I "like" it

As anyone who knows me will attest, punctuality has never been my hallmark. So it should come as no surprise that I am quite tardy to the social media scene. To be honest, the only reason I'm showing up at all is because it's become increasingly clear that in order to perform well at my paycheck job it's unavoidable.

So it was that I signed up for a Twitter account a few weeks ago. I have yet to Tweet. Neither have I checked in on the entities that I'm "following." I have a Facebook page that contains my name and nothing else.

I'll admit I've been a hater. I don't do things just because everyone else is doing them. And I definitely don't do things just because everyone tells me I should. (No, I do not wonder why my kids are so hard headed.)


I also don't fancy my life that interesting that people would want to "follow" it via social media channels. And yet, they seemingly do.

Before I paint an inaccurate portrait of my popularity (or Klout, as it's known in the social media world), let me explain. I have two "followers" on my Twitter account. One is my job-share partner, and the other is another colleague. The majority of my "followers" (and they aren't many - maybe a dozen) are on our corporate social media tool, Chatter.

The first few times I got the e-mail notification that someone new was "following" me, I felt incredulous. They're following me? Then as more notifications rolled in I started to feel a little panicky. They're following me?

They must expect me to say something profound. Or entertaining. Or at least useful.

I started to feel performance anxiety. They're waiting for me to post something. I should post something. What should I post?

I started wracking my brain for useful, profound things to share with my colleagues, and I actually hit upon something that I thought qualified as the former. So I posted it. Which makes it sound like such a straightforward process, right?

Wrong.

The rules of the social media  road run counter to the natural tendencies of those of us who value things like tone, syntax and proper punctuation. They fly in the face of those of us who edit e-mails and capitalize proper nouns when texting.

It took me fifteen minutes to craft, edit and finally post a 48-word, um, post (what else do you call them? Does anyone but me care that I used the word "post" twice in the same sentence? Probably not.)

I'm clearly no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's a disproportionately long time for so few words.

So I posted and waited. Would anyone "like" what I'd said? Would anyone post a comment in reply? Minutes ticked by. An hour passed. Nothing happened. I knew it. Nobody likes me. And that post was clearly not at all useful.

In two days on the social media scene I suffered from performance anxiety and junior high-esque insecurity. Who needs it?

Then I logged in at work yesterday and was surprised and, I can't lie, delighted, to find that three people "liked" my post. One was my faithful job-share partner and the other my boss, which is somewhat akin to having your parent and sibling "like" your post, but whatever. At least my post didn't go completely ignored.

As the day wore on, a few more people liked my post. Someone commented that she'd downloaded the app I recommended. As of this morning (yes, I checked again) 10 people "liked" my post.

And you know what? I like being "liked", which is, I'm sure, the driving psychology behind the whole phenomenon. Who among us doesn't like to be "liked" and "followed"? As the mom of three children who literally follow my every move, I appreciate the virtually variety even more.

So while I have no delusions of building a gigantic flock of Twitter followers, I think I may actually enjoy posting useful, if not profound, information for my colleagues and receiving the same from them.

And if anyone reading this blog wanted to, you know, recommend it to a friend who might actually leave a comment on it, please feel free. My ego can only take so many months of stone silence in the comment field below . . .