Why Social Media Works

Doesn’t really matter the platform: MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, various forums. People migrate from place to place. At one time Ryze was one of my favorites, now it is almost a virtual ghost town. You’ll find spammers, stalkers, scammers along with great friends. Old friends are reunited, business partners found, shared brainstorming (crowd sourcing). I mean, people even find their true love online. You have to use common sense and keep yourself and your computer safe from the bad guys.

So what is the pull? Why has social media increased over the past few years?

In this age of automation, “please press 1 if you speak english”, “enter your 16 digit account number”, people are hungry for what they miss, human interaction. Real people who believe that you have value, that you are special. Validation.

I believe that people go where they feel good, connected to others, where their voice matters. And when those needs are no longer being met, they’ll go elsewhere. People go where they feel important, where others care, where they can make a difference, where they feel validated.

Online or off, take a step back. How do you interact with others? Do you validate them as a human being?

6 thoughts on “Why Social Media Works

  1. Hi Heidi,

    Offering validation can be a driver for return visits, but I think that it has to be genuine. I comment on a lot of blogs and it’s important to me that the conversation is real. If I take the time to read a post and offer a thoughtful comment, the least that I expect is a response. When I visit a new blog I take a look at some prior posts to see if conversations take place there. If I find that comments go unanswered, I don’t bother leaving one. I recognize that it can be difficult for the popular bloggers to keep up, but I often find that there are many lightly commented blogs where comments are ignored. That’s just crazy.

    Upon hearing my view on this recently, someone asked me if I care so little about the content that I would choose not to return because of this. To that I responded, that my level of caring is in direct proportion to the level of caring that is shown to me.

    Ray

    • I agree. I mean if I take time to comment, I’d like to know it is being read. If you don’t want a conversation on your posts, simply don’t allow comments. However, some of my favorite blog posts are those which have conversation. I remember one on a friend’s site that ended up with a 100+ comments. They weren’t just the yes, I agree posts you sometimes find on popular blogs, but added to the content of the original post.

      Course sometimes a comment may get lost in the shuffle, interruption with kids, etc. I like that, level of caring. One time I fished a comment from my daughter out of the spam filter. Have no idea how it got there. I like blogs which make me think, become a better person. Thanks. 🙂

  2. Hi Heidi,

    First, I posted this same video some time last year and it made a great impact, so I hope it does well for you also.

    Second, I think you’ve kind of hit it on the nail. We do love communicating with each other, and online you don’t have to deal with what people look like, smell like, or how they might look at you funny. If you can attract an audience you’re in; if not, you can always lurk and learn. Kind of like people watching, only more intense. Who could be upset with that?

    By the way, CommentLuv isn’t working for your blog for some reason.

    • Thanks Mitch! CommentLuv, I’ll have to check into it some more. I’ve checked several things, Plugin settings, switched themes (older theme), still getting comment luv errors. Must be a plugin conflict after updates. I’ll have to work on that this week.

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