A tale of a social media refugee hungry for connection…

I joined Twitter in early 2007. As HungryGirl. I must have been on a diet or feeling deprived in some way when I chose that name. Seriously. Within a few months of intrepid tweeting, I dropped the handle, worried it wasn’t professional enough, a little too suggestive. A best-selling author scooped it up, which is where my @JuliaRosien story begins.

More than a decade ago, Twitter became the seat of learning for a whole new form of communication. Unlike tired and worn web forums that randomly erupted into flame wars, we newly-minted Twitterers felt like explorers, early settlers conquering a new landscape. A world without Twitter to Twitter everything. I tweeted when I woke up, in the drive-through, at work (a LOT at work), on the way home, during dinner and in bed at night. And with every tweet, new skills were discovered, acquired and utilized. It was an investment of time and energy and passion. I feasted on the connection, the communion with anyone and everyone.

As a writer who constantly sourced expert and celebrity quotes, never before had connections been so seamless, so immediate, so synchronized. I could Tweet anyone and actually get a response. Remember, these were the early days, when we were still easily fascinated and numbers hadn’t entered our ethos yet.

MC Hammer, Kathy Ireland and Anderson Cooper all tweeted with me at one point, but alas…

The early – raw and unfettered – days of Twitter

Though Twitter was so new, we understood the permanence and volatility of the medium (remember: flame wars) but we also recognized how transparency fostered trust and connection. When a friend was reported missing in the earthquake in Haiti, I turned to Twitter, tweeting James’ name to everyone, every agency. Anderson Cooper was on the ground in Haiti and responded that James was now on his “help find” list. For 11 days, we waited. I tweeted and gave interviews on radio stations and web-based news outlets. Just in case you’re wondering, James never made it home to us…

From my Positive Posse – our good morning crew – to travel groups around the world to business mentors, I connected and connected and connected. My family learned to track my travels through my tweets. I was using Twitter for business at this point but I held tight to the intimacy of the connection, never scheduling anything, always tweeting in real time. A colleague reprimanded me for this choice, pointing out the dead zones in my feed and reminding me that my “brand” suffered during those points.

Transitioning from real tweeting to scheduled, prefabbed tweets propelled Twitter forward to a truly useful business tool. Trouble is, it was also the death knell for the cozy, comfortable chats that had nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with connection. Early adopters moved fast, tracking their way from personal usage to social media experts, advising companies how to get in on this new form of communication. Hip and trendy job titles emerged out of nowhere and along with them, equally fantastic salaries. It was the Mad Men era of the new millennium.

Twitter became our zeitgeist. And as the medium grew in popularity, so did the hunt for new followers. Instead of connection, we hyper-focused on growing our tribes, becoming internet celebrities, whether for ourselves or our clients. The chase for numbers replaced trust and authenticity, no matter how hard we tried to hold to those early ideals.

What we didn’t yet know was that Twitter was simply the first of many platforms that would seek to bind us to our new, fancy smartphones. Snapchat and Instagram drew users in like crack dealers on schoolyards and, as marketers, we applauded every new connection point. Even as those connection points became addiction triggers. If your life isn’t Insta-worthy, is it worth living?

Social media, by its very design is narcissistic, an echo chamber – that’s what makes it so addictive. And so lucrative for marketers.

A leader of the Twitteratti, a gentleman I followed and admired online, drove to church one Sunday morning and ended his life in the parking lot. He was at the top of his career, at the top of everything innovative and disruptive and he simply collapsed. How had his “brand” become more important than his wife, his children, his own life? Something gained. Something lost.

For all of the amazing things digital media has brought to our lives in the last decade, it has also come with a cost, a very high cost. According to the World Health Organization, every 40 seconds someone dies of suicide worldwide, making it the second leading cause of death for people 15-29. “There is increasing evidence that this behavior of using social media affects and changes people’s lives.”

Leaving the social media 2.0 table…

I owe social media a lot. A moderately successful freelance writer and editor in 2006, I jumped into digital PR and then to running my own social media consultancy. Now I oversee and manage branding and digital marketing for an international mattress brand. Through most of the last decade, I’ve been forward facing in social media, out there for the world to see and enjoy. Those early days taught me the value and importance of slowing down and connecting personally while the middle days taught me how to humanize a company, endow it with a personality.

Over the years, I’ve struggled, like everyone else, to balance the private and professional. During a mission trip to Nicaragua, one of the gentlemen I traveled with wrote about our daily activities. I focused on the personal introspection and what I’d personally learned. Another member of our group noted that Bryan reminded everyone what we did and Julia helped them understand it. And that kind of social media connection worked for a while, helping me sort out my feelings and learnings, connecting me to the world in ways I didn’t always understand but took comfort in.

I don’t know when the social media burnout crept in. But at some point it did. Sadness, an awareness of being lost in a crowd, losing my sense of self as I checked my phone for the next ping. Something inside ached and, bit by bit, an unexplainable, overwhelming unhappiness overtook me. I tried to shake it off, soldier on and all that jazz. But the more I ignored it, the more I struggled. Leonard Cohen was right. Forget your perfect offering, there are cracks in everything – that’s how the light gets in.

We are all broken, bent, hungry, needy, sad – feel free to put your own adjective in here. Early in my career, identifying with the less than perfect parts of me connected me to truths that lead to my essays being published in books and newspapers and magazines. Acknowledging my humanity, accepting the unfinished, raw, ugly parts of me helped me find and understand the truly beautiful parts of me – and others. For me being a writer and/or a leader has never been about being upfront, ahead of the pack – it’s always been about being in the trenches with others, figuring out a path through the darkness together, as a team. But the sheen of social media now builds up walls, isolates us and separates us from each other as well as our true selves.

Maybe the best way to tear down those walls, for me, is to start telling my stories again, my true stories. And maybe standing in the middle of those ruined walls, I’ll find others like me, who are also tired and aching and looking for connection. Within a world of highspeed change, slowing down might be the only thing powerful enough to heal us.

So Julia, what the heck are you trying to say?

My debt to everything digital runs deep, and yes, that includes social media. I’m a student of life and learning is at the forefront of every decision I make. Where are we going? What’s our next connection point? The pace of change in technology is powered by jet fuel today – but the way it transforms us is just as crucial. Maybe even more crucial. How will we exercise these new forms of connection to help us move with and empower those around us? How can we use the tools we’re developing to make our world a better place instead of just insta-worthy? And, from a marketing, in-the-weeds perspective, how can companies be part of the conversation in meaningful, brand-building ways instead of just creating new contests or sharable memes?

Digital innovation – leadership of any kind – requires risk. It also requires a fostering a culture of learning and experimentation, inspiring and nurturing problem-solving and, maybe, most importantly, embracing work/life balance.

As a lifelong student, I’m committed to embracing change, being comfortable with being uncomfortable and all that jazzy rhetoric. But my journey is different now that @JuliaRosien is a part of me, not the focus of me. What I know for certain is that my creative energy requires – and deserves – more than the drivel of daily updates. Continuing to squander my gifts in those updates starves my imagination and ultimately robs me of happiness. But my exodus makes it harder for me to keep up with friends and family – and it makes marketing to me a lot more challenging too. Makes me wonder if there are others out there like me. Social media refugees, hungry for honest connection…

Whether you’re a digital native, a social media expat or just interested in knowing what you don’t yet know, I hope you’ll join me on this new journey. And take a journey of your own in the process.

The posts I’ll share here are the truth, according to me – both Julia Rosien and @JuliaRosien – and I hope you find something that’s true for you too.