I have always felt myself a pioneer in the classical marketing target category. I thought I'd share little history of my own experience with social media.
I guess my first foray into becoming social over the net was opening a Yahoo account and participating in the chat rooms as they existed back then. It was fascinating for me to be able to react anonymously with other anons around the world. I was going through a period of self discovery during and after my divorce, battling with my sexuality and experimenting with guy to guy interactions. I had been out of the gay game for fifteen years, and had all this pent up emotion to pour out.
As an extension to that, and through a desire to express myself in a more introspective way, I began keeping a LiveJournal account, trying to self analyse as I went through separation and divorce, and my rediscovery of my true sexual identity. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself. I often go back and re-read to reload perspective into where I am compared to where I have been.
I had about ten regular 'friends' on LJ, one of whom invited me to Facebook at whose home page I looked at for several months, not knowing what the point was.
I then decided to go more public and started a Wordpress account, but for me, it was clumsy and clunky and more geared to the geeky types who had the time and energy to customise. Wordpress tried to be all things to all people, but I still think it failed because it was too ahead of the curve.
I stumbled upon an interview series conducted by Grasp The Nettle, and I felt I needed to become a part of the community of which he was part. I got to know some amazing people, many of whom had gone through the same things I had in my life, some of whom were going through the same. I opened up more and shared. My hope was to reach out and my goal was to touch at least one person's life. I can only pray that I have.
I blogged through a time of my life with huge changes. I wanted to regurgitate my past, expel it, look at it and deal with it. I wanted to embrace my change, to plan my future. It has done all of those things for me. And when it was done, it was done. The material dried up through it's purpose having being fulfilled.
At about this time, Facebook exploded. In a short space of time, people were putting their real faces, real names, connecting with old friends and acquaintances online. It was a veritable vacuum of need that required filling. Suddenly I was interacting with my daughters, their friends, traced my half brothers who I hadn't seen in many many years, and then the 40 year olds found it. Suddenly all the school friends I wanted to forget leapt out the woodwork, followed by our teachers who are all old and wrinkly.
And then came Twitter. Again, here I sat with a Twitter account, following a couple of blogger friends. These days this is where most of my net interaction takes place. I took a leap of faith and added a couple of irl friends with no regrets now.
I met Ant through Torchy on Twitter. We met a couple of times for a beer or two. I introduced him to Wes because the picture of the two of them together just seemed right to me. Now, they are the happy couple and perhaps this is the one thing I have achieved through my online journey.
It has been like studying for a degree. A course here, a few lessons there, a fail here, a distinction there. Meeting new friends.
I even have a couple of bloggers on my Facebook account now.
I guess my journey has gone from introspective anonymity through selective real life connections.
Finally, I just feel that I should say that I think Facebook has almost lost it's relevance to me. It's become an address book, one covered in games, ads, people trying to build their brands...
For the most part, it is irritating and yet another amazing social experiment that has become the victim of greedy investors, always trying to make a buck. They remind me of the guys handing out pamphlets at busy intersections in morning peak traffic. An unwilling captive audience.
So I guess I'll tweet for now. Follow me if you wish @salvo1279 but you will find a different person in many ways than the one that started out here.
In the next editions... Dating sites and Tumblr.
Peace....
