Confessions of a Social Media Douche bag

This photo was taken by Chris Scott a little over a year ago. That’s the back of my melon as I was about to lead another Social Media Club of Charlottesville event.

My business doesn’t provide social media consulting, but we have developed several Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn apps for clients. I used to enjoy learning and even speaking about using social media for business. I attended Social Media Camp in NYC back in June of 2009. I left very motivated to start a chapter of SMC in Charlottesville and I did thanks to some other great people in the community.

Shortly after this photo was taken, my attitude towards using social media for business soured. With one exception last year (for my alma mater), my last speaking engagement on social media was December of 2010. I spoke about how to effectively set up a Facebook page even though I was struggling with my own use of Facebook both personally and professionally.

I realized back then that I was quickly becoming (or already became) one of those social media douche bags.

The tipping point came two months after this photo was taken. I invited Marc from Tumblr and Jeff from Mobelux to present at SMCCville. They had presented back at the first SMCCville event in August of 2008. The crowd back then was pretty sparse, but it’s what I expected. Tumblr wasn’t a household name in 2008. In 2010, I expected a much larger crowd. In addition, the first drink was on the house.

Unfortunately, about the same number (around 15) of people showed up that night. I was embarrassed. I believe the low turnout had to do with the fact that many people, especially in the small market of Charlottesville, weren’t using or planning to use Tumblr for business. At that point I knew that the Social Media Club wasn’t for me anymore. The personal connections I’ve made because of social media, especially Tumblr, is what I love about social networking. I’ve purchased gifts for others in need or donated to charities because of bloggers on Tumblr who I have never met or never will. It was this type of networking that I was hoping to highlight with the Social Media Club. But at some point during my 18 months at the helm, I was sucked into hosting, moderating, and speaking at events on how to blog, facebook, tweet, and use LinkedIn to better your business and career.

That event in February was my last SMCCville event. I deactivated my Facebook account (a couple times, but now I’m off for good) and started over with Twitter - following only people/accounts who tweet about things that make me smile. While I do find LinkedIn a useful tool for initial research in recruiting efforts, I find it totally useless beyond that. My use of Tumblr, of course, is still going strong. I’m kind of surprised, actually. I tired of Facebook after a couple of years. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Twitter until I started over recently. I never pay attention to LinkedIn unless my company is actively hiring. But I keep coming back to Tumblr for the same reason - the community.

And now I’m thankful that all those people I hoped would attend the Tumblr event a year ago didn’t show up. It’s those people, the people only interested in how to get more out of social media for their business, who I don’t want on Tumblr.