Many of my readers know I am fairly active on Twitter and connect with a wide variety of people. If you have ever used it, you know that there is a small bio section to describe whatever to potential followers and there are suggestions in a couple different areas that look at who you’re following and show you more like them.
A few days ago, I had a couple very interesting experiences after looking through some of these suggestions and following many of them.
- I was given an awesome shout-out shortly after by a single parenting site I followed (who made it very clear that I was married, by the way)
- I was slapped with two negative comments tweeted at me almost immediately after the person did the shout out
It made me nervous. I didn’t look at the website prior to following them and after catching immediate flak; I thought I had just landed in the middle of some sort of underground fight club craziness!
I politically responded to the lashings, apologizing to one for ‘intruding’ and explaining to the other that I didn’t pay too close attention to who it was. I came very close to un-following the account—then, I thought about what I was doing.
It kind of ticked me off
You’ve undoubtedly heard the old proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” right? Well, we as a culture (I can only speak about Americans) strayed away from this ‘tribal’ mentality decades ago. We became untrusting of others after Adam Walsh disappeared in broad daylight (and a few other horrific stories.) We locked our kids away, never to be let out of sight again. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about safety and taking precaution, but did you notice that we also lost all of our good outside influencers while trying to stay away from the bad ones?
Never before have people come closer to one another than we are right now. Outlets like Twitter and Facebook have linked everyone together, literally with a Bacon factor! We are once again becoming ‘Tribal’. Examples are everywhere. Look at the social media world eagerly adopting Triberr. Groups like Third Tribe and others have been bringing business leaders together to learn, brainstorm, and excel. A week ago, I saw a newly graduated teen wearing a shirt that read ‘Tribe of 2011’.
I raise these points, not as a fan of social media, but as a parent. All of us parents have the opportunity to share, offer advice, and assist each other—regardless of marital status, location, or age group. We can begin to truly bring all ideas back to the table let our children be raised by the village once more.
Stop judging
I implore you, stop thinking so much about yourselves and your metrics when you engage in SOCIAL media and consider that the people you don’t follow or connect with may have that one piece of advice that could help your business, you, or your kids. They might even be desperately looking for help themselves.
And for the love of peet, don’t judge people when you see them reach out to connect with someone—you may not have considered all of the reasons why they are doing it.
Weigh in! Have you ever made the mistake of judging too quickly and regretted not connecting with someone earlier?
Tribe/family picture retrieved from https://winhttps.nsula.edu/regionalfolklife/apalachee/kisatchiehills.html
What a great post and perspective on what happened to you. It can be frustrating to feel misunderstood or falsey accused, but it can also help us see how we truly feel about a situation. It sounds like you were able to stay true to yourself. Also, I completely agree with the whole tribe thing. We all just want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Really liked this.
Thank you, Lori. What you said is true, we all want to be a part of something bigger.
I still consider myself new to the blog world and I find it amazing that there are so many people with so much in common. Not only that, even having such similarities, there are so many different perspectives that you can’t help but learn from each other.
I love to connect with people. It saddens me when people are so quick to think that someone has an ulterior motive because of who they choose to follow or talk to. If I offer parenting perspectives or advice, who cares if I’m giving it to a single mom, dad, or a married couple?
Thanks for commenting! I appreciate it!
I think that you are doing the right thing. You are thinking and that is something that a lot of people don’t do. Social media is about engaging and my own opinion is that engaging will bring good things to you, if you let it.
Thanks, Jack. I do try to put thought into who I follow. I’ve made a few mistakes here and there (resulting in tons of BS spambots) but when I find that I got duped, I block and do all that. The way I saw it was that there are parents and kids there. Had it been some sort of dating service? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t go that far, but for what it is, I have no issues.
Brandon, Twitter is and has been the love of my social media life for a few months now. I’ve met awesome, awesome people, who share great ideas and advice. People who will educate and support. People who have made me laugh and cry.
Just yesterday, I found an extreme amount of support from my tweeps (endearment) while I tried to use Twitter to reach out to a company hosting a blogger who stole my latest post. So many voices stood up for me. . . It was touching and I’m forever grateful. It didn’t work but at least I didn’t stand alone. Heck, a twitter user I connected with for the first time who specializes in copyright law took the time to read my post and the hacked version to confirm I had a case. If I hadn’t been part of the twitter community, I’m not sure where I would have found that kind of support so quickly and for free.
Everyday I receive emails of new followers on Twitter. I admit, I don’t follow all back. I read profiles and if they interest me, I do follow. As for the other followers, the few hat have reached out to me with something more than “read my blog, buy my product, use my service” I’ll happily engaged with them on twitter and then followed them back too.
Wonderful post Brandon.
Thanks! Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t follow everyone back either. I am not saying don’t be choosy, just don’t automatically judge.
Great post. I love Twitter. Just the other day I found out that someone I followed lived on the same street I did at one point in my life AND we attended the same Elem. School!
I love finding people who have a shared lifestyle, sense of humor, same faults, and are willing to put it out there. I won’t get that offline.
I met you and B. and you know how that’s going…so 2 thumbs up on this. 🙂
I find people in the SM realm are pioneers. There will be charlatans in the mix and pot stirrers, but the rest of us are moving forward and building something. Through that we have or should have a mutual respect and a help your neighbor mindset.
See, goes to show, you simply never know who you will run into here and who you could end up taking advice from! Thank you for stopping in and for the compliments! 🙂