I don't know if it's just all the rain that has me in a foul mood or what, but I just saw a tweet that that capped off a feeling that's been brewing inside me for a while and triggered this rant.
It was a tweet from a big name "influencer"--or "social media guru"--take your pick of terms. I'm not in the mood for taking flack tonight so I'm going to refrain from describing the tweet lest that person get his/her ire up and and his/her minions over here to leave me a million comments about how I'm just bitter and this person is SO NICE and SO GIVING and SO SMART and how dare I question him/her. So use your imagination and just insert an annoying tweet you've recently seen. Or a recent blog post. The kind where the author is smug in his/her position in the social media-o-sphere and feels that their duty in life is now to didacticise to the rest of the world about how we should--or shouldn't be--doing social media.
Didacticise--I'm taking artistic license with that term, but it perfectly describes what I'm talking about here. Didactic is the word that keeps coming to mind lately when I read certain blogs, and see certain people's tweets. THIS is how you should be doing X, Y, or Z. Don't do this. Do this. Some of the top social media blogs read like sermons and I'm getting really tired of it. Has it always been this way and I haven't noticed it? Do I do this and not notice it? Probably. If so, I apologize and promise to smack myself.
It's like social media world has created this layer of cream on top of regular people world where the vaulted "gurus" dwell and they've collectively decided that their role in life is to 'splain the rules of the universe to us peons down here--the ones who don't have 20,000+ followers on Twitter, a book deal, and a social media consultant's shingle.
We're all just people here. Some of us have lives that involve other people and therefore we're not able to spend 29 hours a day online, responding to every single blog comment or tweet and engaging authentically. Some of us work in places where, despite our best efforts, the higher ups don't and might never get it, and because of that our business Twitter streams are broadcast only and aren't conversational marvels. Some of us don't have a crisis communications plan in place and don't see the higher ups endorsing one in the near future. Some of us choose to tweet about stupid stuff, or mix personal and professional in inappropriate ways, or don't optimize each blog post with a photo or strategic key words. Get over it.
I guess this is my long-winded way of saying...I don't really know what I'm saying. That this whole space of Klout and influence and numbers and popularity and weblebrity is annoying and oh-so-tiresome? That I wish I could go back to the good old days of blogging for the sheer love of writing and not having to watch what I say because the world, including employers past, present and future, is watching? That sometimes the idea of going back to editing galleys is tempting?
Whew. End rant. For now, at least.
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