Personal Side of Social Media Connections

Today I heard of the tragic death of Megan Porter one of my Twit­ter fol­low­ers @MegaPixel and it really made me con­tem­plate the con­nec­tions we make using social media and why we are so drawn to these con­nec­tions. I’m always amazed at how when tragedy strikes those we have met through social media never lessens the  feel­ings we as their fol­low­ers feel . They are still so real and painful.  I didn’t have a chance to get to know Megan, but yet this morn­ing when read­ing the new’s story of her acci­dent I felt a jolt of sadness.

How can we explain the social con­nec­tion between those that we never meet?  It’s dif­fi­cult and  it’s emo­tional.  We bond, we cor­re­spond, we com­mu­ni­cate, we interact.

We meet on Face­book, on Twit­ter and some­times, but less often on MySpace.  We find some­thing in com­mon, thought pro­vok­ing or inspi­ra­tional and we are drawn to con­nect.  Our cir­cle of friends, asso­ciates, and busi­ness part­ners expands in a non-traditional way.

Social media has changed our lives, we now learn of engage­ments, births, break-ups and even death on the inter­net cyber­waves before it’s broad­cast on tra­di­tional media or before we receive a tele­phone call. Think about it, news about the death of Far­rah Faucett, Michael Jack­son and Billy Mays all spread across social media net­works first.

The con­nec­tions are real, the net­works are solid and the daily inter­ac­tion thriv­ing. Our cir­cles of friends, asso­ciates and busi­ness part­ners grow daily and when we lose one that we never met phys­i­cally we feel as if we really missed out and the pain feels tremen­dously real.

It’s amaz­ing where these social tools have brought us today. They are not new, as a mat­ter of fact they started off years ago with IRC (inter­net relay chat) and AOL, but today we’ve become more accept­ing and will­ing to adopt these forms of con­nec­tion — we see them as less odd, geeky or weird; per­haps you could say it’s more commonplace.

Busi­nesses often won­der how it is that social media gains the response that it does when it comes to viral and word-of-mouth mar­ket­ing; truth is it’s about the con­nec­tions, as indi­vid­u­als we long for the con­nec­tion of oth­ers, these medi­ums give us the abil­ity to con­nect on our own terms 24/7.  We can share as lit­tle as we want or as much as we want about ourselves.

To those I have met through the won­der­ful world of social media, thank you for shar­ing your lives with me.  Thank you for not only allow­ing me  to teach you but allow­ing me to learn from you and share in your won­der­ful suc­cesses in life.  Life is amaz­ingly full of ups and downs and I find it encour­ag­ing that through the means of our inter­net con­nec­tions that we can help one another through those ups and downs.  I enjoy not only the real lessons I learn from those that I fol­low, but I also gain great insight into the life lessons you share.

Many think I’m a social but­ter­fly and I sup­pose on cer­tain days I am, but more often than not I tend to be the loner that sits back and takes it all in. I’ve had my own share of per­sonal tragedy through­out this year strug­gling with the end of a long rela­tion­ship, job lay-off, end­ing of an engage­ment, mov­ing from what I would call my home­town to start over, fin­ish­ing a book and start­ing not one, but two busi­nesses. I’m lucky to have the abil­ity to share each day with all of you and to watch you progress in your own life jour­neys it is inspir­ing. You are all rock­stars, thank you!

Tagged as: online marketing, online relationships, personal brand, Relationship Marketing, social media