I use social media to connect with others and to share some thoughts and images. I’m most active these days on twitter and instagram.
What you can expect from me
I am not a brand, and I’m not trying to be a social media influencer. I hope to have a positive influence on your life, but I’m not trying to position myself for the next social media ad campaign or to pimp somebody’s product.
I appreciate authenticity, and my personality online approximates my personality in real life. Generally speaking, that goes for my photos, too. I’ll occasionally pose for a shot, and if I’m not too lazy ?, I’ll try to edit photos before posting them. But these won’t fundamentally alter the scene, and you won’t find professional-style photo shoots in my feed.
I follow people because I like what they post. I don’t feel a strong social obligation to follow everyone back that follows me. It’s not my intention to be rude, but doing otherwise just becomes too hard to manage. Also, I don’t get pinged when someone follows me, so I often miss new followers—sorry. Interacting with me is the best way to get my attention. I don’t give two shits about my following-to-followers ratio.
I’ve been involved in several online communities that have been quite rewarding, and I’ve developed an incredible number of friends through them. Indeed, I routinely try to turn online relationships into IRL friendships—something I’ve done with more than 100 “online friends” at this point. Let me know if this interests you.
If I don’t follow you, or I unfollow you at some point, it’s because your feed just doesn’t fit with what I want to consume right now.
That doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything, or that we can’t have a debate about something. Over time, I’ve finally started to learn the obvious lesson that we likely won’t change each other’s mind, so at some point, the conversation just gets old and I’ll move on. I hope you’ll do the same. Obviously, I expect to be treated with respect, and I will do the same for you, too.
I try to limit the number of times I’m interrupted by social media, so I won’t always respond in a timely manner. Sometimes, I won’t get around to responding at all. I’m fine with receiving direct messages, as long as you aren’t spamming me.
Finally, please keep in mind that I’m speaking for myself and not on behalf of any other organization or entity.
What I don’t do—and hope you don’t either
I don’t play the follow/unfollow game. I don’t have bots automatically like or comment. I don’t use apps that tell me who has unfollowed me or what my “reach” is, and even if I did, I definitely wouldn’t have it post that to my profile (man, that’s annoying). I also don’t divulge the location of every one of my photos, especially if I’m concerned about possible impacts from social media.