.  Breaths of fear on all opposing factions were felt in unison.  

UTOPIA.  Whether by history of occurrence, they forgot what it felt like to be able to ignore the mere harmless to hideous events.  

IRONIC.  As they paid less and less attention to the likes of violence, blood bursting cuts, civil unrest, boastfulness.  The immunity great to no longer watching anything violent.  It was no longer in their instincts.  Ideals to be violent or hate widdled away and became less and less.  If the world's brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, security settled softly on what could ever have been anything but an optimistic world, where hate was suffocated out by soulfull humanity,  caring for health or those less healthy.

 

Education was a social gathering, embraced by the majority.  Families had fun, hugged neighbours, and heros were scattered around.  They embraced, financed, secured, flew up the pinnacle of learning and expanding knowledge.  In its dust lay particles of what was considered high IQs a decade past.

Science was the most distinguished occupation to aspire to which was sometimes, very few, could accomplish both science and computing.  Curiosity was boosted in the children's schools, Gliding in harmony with sports as the best adrenaline rush.  

Ignorance of the past worlds, or so shortly ago, was the way to go.  To get better, stay positive, set goals you find reaching within your sight.  The goals of tarnished pasts, were left aside, like sanitation fields in our lives. 

The governments did not create controversies and were respected and revered when honored with high office based on their unified vote.  The positive examples sliced carefully throughout their lives jolting us to chase corruption, dishonesty, self-serving power, violence or war.  Which found to be settling as such a fine dust, the family's dog brushes the minuet slivers out into the air, with a push of the wind, onto the lapping waters, the sunset orangely casting a glow to scent the fish to jump out of the waters, disarmed by the cleansing that catch and the water did.

The best leaders were innovators, genuine geniuses, information,  puritists,  void of gossip, sensationalism, horror, or violence.  Honor among thieves were only known by the tales of braveness, courage, patience, and love overcame the lost souls.

The network and telephony towers were dismantled only leaving one clear link:  the internet, world wide web.  The steel from the structures of the television stations, radio celebrity mics, and leftover wire donated to the creators of sculptures and statues that were never defaced, driven into, jumped on or marked in the slightest.  

As unlike any global change, some rebelled to the sudden outlook shift.  They had once been loved, idolized and up on top at almost anything they could do on the backs of the disadvantaged, single parents, poor, uneducated, sick outcasts.  They, unwisely, thought that shananigans and soap operas would win their dwaining audience followers back to play.  Not once not ever.  They faded and dwindled to a backdrop as brick, stones, wood -- surfaces that are never once the same, the same color throughout, a roughness to the touch so that one would remove their hand.  

The glory began to be celebrated not by any specific date by occurrence ... the freedom to create anything magical was the straw that catapulted meodicracy to the sublime.  They soon became known to be the gifted.

Writers, bloggers, journalists on the world wide web, internet, softphone, communication wire were tuned into and drifting unconsciously towards Utopia where the #bestofeverything would reside.  The want of choice floated away as the wanted to keep the feeling of happiness, peace and never a cause for forgiveness.  New children, born into the world did experience punishment, discipline, authority because they were surrounded by encouragement, love, gentle pushes to the always possible fulfillment of their dreams.  

An interesting world indeed.  A prima ballerina would surprisingly chose to be harvesters of orchards of fruit, seeds into nuts, with livestock that were free of any hormones or growth expeditors.  

Like most of humanity by then, cows and horses, herds of sheep, goats or flocks of eagles, chickens or budgies were peaceful.  They lived in harmony, sharing their eggs, milk without having to once donate any meat.   The fields of abundantly overflowing vegetables were there to nibble on, never encountering fences, no need for toxic pesticides that left with the rest of rejectful and harmful former occupants.  The balance of survival had been tipped so far on the scale beaming with life. 

One of the first known rebelious cult found were carnivores.  Rejecting any sense of smell, they purposely overfed themselves with the many animals, birds, organic beings to find, experiment or test with dishes where a trickle of blood on a brilliantly white plate, is the highest honor and defining chef celebrity.  They were called the Gorgers.

There was this most incredibly beautiful place on earth.  Selled by an organic group, surrounded by fortresses and family homes, with afield of flowers skipping across the meadows as the backdrop .......... 


________________________ you, the reader, can contribute the next sentence or paragraph in your comment.  Forming the authority on what truly is what we, the people, not the media, corrupt, lying, cheaters would want us to believe what they say, instead it is our testimony of what we believe is #thebestofeverything

Would you like to read more? Tweet, post, share, pin, search for #bestofeverything_story to be continued soon .... depending on you:  I need 1000 subscribers to get that going again.  
  

