Time | Gwendlyn D

Tags

Appreciation, Blogging, Business, Community, Reading, Review, Social Media, Time, Twitter, Writing

After a strange kind of a day it’s only fitting that I rattle off a strange kind of post, and today I have been thinking a lot about social media and our (or rather my) use of it. It strikes me that a lot of my time is taken up with (or willingly given to) social media these days, even when I’m not being particularly sociable in my own world. In fact I think I would go so far as to say that when I feel at my most unsociable point in real life, this is when I enjoy trawling through social media such as Twitter or Facebook the most. It makes me wonder if I’m alone in this or whether this is just the usual thing.

Are we all using social media to subconsciously interact with people whilst maintaining the stance that we are indulging in our ‘own quality time’ , or are we just looking habitually and secretly resenting the loss of time?

This thinking started after a conversation about the validity of a full time job, purely in social media and if a business should recognise this role as a valid position within a company. Personally I think it’s becoming more important than ever for a company to have a virtual ‘face’, to get ahead they need to at least have a foot on a rung of the social media ladder just to be part of the modern world. For instance, if checking out a new place to visit or to make a purchase, the first thing I do these days is input it into Google. I’m not saying I am always swayed by reviews, however if the company doesn’t have an easily accessible website or information I can readily find online then I am less likely to want to trust them. I also know of people that put all their faith in review sites and only eat or shop at places that have what seems to be proven worth. But from what I can gather as a consumer we tend to read reviews more than we write them, and even then tend only to write them due to wanting to complain about something. I guess I should admit to falling prey to this way of thinking sometimes too.

The main reason I started to use Twitter was to complain, as it was the only platform which companies seemed to be listening to at the time. Since then I have received better results from customer services from making one angry tweet than I can get via a phone call, email or an online help desk: so it’s no wonder that we keep complaining in this manner. We also get to read all of the negative stories in the press about internet trolls and how they affect other’s lives, mostly read by people who don’t use the internet and therefore don’t get to see the other side of the coin.

Whilst I have been on Twitter I have at least attempted to put back in some balance to the negativity. Lately I’m making a conscious effort to review items I have purchased, or places I have visited. I know that there are many good bloggers, companies, places, charities and people in general contributing to social media that I interact with on a daily basis that seldom get the praise and appreciation they deserve.

So maybe it’s about time that the positive side of the coin gets shared.