The Irrelevance of Social Media: Chasing Nothing

A couple of week’s ago I got a long awaited invitation to pinterest. (Oh and if you’ve no clue what that is, it is a social media network devoted solely to sharing images, sans text.) I say long awaited because when I first discovered the site through creative colleagues, it informed me I needed an invitation to join. When I spoke recently to some 600 floorcovering dealers, I mentioned pinterest and was tickled when an attendee kindly sent me an invitation.

So I climbed up and took five minutes to poke about. Clearly not enough time to make any kind of footprint, barely enough time to even follow more than one or two others. And yet, the last week particularly, I’ve noticed that I’m getting notices saying so and so is following me on pinterest. I have created nothing worthy of following. I haven’t build a profile, curated a series of photos or even bulletin boards . . . heck I’m not even entirely clear on how to do that! Yes, I’m being followed.

(Of course, I intend to, when I have time! But sheesh with all of the other million and one things we each are responsible for keeping up with today, I don’t know exactly when this will be. While I love pictures, I love the words that form pictures even more . . .it’s that writer in me.)

This is the irrelevance of social media, the idea that anyone would follow someone else for absolutely no real reason is nuts. Now you may be thinking that these are folks that know me through other channels like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and they may be. Even still is it just my name that attracts, is there no discrimination as to the quality of the profile created, the information curated, the opinions served up??

This is tantamount to the drive-by friendings I get on Facebook. Total strangers that see my face show up because we both know the same person, click the friend button. They haven’t visited my profile, gotten to learn anything about me, care about what I stand for, or taken 30 seconds to send me a personal note.  Most often I bounce them with an invitation to join me on my business page.  And it is only about one out of every twenty (5% if you want the math) that will come back with a note about how they found me and why they want to connect. Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with?

I have no interest in being chased, followed, trailed, friended, or even liked for no reason. If you get some charge out of building your numbers, knock yourself out. I have learned through extensive experience that while numbers may impress others they really don’t mean a thing. In fact, social media is a breeding ground for the put-on-your-best-facers with vast hordes of empty nothing followings. People who fan, friend, follow, and trail because they suffer the illusion that they will derive some benefit by association instead of by real relationship (that would require work.)

Stop the madness this year, don’t wait until next. Before you friend, follow, chase, connect, like, or fan someone for goodness sake and your own sake find out about them? Who are they? What do they stand for or against? What is important to them and why do you want to follow them? Be discriminatory and put the relevance back into social media. Chasing something gives purpose to the hunt, chasing nothing is simply a waste of your time.

As always, I genuinely want your thoughts, opinions, experiences and more here. Most of all I want to know WHY you are following me and make it relevant!