Mute instead of block on #Twitter

Feedback from family members was how annoying my #RT (retweets) and mentions on Twitter because they clog up their Twitter feed. They subscribe to Twitter instead of partake in it.  They want to see what is trending or what is going on.  You can get a quick traffic report or weather forecast quicker than anywhere if you tailor your follows based on the information you want to get quickly.   Granted, if you don't have a lot whom you follow, the more active ones can appear to take over your stream.  How inconvenient to have to scroll through the clutter of one or two when you are trying to find out how your drive to work will be or if you should confirm an outdoor pursuit if the weather is uncooperative. 

I understand how irritating this can be from the outside looking in. Many see is it as a continuous stream of tweets that make no sense, have no useful information or appears as a group of names.  That is, unless you are in the tribe, have a crew, or building an online brand for career reasons.  

To be a positive Social Media or Twitter citizen, you may want to consider and abide by the rules:  if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. More to that:  it is a reciprocal culture and a must to acknowledge and either respond directly, #RT or *star favorites is an alternative to not appearing in your stream.

Note:  there are some influential Twittizens that include you on their radar and in essence are promoting you to their followers or a specific group of followers.  To ignore is to fall out of that loop.  That explains why you see so many #RTs.

Personally, it comes down to manners.  Silly as that sounds.  In my view, if someone takes the time to include @optioneerJM in their Tweets, I should  thank or #RT as a form of being polite.   You will be dropped eventually if you don't acknowledge back.  Recently, I started another experiment and that was to reply with the lovely photo that I chose to be my page background because it was seasonally inspired and communicated love.

On the upside, if you are interested in analytics or follow leaders in  algorithm like Klout or KRED, you factor in not so much the quantity of followers you have but their quality.  I know, I've promised my take on these measurement tools a while ago, and will get to that eventually.


Be kind.  Be polite.  

Try mute instead of blocking. You can mute a specific user who you find has taken over your feed on Twitter.  They are not trying to be rude or obnoxious.  They may simply have a lot of followers and interactions.

Some go so far as to block, which irritates me from its ignorance and sometimes pettiness.  

Some take it to the extreme by using the block feature.  Often it is driven by ignorance or pettiness.  

You can temporarily mute someone if you find they are overwhelming your feed.  Here are instructions straight from Twitter:

Muting users on Twitter

Mute is a feature that allows you to remove an account's Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account. Muted accounts will not know that you’ve muted them and you can unmute them at any time. To access a list of accounts you have muted, visit your muted accounts settings.

Some important things to know about mute:

• Muted accounts can follow you and you can follow muted accounts. Muting an account will not cause you to unfollow them.
• Muting an account does not impact the account’s ability to send you a Direct Message.
• You will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from any muted account.

For muted accounts that you follow:

• @ replies and mentions by the muted account will still appear in your Notifications tab.
• Tweets from a muted account before the time the account was muted will still be displayed in your Home timeline.

For muted accounts that you do not follow:

• @ replies and mentions will not appear in your Notifications tab.

To mute a Twitter user on the web:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. From a Tweet, click More at the bottom of the Tweet.
2. Click Mute.

Muting from a profile:

1. Go to the profile page of the person you wish to mute.
2. Click the gear icon  on their profile page. This brings up a drop-down actions menu.
3. Select Mute from the options listed.

Once you’ve muted a user on the web, you will see a confirmation banner. If you made a mistake, you can click Undo to unmute a user right away.

Slick and easy peasy 
 
Like most platforms, Twitter has support and resources available to help your user experience.  As a matter of fact, I found these instructions directly from resources by Twitter.  

You can also retract sharing your Tweets with Facebook, because you can accidentally be repetitive in any feeds by how you are linking them.



Like any good friend who tells you have a piece of parsley is stuck in your teeth, the intention is to help avoid even mild embarrassment.  A friend did message me privately, asking me if something was wrong with my feed because she was seeing posts duplicated 3 or even 4 times.  It forced me to realize that I had to do some homework on many are being bottle necked into Facebook. Truthfully, it is important to me not to irritate my "friends" on Facebook because there is more of a personal touch.  I embrace the more interaction, comments from those I select as having positive influence.

I am now leaning towards being more ruthless under that select group.  Everyone agrees with me that they see some people who post only their own stuff and only comment or reply if it is within that post.  It's like they're unaware or borderline selfish that they never comment or like anything anyone else posts.  It seems a little too "me me and more about me" even if they think they are being helpful.  

