Social Media Breaks Will Help You Understand Social Media Better

Yesterday I wrote a post entitled CrowdSourcing and Customer Service. No, We're Not Scared, We're Just Smarter Than You, in response to a blog post by a frequent participant in the #custserv chat on Twitter, in which he suggests that the reason people do not agree with his position on crowdsourcing is that they are "scared". His suggestion is to "let go", which might be a good thing for orgasmic dysfunction, but as a psychological explanation for disagrement it's rather sad.

I wondered, though, why some people, particularly those that are ardent participants in social media, often seem to be so out of touch with people who are not enamored with the things they are. It kind of twigged when  I realized that for some, social media has become such a focus that they spend far too much time interacting on it to have time to spend elsewhere. That wouldn't be a problem if the people they hang with on their social media "places had different perspectives, or disagreed, AND if those involved wanted to learn through dealing with diversity in opinion.

I can only guess but there seems to be a strange groupthink going where people look for others of like mind, then forget that their social media contacts are NOT representative of the world at large. Without an understanding of the world and one's "regular" customers one loses the ability to influence them. Rather than gaining a voice, one loses it by demonstrating one is irrelevant.

I also noticed that the worst context is Twitter, where there is virtually no substantial disagreement that goes on, almost no debate or intelligent discourse, while LinkedIn is at the other end. While not rampant with discord, relative to Twitter, there's lots of fresh thinking.

My guess is that the more one spends time with people outside of the social media space + the more one wants to understand diverse views (and be willing to modify own views) the more likely one will develop a better understanding of social media, and how to use it in business.

It's just a guess, but remember that if you are spending hours a day on Twitter, you are probably spending time with those like you, and that is simply going to reinforce your existing views. If you want to learn. Spend at least the same amount of time talking to people who DO NOT spend much time on social media.

Your business will love you for it.