Say NO TO FOLLOW! A little self-reflecting rant.

Enough of this Follow Me stuff! Seriously, I follow enough stuff already. Follow me tells me you are going to push your brand, your thoughts, your ideology on me…one tweet, one post, one update at a time. Really, are we so self-indulged to think that everyone has something so important to say that we must follow everything. That is not social…it is a dictatorship of push notifications.

Say yes to join! Join the conversation, join the community, join the fun…join not follow.

Think about it the next time you set-up a campaign. But who really wants to create a campaign, everyone creates campaigns. Why not create communities. Communities do not follow everyone in the group, they join a conversation. They area community of people with common conversation.

How about just share! Share the conversation.

We are so excited that we have created a social media account, we want to stamp it on every freaking media outlet from television, print, websites, post card, etc. We place icons on these pieces with something that says “Follow Us.” But how do we follow you when you do not even put the URL for us to click and type. I guess “you” spent so much money on these campaigns, you feel like you have to tell everyone and include the social networks to make sure the “target audience” follows the message. But what happens after you follow? Seriously, what do I do after I follow. Should I sit back and feel excited that you are now going to overwhelm me with updates and not even let me join the conversation. Because when I follow you, you do not even have the common courtesy to respond with a conversation after all of your push notifications.

We are so excited that we created these campaigns, we do not even think of the un-sustainable effect they will have with a “Follow” mentality. Why…because what is going to happen when the person who is pushing the information leaves, changes, looses interest in the campaign. If it is all push, then the community is not leading the charge…the community is the sustainable part of the message.

Say no to Follow and yes to Share! Go find the community and build the technology around the community to facilitate engagement.