Social media’s street cred: holding you accountable

Wanto is all about getting more meaning out of social media. Our friend Grace Boyle from Small Hands, Big Ideas wrote a post on this subject for our blog.

It’s safe to say that I spend about 10 hours a day online and subsequently, involved in social media, every weekday (weekends are my time to unplug-I also work online with bloggers for a tech startup).

That’s 50+ hours a week, 200 hours a month and 2,400 hours a year.

I sure hope I’m being productive during that time or else that’s a lot of “lost” hours on the ‘interwebs.’

Social Media As A Resource

I think social media gets a bad rap. People often look to me to learn more about social media and I love that, because just three years ago I really didn’t know what it meant or what it was about and it’s so oscillating. Some days, I still roll my eyes at the idea and everything surrounding “social media” but in the end, it has meaning. It holds weight and I can’t ignore it.

Social media is a medium and channel for us to create, share, connect and deliver. Brands can raise awareness, people can connect, jobs can be found and ideas can be heard, not to mention it’s (largely) free.

Hold it – before you start to roll your eyes yourself here’s my social media street cred:

I met my boyfriend through blogging and the respective online startups we both worked at, I got my job through my blog , I followed the 2008 election through Twitter (that was my source, not CNN.com), Boulder police asked “citizen journalists” to tweet information about the latest and harrowing Boulder Fourmile Fire over Labor Day when reverse 911 didn’t work, I buy mostly all my goods (e.g. books, clothing, gifts and even household supplies online through social media and websites), I video chat with my entire family, even my grandparents as I live far from “home,” my roommate and I met through CouchSurfing.org, and I have met many of my closest friends and colleagues, through blogging, Twitter, and Facebook.

You do the math. That’s productivity and powerful. Those pieces are my life.

Trusting Your Audience

I firmly believe your social media audience, holds you accountable.  On Twitter if I say I’m about to start something new – I’m congratulated, people follow up to hear how it went and my followers interact and involve themselves. It’s not dead space.

On Facebook, it’s a slightly different audience, moreso my friends from home, college and everything in between (maybe they’re not on Twitter) but that is how I find out if a friend is engaged or married, pregnant, moving, starting a new job, upset, happy, etc.

That’s my story, but the math is here too:

• There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blogs, etc.) shared each week on Facebook
• Twitter has over 100 million user accounts
• LinkedIn has over 50 million members worldwide
• Almost 50% of the United States is blogging
• 96% of Generation Y have joined a social network
• Social Media is the #1 activity on the Web

Sources: Econsultancy and HubSpot.

It’s for everyone, not just geeks

Like Brian Solis says, “Social Media is about sociology and psychology more than technology.”

The platform itself is technology, but really, it’s millions of people interacting like we would in person, but online. When you begin to share, interact or even ask for help in any community a bond is formed, empathy is found and the acknowledgement of your situation is created. This is the power of social media and it creates breadth and volume of opportunities more than if you just had your community right in front of you.

We can hold each other accountable, we can support each other, we can listen, we can engage, we can challenge, we can learn and we can grow.

Looks like 2,400+ hours online a year, aren’t looking so bad…

Grace is the Publisher Services Manager for the online startup,  Lijit in Boulder, Colorado. Her own personal blog is Small Hands, Big Ideas and she tweets while writing about the startup world, relationships, career and daily inspirations. She loves blogging, laughter, the mountains, snowboarding, travel, food and wine.