Why Nobody Cares What You Say On Social Media Anymore
Author: Brian Basilico / Source: Business 2 Community
I want to talk about social media. More precisely, your social media. The question I have to ask is, why does anybody care what you have to say on social media anymore? And the real question is, do they? Well, yeah, they do. Well, some people do and some people don’t. The ones who identify with your point of view are paying attention. The ones who don’t are still paying attention, but may not be engaged. The current topics in the new are creating a divisiveness that I have never seen before and that is diluting our ability to get messages, or be seen, heard, engaged with, and shared!
Oh… Are They Listening?
So let’s talk about that a little bit. Like-minded people tend to listen to each other, especially in these polarizing times where the news cycle is happening so fast. There’s so much stuff being posted on the internet. I’ve seen the same post shared over, and over, and over again. They make different points. Some of them are pro this, some are anti that. It’s all over the place, but the bottom line is that what you end up with is a bunch of people who either agree with your point-of-view or disagree with your point-of-view.
That can have an effect on whether people are engaging with the content that you post. Now, that can be true on any social media platform: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, it does not matter. But, there’s an opportunity here. There’s an opportunity for you to become a thought leader. It’s not necessarily with what you say on diverse topics that may be in the news. It’s more about how can you help people come together and start agreeing.
Oprah Effect
I watched this 60 Minutes interview, and I watched both parts. It’s with Oprah. Yes, Oprah’s on 60 Minutes. Like her, hate her, whatever, but she brought together a bunch of people that were in different political camps. There were 14 of them, seven on one side, seven on the other side. The first time they came together, they basically went head to head. But in the second interview, she actually talked to them again months later. What happened was that those people became friends. They would sit down and eat meals together. They created a closed Facebook group and would continue the conversations. It got so heated sometimes that they almost all quit.
But the bottom line is, that group stuck together and kept discussing issues, trying to find some kind of common ground, some like-mindedness. That’s hard to do today, especially in this divisive world. I have certain friends on Facebook, that all they do is post something to get your blood to boil. They want you to basically bite at that poison apple that they’re putting out there because they want to watch you squirm. They love that! Somebody could post anything, and all the sudden you get these opposing views.
Another guy said the exact same thing. He said, “You know, I don’t necessarily agree with this anyways, but I got you guys all up in a lather. It was great, it was fun.” Okay, well, you know, what’s the purpose of all that stuff, right? The key thing is that if you’re doing this from a business standpoint, you cannot basically ignore the fact that there’s a bunch of people out there that are not doing it from a business standpoint. I don’t care if it’s on Facebook, LinkedIn,…
