Social Media

Holy Hashtag!  Social media is a blessing and a curse.

In today's world, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and whatever else I am not cool enough to know about are the way in which many people communicate with friends, family, customers, business owners, celebrities, political nominees, and sometimes even the people who are sitting right beside them in the same room.  It truly is a necessary evil.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.  I love seeing my friends kiddos, their vacations, their successes, and even their "real world" moments done with love and humor, but I get tired of all the negativity, drama, hate, and stupid stuff that often makes me want to delete all my accounts right that instant. 

As a business owner you can live and die by social media.  (Heck...I am posting this message on my FB pages as I type!)  The truth is someone could have one bad experience at my store or get one bad batch of pecans and rip me, my team, my family, and my business to shreds on social media without even letting me know about it or giving me the chance to make it right.  They could also sing my praises and give me five stars in the same manner as well.  All is fair (and unfair) in love, war, and the internet. 

To me social media is like being in high school all over again.  I get to hear a lot of things that I find vitally important, awesome, and totally cool (I graduated in the 90s...give me a break).  I also get to hear a lot of things I don't care about, don't believe to be completely true, and basically just ignore. 

But just like I kept going to class day in and day out for four years of my high school life, I continue to pop in to my social media sites on a daily basis (and sometimes several times a day).  The truth is many schools, children's sports teams, volunteer groups, special events, churches, businesses, and others use social media as a way to communicate and if you are not there to listen then you are often missing out.

The trick is to tune out the stuff that doesn't matter to YOU and tune in to the content that does.  If you love political debates by all means let me hook you up with my uncle Donny.  As a matter of fact if you love pugs he is your man too!  But if that isn't your thing and you are more into seeing some breathtaking Texas morning sunrises then my friend Jerry from Henrietta takes some of the best pictures I have ever seen.  I have friends who are into fitness, fashion, faces, and fur balls of all kinds.  I have friends who love the Cowboys, the Packers, the Rangers, and the Angels.  I have friends who read awesome books, live in amazing places, and have kids that are so stinking cute you would swear they aren't real!  Some of my friends are so hilariously funny I truly believe they should get their own reality tv show!  And some of my friends are fighting battles I could never imagine waging war against...they deal with so much pain and hurt and uncertainty that I think people should line up daily to just hug them.  Some of my friends post pictures of food that make me want to show up at their front doorstep with Tupperware in hand and some of my friends make me feel okay about my cooking skills because they too set off the smoke alarms every time they turn on the stove.

Whatever you want to find on social media the fact is it is out there.  You just have to get through all the other stuff to find it.  But isn't that life in general?  To get what we really want we have to get through all the stuff we don't want.  Of course sometimes the truly amazing happens while we are looking for one thing in particular.  We stumble upon something totally unexpected we never knew existed and it changes our lives forever.  I am always thankful for those friends, pages, groups, and events that I found while scrolling through and who made a huge a difference in my life. 

Whether you like it, love it, laugh at it, or hate it social media is what it is.  Just like most things you have to take the good with the bad.  So keep scrolling...keep hashtagging your heart out...keep liking up a storm.  Then get off the stinking phone, computer or tablet and go live your real life!!!