What I've Learned About Social Media Since Diving into the Deep End

by hans peter meyer 

Last year at this time I was a "writer and photographer." I had a small stable of clients, and I was living a pretty nice life.

Then several things happened. One of them was the financial meltdown. Some of my clients, well those accounts have just dried right up. Other clients, well print media is lost and free-lancers like me became immediately and actively expendable.

So.... one of my some-time clients suggested I get a Twitter account. That I should look into "social media." I'd already been a Facebook guy, but that was mostly because of my kids (a great way to stay in touch with them in Vancouver, Fort Mac, Victoria when they've basically given up on email and answering the telephone from Dad).  And online dating – now there's an interesting social media playground. Tried that. Met some nice women. Even made a friend – 2 actually. Canned that when I realized I wasn't really in the market. And I'd been sort-of posting to a blog, as way to show my work to prospective print clients more than anything. So... I wasn't entirely new to social media. But as a way to make a living?

I got a Twitter account, and started to use it as a research tool: I searched for and followed people who I was already interested in – land use folks, sustainability pundits, social media resources, food and beverage writers, that kind of thing. Things related to the world of work I knew.

That was in March 2009. One of the guys I quickly found and "followed" was Joel Solomon, an interesting guy involved in what he calls "conscious capital" kinds of projects. One of my latent interests (having spent most of my time engaged in "unconscious capital" activities... but I digress, as he's not talking about about my spendthrift ways). No seriously, ever since I was an executive director of an NGO and learned about some cool things that people who have money do with it, besides trying to just get richer, I've been interested in the kinds of things Mr. Solomon is doing. "Conscious capital" pretty much sums it up.

In any case, I was following Joel when I heard about the Media that Matters annual conference. The rest is history. A little of it here. At #MtM09 I met a whole raft of very interesting and engaged folks. I've written about that several times. Here and here for starters. I keep referencing it because it was a significant event for me as a writer, photographer, social butterfly (that's the kind of animal that's naturally, instinctively drawn to social media of all kinds, from cocktail parties to dance parties to Facebook to Twitter to Flickr, etc), and as a guy opening up to what-comes-next. The whole event was transformative. But the pivotal experience, from a social media novice p.o.v., was the "social media 101" talk given by Kris Krüg and Leif Utne. Thanks guys. After that, lots and lots of practice. A "Social Media Bootcamp" with Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo (thanks to you too!). More and more practice.

Here's a short version of what I've heard/learned/know about social media after swimming in it's waters (and working for several clients on several very different projects):

1 - Contrary to most people "outside" the activity, it isn't about "avoiding" real-time/real-space contact with other humans. Ultimately, social media only "works" (has meaning) when it is anchored by  real-time/real-space activity (just watch the kids – teens, early 20s; most of them aren't zoned out on screens just for screen-sake; they're into screens because it helps make parties, jobs, play, any and every kind of social activity happen, or it comments on it, gives any real-time/real-space event a "long tail." So don't take it on thinking that it'll take away from the essence of face to face conversation. There will be a time when your life feels run by Facebook or Twitter or something. Then you'll find a balance. You'll use it to add to your real-life experience, not abscond with it.

2 - If you're thinking about it commercially or in terms of a campaign, know that it takes a SUBSTANTIAL front-end investment of time (or $, if you can't put the time in yourself). You need to think – and I'm paraphrasing @kk here – that "google means everything" (not EVERYTHING, but in a the emerging world, you need to be noticed by google). Which means, practically, for someone like me, to be creating a digital/internet presence so that folks know about what I'm doing, that perhaps they should be paying attention to me. (One of the personal consequences of this is that I've become incredibly prolific [for me], with almost compulsive posting of text/fotos/videos at various blogs and online sharing sites. If you google "hans peter meyer" or "hanspetermeyer" you'll see what I mean. It hasn't made me rich; but I'm having a lot of fun being creative, getting better at what I do and how fast I do it – nothing like practice, practice, practice! And, it juices my real-time convos with folks. People are seeing what I post, they're reading it or looking at the pics and vids, and they're telling me at least some of what they think about. Does life get better for a creative, attention seeking soul than that? I'm pretty happy, even if my cupboard is bare...)

3 - It's all about conversation/engagement - people don't want to listen to anyone shove product at them; they want to be amused, listened to, conversed with, treated like a human being by other human beings – and if I' not doing that with what I'm generating, they'll go somewhere else, because there are millions of folks like me, generating content, trying to stimulate conversation. This is paraphrasing from a very cool, prescient book called The ClueTrain Manifesto. Published 10 years ago (and recently re-released with some changes – can anybody lend me a copy to review?), the 4 guys who wrote it (nerds, not social butterflies as far as I can tell – their twitter feeds are pretty dull) do something no one else on tech change has done, as far as I can tell: they've looked at the market not as an exchange of goods, but as a place where conversation is exchanged – while goods are exchanged. As an non-Marxian anarcho-conversationalist this works for me. Economic anthropology that actually fits my experience in choral groups (that's a plug for Robert Putnam, and for the convo/interview I had recently with Angus McAllister which will be posted shortly at Communities in Transition Information Resource), families, dance and dinner circles, treeplanting crummies, small business, etc. Social media becomes a way we get some of the intangibles back into the exchange process.

4 - If you're doing this stuff, you got to love it. It's hard to be the life of the party at a cocktail party if you don't like cocktail parties and you're deathly afraid to be the guy or gal with the lampshade on.  If you're doing this on a commercial basis or as part of a campaing (political, enviro, etc), find someone in your organization who does like to wear the lampshade. And then set them loose. A note: it helps to have imminently distractible people doing this stuff because it's an ADD world, and those of us with a leaning in that direction not only love it, we do pretty well in it, and – after all is said and done and the lampshade is put back where it belongs – everybody (well, most everybody) is happy that SOMEONE had the temerity to be so bold and out there. I mean, what are convos about? Do we talk about the folks who looked at "safe or sorry" and chose "safe?" Or do we talk about those who chose "sorry?"

I'm not sure who I'm paraphrasing now, but social media is like a cocktail party. It's without a start or a finish, mostly. It's not about being "safe." It's about diving in and learning how to swim, or hanging onto those who do know how to swim. It's being willing to put on the lampshade and dance, or at least to applaud those who have the chutzpah to get up on the table and show their stuff. Somebody has to do it. Else it's a dull, dull, dull party – which makes for a dull, dull, dull world.

Fun, eh? Good thing I don't have a regular job to keep me from playing – and dancing, and hosting cocktail parties, and writing all night, and taking lots of pictures and interviewing folks on video and just generally going out and having fun ;-)

That's what I've learned since March 2009. Thanks to Leigh, for telling me to open a Twitter account.

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