This is not Part III to the outdoor branding discussion, although I do expand a bit on some of the points.

As a bit of background, I have to mention that social media did not interest me up until recently. I have always felt overwhelmed by the information out there and avoided connectivity. I didn’t have an FB account until I was cornered into getting one for school, and I joined Twitter 5 weeks ago. I just got an iPhone last week, so perhaps Instagram and the like are next. At any rate, you get the picture. It’s not that I don’t understand the utility of the information, it just that I feel more comfortable searching it out on my own (provided I have the time).

So, from this starting point, I don’t necessarily feel that I have something to add since there is so much out there already. Why would someone listen to me? How could I possibly reach anybody beyond my personal network if they were only following me on Twitter out of pity? That was a couple of months ago, and then something odd happened…I started posting on FB some of those videos I mentioned (that’s not the odd part), and people began responding with quips and likes. At its current scale, there isn’t any widespread buzz about when I might post next, or anything of the sort, but it got me thinking a bit. In some ways, I had people’s trust and they knew they weren’t getting kitty videos if my name was attached. It was all well and good on-line, but to me, it’s all still a bunch of 1s and 0s, and relating it to the real world is important. If you can drive traffic without conversions, what’s the point? It might be good for a teenager but not a business. In my case, a small tipping point came in the form of a conversation with a classmate. We started talking skiing, and he asked about my next post, when it was going to be, where I get my info etc…This demonstrated to me, in a tangible way, that on-line conversations can form the basis of real-world influence even on my scale. Of course social media can start and foster revolutions (Egypt, Syria), but on a small scale, they can start conversations.

Moreover, I was impressed that I had an impact and credibility in the on-line community at Sauder, but I feel it started from my personal living self. I’m not sure that if I had started on-line without a walking-talking persona that I would have the same impact. But I don’t need to over think that one, I’m just happy I have some credibility.