Social Media Burn-out? You're doing it wrong!

I totally borrowed this from TechCrunch!  But I just couldn't title it any better than they did.  I hear about social media burn-out a lot and I just don't understand it...personally.  Read the Techcrunch post here.  

I am still continually amazed that I can have a thought, and using a device that fits in my pocket, capture that thought, or real life experience, in text, photos, videos, or even just audio and automatically upload that content to a magical space that allows others AROUND THE WORLD to see, or share my experience, in near real time.  Not only that, but anyone can CHOOSE to engage with me and my thought or experience.  This is the most amazing thing EVER!  And I actually feel quite sad for anyone that does not experience the same pure joy that I feel every time something magical happens because of this cycle of learning.

Social media is simply becoming part of life.  It would be really easy for me to say something like, "ya never hear people saying I've got face-to-face socializing burnout".  The reason why that isn't even an argument is that people actually DO burn out on friends, family, co-workers, etc...even before social media came along.  This should not surprise anyone.

The reality is that you engage, and you disengage, and then you do it again, and again, and again.  Each person's need to engage is different from everyone else.  This is critical to understand when you are implementing social learning within your organization.  Please save yourself the misery of failure and DO NOT hyper formalize HOW people engage with whatever system you choose to implement.  And DO NOT make participation mandatory or connected to pay or anything like that.  Social anything needs to be authentic, period.

Learn more about everything SOCIAL with Mark Oehlert (@moehlert), host of the Social Learning Camp at DevLearn 2010.  Mark has some amazing content planned and rumor has it there might be some exciting news and attendees available at the camp this year.  Good times!

DevLearn 2010 Conference and Expo - November - San Francisco, CA