Saturday, July 30, 2011

Don't Forget the Social part of Social Media

By Will Deyamport,III, MSEd




















There are a lot of social media gurus, evangelists, experts, strategists, and savants on social media. Some really engage and interact with folks. Others just post and post and post and post without a single interaction with anyone else.

Their mission is to sell you something. But social media ain't a space for selling your trinkets or listening to customer complaints. It's about engagement, empowerment, networking, and collaboration. I, for one, find it annoying that anyone would get on Twitter and/or Facebook and just try to sell me their crap.

Those spaces are for posting good content - for sharing ideas, interests, and passions, for building relationships, and for discovering ways in which those ideas, interests, passions, and relationships can develop into future projects. Maybe I am just a simple educator. But I don't see the point in just sending out autotweets or bombarding your feed with spam - hoping and praying you'll drum up some business in the process.

The main idea and the greatness of social media is that it is social. Conversations and events happen in real-time. I can keep up with conferences or follow the president's address or hear about what's unfolding at the site of a natural disaster. Additionally, I can meet and develop relationships with people I would have never met without the opportunities afforded to me via social media. I can also interact with colleagues or experts across a multitude of fields. And if it fancies me, I say hello to @onlysarahshahi .

Whatever your reasons for being involved in social media, don't forget to be social. It's a dialogue - not a monologue!

Will Deyamport, III, MSEd is the founder of this blog. With over 11 years of experience in the field of education, he held the positions of Chief Social Strategist for StrengthsFactors and Campus Outreach Coordinator (intern) at CAREEREALISMcampus.com. Will has a B.A. in Film Production, a B.S. in Child and Family Studies, and an MSEd in Professional Studies in Education. Will is currently working on an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Management from Capella University. Will’s future plans include leading a center or institute at a university and teaching as an adjunct at an HBCU.

4 comments:

  1. I totally agreed with you some people think that they can sell product using social media sites. I use social media to listening to my audience want and to try to build relationships with them.

    social media management

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  2. Kuan,

    Thanks for your comment. Building relationships should be the number 1 objective of folks on social media.

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  3. Amen, Will, esp the big about dialogue vs monologue!

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  4. Ed,

    I appreciate the comment. I have unfollowed my fair share of social media folks who spend most their time of Twitter in a conversation with themselves.

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