The pain in our neck… is digital

This blogging experiment is a fascinating exercise.

It was inspired by Seth Godin’s podcast called Akimbo. His podcast is transformational (for me). It has changed my entire approach to social media, how to evaluate “success” and where to focus energy in 2019.

The goal is to contribute something everyday. As it turns out, by keeping the content and subject matter unconfined, allows incredible freedom. The next post is whatever works up in the morning walk.

It’s a good way to start the day. Exercise the body with a brisk walk (brisk underlined due to the lazy pace this morning). Exercise the mind.

The pain in our neck

Recently, social media is the focus of more of my conversations. In short, it appears we suffer from digital overload. People tell they are pulling back.

In the end, the tools and platforms that purported to deliver connectivity and engagement, actually divide and create social isolation. As a result of staring down at our devices, we literally have a pain in our neck.

It became clear we needed to change our definition of success during a review of our Facebook video insights. We are being played. Most people do not make it past 3 seconds of our videos. Not just our videos, but everyone’s videos. 3-seconds is the measure of a “view”. Well, if we want everyone to see that we are producing volume, great! But, what about quality? What if we want people to see the content?

There should be no surprise I guess. We have known this about newspapers for a long time. That is why a good headline writer is important. In fact, headlines define the narrative and shape opinion. No matter how wrong or misleading they are! There is no point in fighting a headline. Instead, focus energy on setting up the next one.

I remember back to my time in Applied Communication at Camosun, and Sid Tafler’s instructions to load up the front end of the news story. People don’t read much past the first few paragraphs. (Thank you for making it this far in this post. You are one of the few.)

A cup of coffee and the paper

So, writing this blog, even though it is digital, it is a throwback. It’s a tip of the hat to a time when we sat down with a cup of coffee and read the paper.

And, as you will notice, my main distribution vehicle is Facebook. The very platform people are moving away from. No doubt, these digital platforms are successful because they are useful tools. They will continue to play a role in our communications but how we use them will shift and change. And, how they are using is always changing as well.

So, despite being an early adopter, it has been a freeing experience to decouple “success” from social media metrics. Real human interactions are rewarding, and that is where my energy is flowing in 2019.