Continuing my silly series on how social media will reveal your true colors (I’ve already looked at the green and red aspects of the medium so feel free to peruse), today I will take a look at my personal favorite color blue.
Ever since I was a kid blue has been my favorite color but only in the darker blue sense. What does that mean? Well, I am not a light blue kind of guy. No baby blue or Carolina blue (I am a Boston College alum so nothing with Carolina in it is a favorite unless attached to the word ‘loses’). I’m talkin’ regular old blue like blue jeans, New York Giants blue and even (I can’t believe I will admit this one) royal blue like the New York Mets (yes I am a fan still so commence laughing now).
As far as social media though blue can be an interesting color. Here are some examples.
- Being blue – Unless you are having some kind of private chat with someone please, please, please (you get the picture) don’t bring everyone else down with your blue mood. If you are feeling blue go seek a friend or counseling or a drink or something but don’t tell everyone and their brother that you don’t even know why you are so downtrodden on a particular day. People don’t follow people that depress them.
- Playing blue – This one is something that no one who is using social media for legitimate reasons (marketing, branding etc, etc) should ever consider. Foul language and sexual innuendo are unnecessary unless you are playing solely to that crowd. As soon as someone crosses the line with swearing excessively or moving in the wrong direction regarding sexual subjects it makes you a social media pariah. So if you think you are being cool, you’re not. You’re being an idiot playing that game.
- Blue ribbon – This is a good way to be / use blue in the social media setting. The blue ribbon means first place which means, you guessed it, a list! Social media folks love lists so by all means put them together . Don’t worry about accuracy because no one checks anyway (oops, I said that but I don’t really mean it
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- Blue stater – If you are politically active and thus opinionated you will run the risk of alienating people that may work with you. Now this is not pointed at Democrats or liberals so relax! It applies to Red staters as well and I just simply wasn’t sharp enough to include it in my red list from earlier. Keep the political stuff to a bare minimum if you are doing business via the social web. Save that stuff for another time because the likelihood of offending and losing someone is much greater than converting them and ‘bringing them to their senses’.
- Blue in the face – Another reference to anger. Keep it to a minimum if you want to carry out a conversation and eventual relationship in the social media world. If it looks like you are locked in a never ending battle with a hater or troll don’t push things until you are blue in the face. If you do they win. That’s bad.
So do you have any other blue examples for the social media world? Bring’em on because I may get blue over no one responding (actually I won’t but it fit so go with it).
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this post. I have a Facebook friend that constantly talks about her very messy, angry, sad divorce. I liked her other posts – particularly those on her really adorable cake making business – but eventually had to hide her updates because they were depressing. I so agree on that point.
Also, I thought of another “Blue in the Face” description – people who talk and talk and talk and reply to everyone and don’t really add much value with their tweets. A constant stream of “right on” “you go girl” “wohoos” on the public timeline is annoying. Move some of it to a DM or figure out a way to say “good job” that adds value for the rest of us like “check out @frankreed’s new blue list – it’s full of great tips. Good job Frank!” MUCH more useful.
@Rebecca – Thanks for the kind words. It’s been fun looking at the whole social media thing through the lens of the spectrum. Sorry to hear about your cake making friend getting divorced. Probably even more sorry about her misunderstanding of the social space. Don’t get me wrong because social media may be the BEST place for someone in that situation to be but keep the heavy stuff offline. Not so much that we don’t get brought down by it but it’s just uncomfortable and hard to watch, like a scene in a movie where you say “Don’t do that, please, don’t do that……they did it”
Great to hear from ya. Please come back.