Thing 12: Putting the social into social media

August 26, 2011 Thing 12: Putting the social into social media

Slowly catching up!

It would be ridiculous of me to attempt to say that social media has not helped me to connect with other people – less so if I tried to claim that CPD23 has not encouraged me to make use of social media. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of support and encouragement that my first post here attracted, and I still feel guilty about failing to meet up with real people in week 5 even though I only spoke to them online. I thought I was supposed to be able to dismiss online people! Joke… Obviously, social media has been a huge boost to my librarian’s network, and I plan on continuing to use it to keep in touch with the contacts that I have made over the past few months, as well as (hopefully) to make more connections!

I’ve been using ‘social media’ in one form or another for about ten years now. What started off with online forums for fellow Lord of the Rings geeks led to my first (hideously adolescent) attempts at blogging (or journalling as it was known as then). This then led on to Facebook, as a means to keep in touch with school and sixth form friends who were not accompanying me to university (as well as a way to communicate with university friends – even if we were only down the hall from one another…) which I used avidly throughout, and possibly to the slight detriment of, my university career. Since then I fell out of touch somewhat with the Facebook ‘scene’ and I really think that if it were not thanks to my iphone I would never have re-connected – or used Twitter. Finally, thanks to CPD23, I’m blogging again and using Twitter regularly – this time to make professional connections (and often to have a good moan).

I wouldn’t know as many grad trainees/library school students without CPD23 and Twitter makes it possible for me to follow conversations at conferences I could not attend. I’m getting to the stage of making connections at conferences and events and then following them on Twitter to learn more about what they do (in one case this had nothing to do with CPD23 and everything to do with a mutual creative writing tutor at university, and a shared colleague. It’s a small world!). I’m following library events, world events and events in fiction/creative writing – and thanks to the internet, I have a wealth of people to discuss them with!

And I think that I feel part of a community more as a result of CPD23 and all the uses of  social media it’s opened my eyes to. I’m advocating it to friends who need to make contacts in new areas of work, or just want to keep up to date with something they care about – and it works! I think that’s the best bit, you do make chance connections in spite of the enormous volume of information, opinons and people out there, and it’s these connections which lead to communities of friends as diverse as those in real life.

So before I do get up on my soapbox, I’ll stop. I’m pleased not to find social media and online stalking/following a chore anymore – but how to do take to social media? Is it a must have, or just another thing on the to do list?

Tags: Blog, cpd23, Facebook, Online Communities, reflection, Social Networking, thing 12, Twitter

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