I define social media as the essence of communication. It provides a playground for creativity and non-conventional methods of self expression. It motivates individuals to reinvent themselves and move past traditional approaches. It is new media without boundaries.
My educational background at UCSD consists of Sociology and Visual Arts with an emphasis on Studio Art. I love to create things that are abstract and sometimes have no reference to anything but my mind. I am bilingual; I can speak and write both in English and Spanish. I am misunderstood for a lot reasons, but my top 3 favorite are: I have an accent, I speak super fast, and sometimes I just don’t make any sense, but it doesn’t stop me from being creative and producing new things. Just as I speak fast, I am thinking twice as fast, which sometimes hinders me from being able to put my thoughts down on paper. By the time I’ve thought of it, I’m already on my next idea.
This is where social media has helped me capture my thoughts a bit more accurately and allowed me to communicate more effectively. I am not limited by social media. On the contrary, I am challenged to be more inventive in putting my point of view out there. For example, twitter allows us to micro blog 140 characters at a time. What’s the point? The point is that we have been given a social network platform to be artistic with the way we communicate. I was once challenged in one of my art classes to create a table from wire referencing my personality. Yes, the medium was wire. The message here is that I was able to show who I am artistically without having to say a single word. My assignment and twitter are similar; we are given 140 characters to express ourselves whether it is a quote, a comment, a re-tweet, or a link referencing something that we think is news worthy.
Social media facilitates communication at all levels and provides new ways to reach your community. How has social media challenged you to communicate more effectively?
(image by frozenchipmunk via Flickr Creative Commons License)
Tags: backdrop, backdrops, communication, social media, twitter
What an awesome post Jose! Thank you for articulating the idea that Social Media can be used HOWEVER you see fit. It can work for anyone who wishes to convey their personality as authentically as possible. I love your artistic tie in, a great analogy. Thanks Jose!
Eric, thank you for your support. I’ve learned a lot these past few months from great people like yourself!
Totally understand about the thinking fast and not being able to keep up with getting thoughts down. I always wonder how many blog post opportunities I’ve missed doing because of it!
I don’t know if social media has really challenged me as much as it has given me an appropriate vehicle for my normal communication style: fast, frequent, brief, immediate, and always available. It allows me to communicate however and whenever I wish and allows my audience to connect with me how (and if) they wish. Some prefer the real-time connection of a Twitter stream during the day, others want to wander through Facebook after dinner. Either way, it’s fine. Social media has really obliterated many of the space-time limitations of other communication avenues such as telephone and direct mail.
So, in summary, I think social media has helped us communicate more effectively by helping us to connect with our audiences in a way that THEY want while still communicating in a way that is comfortable for us.
Thank you for your thoughts Heidi. It is amazing to see how social media has transformed the way we communicate.
I love this post, Jose. It eloquently describes how social media allows us not only to express ourselves but to actually show who we are. It’s kind of like a mosaic of little tiles all made of 140 character tweets. What info we choose to share, what comments we make, pictures we post, etc, all give our followers another piece of our personality puzzle.
I have to say that whenever I have met my online friends face to face the picture of them that I have built in my mind has almost always been accurate when I compare it to the person in real life. When it isn’t, the person is just a little nicer, more relaxed and funnier in real life. I would put that down to the fact that all of us spend some time on social media worried about how we will come off, so at first we are more stiff and formal than we are in real life. But as we get more comfortable on social media platforms, we stop worrying and just tweet what we feel.
Great post, Jose. I hope you will be blogging more in the future!
Thank you so much for your feedback Jenise! For those of us who are shy, social media facilitates communication and helps us achieve a positive experience offline.
Hi Jose
Firstly, I didn’t feel or see any of the speed of mind that you claim muddle your thoughts, in this post. I think you write incredibly well and I really do love this post.
I think too often people get bogged down in the do’s and don’ts as they strive for big fan and follower numbers. To my mind what’s more important is that you enjoy the journey that you’re taking and for me I enjoy the journey most when I’m being myself.
To answer your question…social media has challenged me to become a better, more accurate writer. Although as you know I’m far from succeeding at this.
I also think the hardest and most challenging thing about social media is being confined to my niche…I’m a diverse human being as you’ve said but with my (and @mooreofandy’s) blog we’ve limited ourselves to business and social media. I guess that why I’m glad I have twitter…like you, that’s where I truly express myself.
Great post Jose…I’ve looked for blog posts on your site before & wish I had found them earlier, keep it up.
P.S. I’d quite like to see what that wire table turned out like.
Hi Sam! Thank you for your ongoing support! I agree with you 100%. Twitter is about quality and not quantity.
P.S. I believe the table is somewhere in my parents garage. I will look for it and take some pictures.
Jose, you got it bang on! As time goes by, SM will step away from it’s birth name and just be called COMMUNICATION! It will always be a launching pad for creative ideas and information, but it literally has developed into a major means of communication between me and my community within everyday life. All my platforms push to my phone as SMS so I can repsond to posts immediately… It’s brilliant!
It has also helped me focus my ideas, while also acting as an extended arm to many other young professionals who share common goals and ideas. I’m curious to see what the next 5 years will bring…
@JaredGolberg
Jared, thanks for your comment! Technology and social media go hand in hand. Social media provides communication while technology provides accessibility to the many social platforms we participate.
Wonderful post! Reminds us of yet another benefit of SM.
Jose, what a great post! It’s wonderful to get to know you a little more and thank you for making us reflect on our approach to social media.
For me it’s been a way to meet a lot of fascinating, dynamic and wonderful people all over the world! I’m very social and I love to talk but I hate business networking events. Social media has made it possible to – finally – skip them and still network and meet new people. Now, not a week goes by that I don’t talk or meet face-to-face with someone I’ve met on Twitter.
The other aspect of social media I really like, and this is mostly the case with Twitter, is how it reflects people’s personalities. You get a very good sense of what a person is like from their banter and from the information they pass on – or not…
Saludes! Johanna