![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.spaighttalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/GossipDoodles-300x218.jpg\" "\\"gossip\\"")
Participation in social media is about the community, not the cult of personality, the narcissism, the \u201clook at me! I\u2019m so great.\u201d I think we all understand that, at least in our talk, if not in our actions. Yet, lately, I find myself bothered by the absolutely rampant self-promoters. I follow people on Twitter who tweet about almost nothing but themselves, their products, their accomplishments, their hotness. <\/p>\n
Sure, you might argue, I could just unfollow them, unfriend them, block them, whatever. And I could. But I don\u2019t, because I think they are really good people with a lot to offer who are just caught up in the shiny illusion that social media can create that everyone\u2019s a celebrity. I have actually had people refer to me as a \u201clocal social media celebrity\u201d and it makes me laugh and throw up a little in my mouth. I\u2019ve seen friends, so caught up in the moment of their \u201ccelebrity\u201d status, completely disregard other friends, because they are not in \u201cthe group\u201d. Welcome to social media high school. I\u2019d like to graduate and move on now, please. <\/p>\n
Related to this, I was also recently taken off the speakers list at one national social marketing conference because I was not pimping \u2013 I mean, promoting \u2013 the conference aggressively enough. Well, sorry, but constantly promoting where I am speaking is not really my style, nor is it something that I believe my followers find of value. I think speakers should be chosen based on their substance and speaking, not their willingness to constantly self-promote. <\/p>\n
Everyone of course is entitled to their own opinion, and I respect that. It\u2019s just something on which I\u2019ve recently become more clear than ever where I stand and what I personally value. We all, perhaps, fall into the trap at some point. It\u2019s hard not to, when you\u2019re posting on the fly with a hair trigger finger. Last week I retweeted something someone said about \u201cthe lovely Sue Spaight\u201d and then immediately realized that was idiotic. But hopefully self-promoting is not an overall pattern. <\/p>\n
On the flip side, you sometimes meet someone like @SusanKim4<\/a> who actually IS a personality, a local celebrity, but so genuine and focused on community that it restores your faith. And others who wear their popularity so well, so humbly, so genuinely. C\u2019mon people. It\u2019s just social media. It\u2019s not all that. It\u2019s not what\u2019s real, and important, and lasting, like friendship and family and community and basic kindness. Let\u2019s not get so caught up in our fine selves that we lose sight of the bigger picture. <\/p>\n Sue Spaight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Participation in social media is about the community, not the cult of personality, the narcissism, the \u201clook at me! I\u2019m so great.\u201d I think we all understand that, at least in our talk, if not in our actions. Yet, lately, I find myself bothered by the absolutely rampant self-promoters. I follow people on Twitter who … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,618],"tags":[31,850,575,851,30],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-susanspaight","tag-community","tag-cult","tag-personality","tag-self-promoters","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1947,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}