Thoughts about taking a month off social media.

I took the month of March off social media and avoided news to recalibrate and give myself a rest. I did the same in 2020 and found the experience especially rewarding during such a stressful period.

Since I’m back, I thought I would share a few takeaways.

Hardly anyone noticed. Only a handful of people contacted me about my hiatus, don’t worry; my feelings didn’t get hurt. It makes you question the social aspect of social media; we really are slaves to algorithms that keep feeding us and distracting us from our actual friends. Are you paying attention?

Surprisingly, I only saw a slight decrease in referral traffic from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to this blog and site and my business site and blog at futureforth.com.

Moving forward, I’ve decided to comment before I like something I see on social media. This means I plan to engage with you much more again. I need to practice what I preach and put the social back into social media.

I’m avoiding the rabbit holes. I have scheduled one hour a day max for social media. This might be done in two thirty-minute increments AM/PM on some days. I will use Freedom to block myself from accessing such sites for the rest of each day to focus on my business, family, and friends.

I quietly celebrated 1,000 days sober during my break. I also resisted posting photos and videos from my recent trips to London, Scotland, and the 12-mile hike we did with friends. Starting today, you can find that #latergram content on my Instagram.

I highly recommend you give your mind a rest. Social media isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays, it’s even hard to know if you’re corresponding with a real person because of bots and the advances of AI. I will focus much more on in-person encounters and actual friendships (with all due respect to my many acquaintances). 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of friendship for some time; I recommend you listen to my chat with Professor Robin Dunar of Dunbar’s Number fame (which I wrote about in my book, New Business Networking) about this topic. He wrote a thought-provoking and data-rich book all about the topic, Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships. I recommend it!

Have you taken digital detox breaks? What was your experience like? 

Catching Up with Marcus Whitney

This coffee catch up was way overdue. I love that Marcus Whitney recorded it and shared it with his friends, fans, and followers. I wanted to do the same here because there is so much great content within. Marcus is a good soul, be sure to check him out.

What we talk about:

• public speaking

• improving workplace communication

• book writing

• LinkedIn best practices

• entrepreneurship

• social networking

• social media

• podcasting

Do you have questions or comments? Drop them down below and I’ll do my best to help you.

Geek Breakfast, again

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There are currently a few tickets remaining for Geek Breakfast in Nashville on Feb 15th. In order to explain why I decided to host such an event, I need to first explain what Geek Breakfast is.

If you have attended a conference that was an amazing experience, you suffered from conference blues when it was over. The buzz of connecting with so many people in person can’t be denied. The days after are usually a little sad when you return to work and life goes back to normal.

The conference blues are felt even more deeply when you are a conference organizer, or in my case an unconference organizer. You’re exhausted but soon crave that in-person connection and organized chaos again. This is what led me to create a monthly breakfast networking event called Geek Breakfast back in December of 2007.

I co-founded BarCamp Nashville and PodCamp Nashville. The buzz in Nashville during BarCamp was wonderful, but I missed all of my new friends and didn’t want to wait six months until the next gathering So, I created Geek Breakfast as a way we could all stay connected.

Attendees from elsewhere wanted to create their own local Geek Breakfast chapters. Friends like Chris Ennis and Nicholas Holland helped design the old site, so folks could quickly register their own chapters. No strings, no charge - just connection. Chapters sprung up across the US, Canada, South Africa, and Australia.

When I would attend conferences like Gnomedex in Seattle, SXSW in Austin, and New Media Expo in Las Vegas, I would either organize a Geek Breakfast or a tweet-up.

What’s Changed and What Hasn’t

A lot has changed since 2007. Social networks are now powered by algorithms designed to show us what it determines will resonate most - both on a personal and commercial level. We may not see the tweets or updates posted by friends because of this. There is much more noise on social networks now because the laggards have joined the party. Some early adopters have given up altogether. Good people on social networks who just want human connection are now competing with trolls, brands, and bots who are adding noise and creating digital clutter.

I became excited for social networking back in 2007. I was lonely living in a new city. I was craving connection. I used social networks to meet new friends. I used in-person events to meet those online friends in-person.

I’m currently pruning my social network connections for the first time in many years. I’m longing for that excitement and true connection I experienced in the early days of “new media”. I’m also craving in-person connection, so I’ve restarted Geek Breakfast (at least for one event) to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones in Nashville.

We all crave human connection. We still can’t deliver true hugs, high-fives, and handshakes online, so we might as well meet up in person, right?

In keeping with the spirit of supporting community. 100% of proceeds from Geek Breakfast tickets will go to SafeHaven. I hope to see you there on Feb 15th.

UPDATE:

My Selfless Promotion Challenge

I had a fun back-and-forth with Brad Wilson and Tahira Endean on Twitter on Saturday. They reminded me how much fun social media can be when you're being social. 

I have been struggling with the social side of social media lately. Maybe you have too. I find I have been having less conversations with folks. I believe I'm partly to blame because I have been spending less time online. I have also been too self-promotional, and I haven't been listening enough. By listening, I am referring to reviewing conversations from my saved Twitter lists and search results, and the Facebook and LinkedIn groups I belong to. 

My Selfless Promotion Challenge

This week I'm trying an experiment. I'm calling this my Selfless Promotion Challenge. I'm going to put the social back into social networking. Here's my plan.  

• I've logged into my IFTTT and Buffer accounts to pause my scheduled, automated content.
• I have updated my Tweetdeck layout to only include Lists and Search Results (in addition to my replies and direct messages). 
• I will NOT like or retweet any content without a comment of my own. 
• I will NOT promote any of my own content or services. I will only promote other people.
• I will leave more comments on the blogs and groups I enjoy. 

I was trying to think of ways I could measure the results of my experiment, but I concluded measurement is beyond the point. If I am truly being selfless, I shouldn't care about the results. All I hope is that the results are more conversations, re-connections with old friends, and I make some new ones.