Monday 15 September 2014

Why I can't stand social media posts that contain links

I believe that social media should be one of those rapid-fire, snappy, banter-y environments where everyone is chatting and bouncing ideas off each other.


People who just use Twitter and the like to keep spamming out their links are missing the point.  You could be having a conversation with your customers, or at least an argument.


The counter-argument is based around "I can't get the message across in a limited number of characters".  My response to this is "try harder".  I recall a essay task on my MSc where the task was to write a 1500 word piece on something or other.  Some of the students started griping about the lack of words but the lecturer replied "do you think that you'll have that luxury when you're out there?".  So true.  I've been asked for 1-page pieces, 100 words, 250 words, 300 words, three pages, etc.  You get the point.  It's about making use of what you've got access to.  But if I'd just written "have a look at x, here's the URL", I'm not sure how well that'd have gone down...well, actually, I know how it'd have gone down - badly.


So cut out the links and start to work to the limit you have.  If I want to find 30 ways to tie a knot, then I'll find it via Google.