In reflection of the last few months I’ve found myself to be a lot quieter than normal. I’m living life and enjoying myself but in times I would have normally just opened my mouth to hear my own voice, all I’m hearing these days is silence. It’s an interesting thing because the quieter I am, the more I find myself online either by phone or computer. The more I’m googling, facebooking, writing, researching, etc… but all of this online. I started to feel like the more I was communicating online, the less I was face-to-face.I know that generations before mine have said that letter-writing is becoming a lost art. I absolutely abhor that idea and have always been a prolific letter writer, even the old-fashioned-hand-written-snail-mail letter. I still send them, and I’m not just talking about Christmas cards either.
Where is this going? Well, whether or not you still handwrite lengthy letters, I bet you do some type of writing every day. Be it facebook /twitter updates, emails or even texts we all write to communicate ourselves in some way each day. I find all forms of social-media communication to be absolutely fascinating, I keep up with it because it is part of my job, but it has become almost an obsession. Which marketers are getting results on what platforms, how celebs are chatting it up with their fans 24/7 in 140 characters or less and how my classmates choose to correspond with one another.
We are truly living in a world where anyone can publish their works with the click of a button. We have powers, cyber powers. We can attract our facebook friends and twitter followers to all kinds of websites [I’m guessing you realize that is how you got here… end example]. Some just our opinions but some can be causes we feel are worthy enough to share. Our profiles and webpages are giving us the power of promotion each day, and what are we doing with it?
I work in promotions and I can say I am not doing nearly enough to promote the things that are most important to me. A week or so ago I got a twitter follower request to my personal account from an artist whose name I didn’t recognize. Curiosity made me visit his profile, his bio was succinct [obviously not my specialty] yet enough to make me listen to his music. He described his music as “ear-itching” and for me it really was, in a good way. I listened to everything there was to listen to then moved to the video section where I found his YouTube channel. After listening to an incredible JM cover I found this song:
Call Me Family
How profound, I thought to myself. Using his talents to bring attention to such a horrible and taboo topic and in such a unique way, it really touched me and I went to the website and figured out how I could help. It was a beautiful song, and a beautiful thing. I’ll be anxiously awaiting the day Nate Fowler makes his way to Missouri to perform, until I can thank him in person for this epiphany, I hope this entry will do.
I promote things every day, it’s my job, yet it’s the REALLY important things I wasn’t even making a dent in. This self-proclaimed social media guru is officially humbled. Never take anything for granted, even the words you choose to share on your facebook or the last lines of your email signature. In an increasingly computer-mediated world, we must embrace the powers we have.
Use them for good and not evil nor nonsense.
Loyally,
Kristin
