Firsts

When I first ventured into the big wide world of social media I thought it was all about firsts, being the first to write a story, tweet a link, get the first picture, now I realise it’s not actually all that different to the days of newspapers, except we share EVERYTHING!

More than one newspaper would run the same story they might have a different slant or bias, or maybe not, but they were still competing. I realise now it’s about the sharing, the mass audience, a numbers game. Some companies even share their own story several times over with different wording to their headline, football team scores goal, x from football team scores a goal, x scores his 5oth goal! However click on the link and it’s exactly the same story in the body.

Whilst I’m sure they all like to share their story first there is no real way this day in age to be the ONLY one with the story. Even if you have an exclusive, people then quote your article.

So was the old fashioned paper in hand a more intimate way to discover stories, even though they could be a day or two old by the time they went to print? Did this make our stories more intense, because 30,000 people didn’t also share it with us, or are we now better informed and educated about the important things around us?

The older generation talk about us spending too much time on our social media, but is it really any different to other technology advances along the time line? They don’t like the way we start our day on our “gadgets” before doing anything else. I know I’m guilty of waking up and checking everything out, but is it really any different to my parents waking up and putting the news on the radio, then retrieving the newspaper from the front yard and returning to bed to read it before commencing their day? Even my Dad now wakes up and checks the world out on his tablet!

So whether you publish the story first, second or third, someone will be a subscriber to your page and not one of the others and read it with you first! So it’s not about firsts after all, it’s about sharing…….