To me this photo represents the attitudes of a majority of Americans today.
For the last 10 years of my life, I wrote about people who lived in what most residents of planet earth would consider fairly palatial surroundings – small towns and suburbia. Yet, despite the fact that if you own a car you’re in the richest 2 percent of the world, most of us act like we’re in the bottom third, searching for scraps. In reality, most of the world would be happy to live off of what lands in our trash cans on a nightly basis.
What does this have to do with social media and online marketing? Everything, really. If this were a blog like Zen Habits, I’d wax eloquent about how you ought to feel grateful for what you have, or whatever. But this is a blog about digital marketing. So my point here is simple. Don’t weave these sorts of messages into what you look like online. One of the things I cherish about the online marketing world, is how positive the culture is. Sure, we have our bad apples. But by and large the community is friendly. And just about anyone except celebrities will respond to your tweets. We like it that way. And we tend to help others who want to keep it that way.
But when you’re only out for yourself, don’t help others out online, don’t really care about anyone else in the online space, and your tone and picture smacks of bitterness, frustration, anger, or just plain weirdness, then don’t expect people to follow you, retweet your blog posts, or even generally want to speak with you.
People like nice people. Remember that.
We on the Internet are a bunch of imperfect individuals, no doubt. But every day we strive hard to learn, grow, sell, and perhaps most importantly, just share and help. And negative values and attitudes like this bumper sticker proclaiming the loss of hope in the world, is exactly the kind of stuff I’d advise you stay clear of, unless of course you don’t want to accomplish anything useful online.
Am I too Pollyanish here? You tell me.
