As my dad taught me “to each their own.”

That is what I love about this world.

 It would be a bit self flagellating to start following someone that irks you and then trying to change their behavior. 

Capitulating to the folks that want to change the way you communicate would be turning your back on your true fans or friends.Just a thought.

I always unfollow people who tweet too much because I can’t hear anyone else I’m following, and there’s no way that person has read all the articles they are tweeting in one day. It’s just noise.

Look at it from the readers point of view. You wouldn’t overshare info and push everyone else’s conversations out the way if you were at a cocktail party. Everyone agrees social media, networks, etc. are like a party. Let other people say something. Oversharing is basically wearing out your welcome. It’s yelling and not giving anyone else a chance to be heard.

Don’t be so arrogant in thinking people want everything you have. Just share *some* things. Your fans probably really do like you, and want to hear you, but they just dont need to get drunk off you everyday. 

Just my 2 cents

I ride it out too. I know that these social networks are giving us more insight and clarity into what makes people tick than we’ve ever had before–to me, it is the ultimate question of social media: are we going to accept people warts and all in a more intimate setting, or are we going to choose just to surround ourselves with those with whom we agree? I pick a middle ground. I ride out the short bursts of “possession” (I love that image, thinking of Poltergeist) because I value the diversity. But if someone gets too wackadoo, I hide their feed or unfollow, because just like in “real life” I elect not to surround myself with toxic personalities.

Your mileage may vary!

The real question, in my mind, is why is this becoming such an issue now? I can’t place my finger on all of them, but I’ve seen a number of these types of posts lately–are people getting overwhelmed with social and don’t know how to regulate their own consumption of content, so they lash out at others, trying to control that which they cannot/should not try to control? It’s an interesting development. 

We all modulate what we say, to who, IRL. Our online social relationships won’t ever approach their real potential until we can fluidly do the same online.

True you’ve always been the poster boy for passion. You were one of the first to talk about the importance of content and inspired me on many occasions. Thank you.

Problem is there is no good way to test my theory beyond putting you in a bubble, taking control of / taking away your owned and earned properties, having you start from scratch on uncharted platforms and hooking electrodes up to see how your brain activity changes. It would hurt your business and wouldn’t prove much particularly if I was wrong.

I also don’t find you very noisy (but that might be because I care about all of your topics and believe in being diverse about content.) The Chrisses and Robert have that market cornered.

It is because of them that I get to do a lot of the things I do.

BUT, they don’t decide or drive me to do things. I do.

People get up in arms when the codes of behavior, and their attendant expectations, don’t align. If I like how often and what a particular person posts, then I’ll have no issue. If I don’t, I will. 

But any wise person — or business — knows their efforts are best spent on converting the opinions of the neutral, and keeping their fans happy. Not in trying to change the opinions  of those who steadfastly disagree, nor in changing one’s own behavior to please that small group. 

Doing so is inefficient at best, and completely alienating to your core audience, at worst.

From day 1 that I touched the Internet I’ve always taken the approach (and have given this advice to others) that everything I write, create and share I do so for myself first and if other people enjoy it than all the better.
My blog I’ve always treated as a personal journal. I’ve been writing here for eight years and have always taken that approach. It is why you don’t see posts every day and why I don’t get stressed if I haven’t written in a few days or weeks. I write when I have something to say and the topic could be anything from social media, to my kids to recipes. If I had more focus, I might have a bigger audience, but I don’t even look at the numbers. I just don’t need that sort of validation.

Sure, I care about what my audience(s) think about what I put out there. But, when you have diverse channels such as Accident Hash, Managing the Gray and Digital Dads just to name a couple that cross over is never going to work because they are so different. But, that is why I try to channel it off so people can pay attention to what they want to.

BUT, if someone follows me directly they are going to get the firehose of what I want to share and that is always the way it’ll be.

I hope that the networks get better at allowing filters, but I know this is a hard nut to crack.

I usually remind myself that it’ll pass by soon enough and I move on. Sometimes harder than others.

What’s weird, however, is when one of my friends who usually posts great stuff or has great conversations goes on a major political or religious or sales tangent, and it’s like their stream is possessed for a day or a week or a month. I don’t want to unfollow or “mute” them totally, because the good stuff is still in there, and I still care about them… but wow.

The only thing you can do is ride it out, I suppose. But I do wonder what gets into folks sometimes.

I wondered who the first smart ass would be.

Thanks for making me laugh this morning.

Thanks for the kind words. I try to make sure that I share enough unique content on each platform to make it worthwhile.