The impersonal face of social

Social media for the majority is about interaction, engagement and relationship building – yes as marketers and business owners we use it to build our networks and maybe generate a few leads and ultimately win business and for some it’s there to be abused and a vehicle for spam.

Bad

The proliferation of spam will inevitably lead to frustration. Hot on the heels of frustration is invention both well meaning and misplaced. I’m talking about TrueTwit, the automated service that enables you to “stop wasting time with spammers“.

Ironic

Am I missing something here but isn’t it a tad ironic that in an environment of personal interaction someone would find it necessary to use an automated service to determine if a follower is real and therefore potentially worthy of a “follow back”.

I was recently auto DM’d and pointed to this wonderfully welcoming service.Needless to say I haven’t verified myself.

Impersonal

Now I’m not being precious. I’m big enough and ugly enough to deal with the fact that not everyone I follow will reciprocate. This service represents an impersonal face of social interaction.

How much effort is required to take quick glance at a new follower’s recent tweets or profile to quickly ascertain whether they are a “real” follower. Surely this is at the heart of social networking.

The serendipitous nature of interaction

If someone is for real then their information will be readily available but a few clicks away – hey you might even learn a thing or two whilst you’re ferreting about. This is the serendipitous nature of online social interaction.

To be fair if it’s not self evident that I am a human then perhaps we’re not best matched for engaement.

So let’s not kill the spirit of online social networking -let’s take a moment to try and get to know a little about each other.

Pic: New World News