Oh my goodness, talk about excited! First of all, that I am considered “social media minded”, and secondly, just keeping it real, that I even had the money to pay the fee to participate in this invitation only conference. After I registered, I was still in the clouds when I shared my good fortune with twitter and checked the hashtag in an effort to start building community with my fellow celebration goers (’cause that’s what social media minded folks do). I was kind of shocked to find, mixed in with tweets of delight…bloggers hatin’.
Yes, it’s true. All up and through the hashtag timeline there was some good old fashion hatin’ going on. Now, I get being jealous or sad, those are emotions that everyone can relate to, but accusatory and offensive, that’s not cool. And totally unneccesary for a conference about social media. Look, I respect the blog as much as the next gal, love what being a writer has added to my life, but, seriously, can you get irate about something that matters? And besides that, you’re putting a damper on my magic moment! Dang, can’t a single mama (yup, totally pulling that card) have a wee bit of joy in her sad (not really), pitiful (just being dramatic) life? I mean, the odds that I’d get the invite to the conference and be able to pay for my registration…yeah, y’all haters were kind of like a buzz kill.
Here’s the crazy part, though, some of the more disgruntled tweeters were completely off base with the reason for their dissatisfaction. They were making assumptions, tweeting them out, and they were just plain wrong. Folks were mad because they had blogs completely dedicated to the host, and they felt like they should have made the list. Well, the event isn’t focused on the host…it’s focused on its attendees. We are their guests, so it doesn’t matter if we write about cupcakes or donkeys, they invited us there to inspire us to take our work to the next level.
The other assumption is that there was some sort of “list”, and questions about how did one get on said “list”. Well, I don’t know what the list is, but it must not have been the same one that “they” used for all of the other blogger events across the country, because I totally never get invited anywhere! Look, I love attending events, love connecting with other bloggers and learning more about the business and technical side of blogging and social media, but I don’t write to get invites. I write because it’s what I do. It’s what I enjoy doing, and it’s one of the few things that I’m willing to devote precious time away from my beloved daughter to work on. And I do work on it! I’ve written hundreds of posts in nearly 2 years on various topics, started vlogging, am constantly practicing both my presentation and my editing, designed my own header, did a makeover on my site, make the time to build community with other bloggers, and I’m a single mom (yes, again.) So, I guess, if there is a list, it’s the “Yo, This Sista Puts In Work” list.
I’m going to leave you all with a tip, since I’m so social media minded (you already know). If you want to be invited, ever, to an exclusive event that is focused on social media, you might want to start being social. Check your twitter timeline. Is it filled with retweets, links to your posts and you pontificating to yourself? How many @s do you have? Are you engaging with people, or are you just collecting numbers? While I may not have as much time as I’d like to be online, single mom and all (last one, I promise), I try to make an effort to make sure I’m checking in with my peeps, reading what they write, supporting, and encouraging them in the same way that I’d like to be read, supported and encouraged.
And, on the real, it’s just not nice to clog a hashtag timeline with your negativity. If you feel that you were slighted, you have the right to share that. If you want to talk about how unfair the process is, that, too, is your right. But, do you really have to make people feel uncomfortable about sharing their good news just because you didn’t get the same news?
Maybe I’m just different. I don’t know, I like seeing positive things happen to people. I like seeing people succeed. I like seeing people happy. I believe that there are enough opportunities, events, jobs, internet for everyone who wants a piece. Instead of spending my time focusing on what I don’t have, or what I didn’t get, I’ll keep my eyes on the real prize that I get from social media. The ability to connect and learn and build with interesting, creative people all over the world.
At least y’all haters can’t take the magic out of that.
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