If you see a photo that you like, a quote that resonates, or just someone sharing a memory or experience:  acknowledge by at least liking it (signifies you're paying attention).  Those that take the time to comment, create mini conversations.  

There are some fabulous people out there that I'd like to read more from or get to know better.  I hardly can do that without actively searching out specifically.  You got it, the same problem happens on Facebook.  They think if you have liked something from a particular person, you want to see more of their posts.  Similarly, if they tag more people who all comment and like, they will continuously be in your feed.  That's the nature of the beast.

Ego is prevalent on Social Media


If all you do is post and interact with only those within those posts, I suggest you create a page so that your fans can chose to subscribe to your page, and you put all that stuff on that page to relieve the rest of your followers from having their streams bottlenecked with your fan club.  What I'm suggesting people, is take personal inventory. Try to perceive how you look.  You could be shocked when at least 50% don't follow your page or may only be responding because they are being polite or reciprocal. 

Heeding my own advice, I have experimented with content creation services.  To help me stay in front of those interested while I'm at work or living life, I have preselected the best of 500pics and "Mashable" on Twitter.  Funny, I chose to post images from InstaGRAM any photo shares with #Calgary or #yyc on Facebook.  Puzzling I'm sure to some, like my kids, who wonder why I'd posted something that is unrelated to me or I don't know them.  I don't actually want to give up on it entirely, because it does show a finger on the pulse on all matters related to Calgary.  

I tend to experiment first before I go all in.  I posted over the weekend that I was going to start to trim my Facebook friends -- if there is little interaction or only self-serving for them, I was going to start weeding.  Like gardening, you have to get rid of the weeds before the flowers can bloom.  I want to see all the golden nuggets that I may be missing.  Interesting, one amazing social media influencer acknowledged one of my pics and we had a mini conversation which amounts to interaction.  He had either read what I'd posted or is like-minded:  interacts with those that tend to be more genuine.  


The tools are there, use them.  Twitter offers more help with the Mute functionality on smartphones and how to backtrack if you decide to change your mind:

To mute a Twitter user on iOS:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. Tap a Tweet from the user you’d like to mute.
2. Tap the ••• icon.
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

Muting from a profile:

1. Visit the profile page of the user you wish to mute.
2. Tap the gear icon. 
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

To mute a Twitter user on Android:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. Tap the overflow icon. 
2. Tap Mute @username and confirm.

Muting from a profile:

1. Visit the profile page of the user you wish to mute.
2. Tap the overflow icon. 
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

How do I know if someone is muted? 

When you visit the profile of a user you have muted, you will see the red mute icon. 

To access a list of accounts you have muted:

1. Navigate to your muted account settings on Twitter.com. You will see a list of every account you are currently muting.
2. From the top of the list, you can select to view Accounts you follow that you have muted, or All accounts that you have muted.
3. You can unmute users by clicking the red mute icon to unmute. 

Note: Accounts you follow will list the users you are both currently following and muting. The All tab will display all the accounts you’re muting, including the ones you are following.

To unmute a Twitter user:

1. Visit the muted user’s profile on Twitter.
2. Click the red mute icon  to unmute.

Unfollowing, blocking and reporting accounts as spam:

In addition to muting users, you can also unfollow users, block users, or report accounts as spam. Please read those help pages for more information.

There you have it.  Now you don't have to permanently delete someone important (like your mother who dabbles in social media).  You can mute and unmute based on your current mood.  I could see myself doing so once I've #RT someone respectfully and momentarily want to better sift through the tweets.  With almost 12,000 followers, I still want to interact personally as much as possible.  Or, I'd like to prove value with my personal thoughts, ideas, or share images or articles I find interesting.  I would rather they not be muddled in with a bunch of my good manners or social media code of ethics:  to acknowledge and thank those who take time to make me a part of the experience.  Heavens, I'd be horrified to be considered SPAMmy.  I'll leave SPAM as another topic of importance to discuss later on.  

My dream is aligned with my goals: to be a digital specialist for a specific company I have in mind and I'm building my reputation just for that.  Ironically, I was doing my research on their reach and looked them up on Klout.  That was when I discovered that I hadn't connected Facebook to Klout and that certainly impacted measurement scores.  How goofy is that?  Not surprisingly, my score went up a few notches immediately.  Yes, I'll write about that too:  How building your brand online can help your career.

Practice the golden rule.

Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. 


Manage your expectations.
  
If you expect to be treated with respect, ensure you are being respectful towards others.