I'm often excited by the power of social media. &nnbsp;The ability to share ideas, stories, pictures and information with other people, quickly and broadly is incredibly powerful. I like that we can connect with like minded people across the globe. As someone who enjoys sharing information, I've really come to value the tools that make social media so essential to sharing information and ideas.
At a training course designed to help producers use social media in their businesses, I was asked to describe how I saw the social media platform Twitter. My description is that Twitter is like your local pub. In physical terms we visit the pub to catch up with friends. To hear their stories and share in the events they have experienced. When you next drop into your pub, you'll notice that its not just your friends who you interact with. Most pubs will have other conversations occurring between groups of people. You may listen in tho those conversations, you may even join in. Generally this social interaction is rewarding and positive.
Occasionally the pub is less pleasant. Generally that happens when an individual starts to make trouble. Either through their attitude, their willingness to dominate conversations or to single someone else out for ridicule or even abuse. I guess when that happens it is pretty unpleasant and can have long term issues for everyone exposed to that aggression.
Pubs can also be unpleasant when you walk in and are immediately forced to listen to one or two noisy dominant people forcing everyone to listen to their opinions or agree with their view on the world. Its not pleasant, and its certainly not my idea of sharing or even good interaction.
So if you think of your pub, you can get a pretty good idea of twitter! As a platform twitter is a great way to share ideas and interact with your friends. I have great interaction across the world with friends who I share information with. And just like sitting in a pub catching up, our conversations - or in the case of twitter - my timeline is often influenced by other conversations happening at the same time.
Its good to see those other conversations. Its part of sharing knowledge and information. However I've noticed a disturbing trend in my twitter timelines. My timeline is now being filled with angry exchanges, aggressive assertions and domineering opinions by a small number of individuals.
These exchanges are often part of the agricultural conversations that I listen in to. Instead of sharing ideas or exchanging knowledge, or even just sharing a few stories, the individuals seem almost determined to attack each other personally on their views on everything from climate change to how to go about the business of farming. All of them claim to want to promote agriculture and the opportunities that can be had in agriculture. Yet really I'm starting to think, all they are doing is promoting a toxic environment that no one wants to be exposed to.
I'm not really sure why this is the case. I do know its having an impact on the way I listen to their conversations, and more importantly on the way I see those individuals. In a real pub I'd go somewhere else or stop going altogether. And I would probably decide to avoid dealing with those people in my day to day life.
The direct cross over with twitter is that I can choose to do that. I don't need to bully anyone into believing agriculture is a fantastic industry to be involved in. And I don't need to listen to people who want to bully others into thinking that way either. More importantly, what you say on twitter is a reflection of who you are, and I guess that means I don't really need to deal with those people in real life.
I reckon if you do want to advocate on how good your industry is, do it with positivity and with professionalism. You don't need to aggressively ram your views down people's throats. And if you are going to be aggressive in your approach, chances are its going to leave you in an empty pub wondering where everyone has gone!