It’s not the platforms, it’s you! #UgBlogWeek Day 2

Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and all the other social platforms alike, are used by people who find them, not the other way round. Twitter can’t use you – you use it to push your own agendas and needs. Yes, Facebook might be using us to sell advertising data, but we ain’t slaves to the platform. We can actually leave whenever we want.

It has never been about them, it has always been about you. You the users, who posts hundreds of tweets in a week, the one who uploads vidoes every after a second, the one who can’t miss uploading picture every moment that passes.

It’s about you.

Its about the way you use these platforms that matters.  How your understanding of them, influences your contribution to them. Your confidence in them that makes it easy for you to share as much as you can.

That is what matters. That is what is important.

These platforms help us to project and show the world who we really are and think, behind the covering of ‘its just social media’.

We all know it not just social media, it’s the projection of inner self, the thought we might be afraid to share directly with people so we tweet them, blog about them or even meme them.

When I joined Social Media in 2009 using Tagged, Tumblr and My Space I was looking for spaces to share my inner thoughts, my ideas and views about the world. I wanted to find those who were like minded and shared the same outlook at the world. I used the platforms to do exactly that and I can never blame them for what I posted and the reaction my posts sparked. Because it was me and still is me not the platform.

The platforms are just tools, like pen and paper, spade and wheelbarrow, without your input they can’t do anything.  And because they are just tool they don’t force us to put up what we do, we do that willing. Actually we force them to popularize our thoughts by boosting or adding eye catching words for engagement.

There is no real manual for what to post on Social Media platforms, but each site has its own regulations that stop one from hurting others; thus we all learn these things on the way.

For it’s our character, nature and nurture portrayed in the posts we put up that has lead us here. Here where we are friends and enemies, bullies and victims, self-confident and self-pitied, thankful and jealous. Bitter and happy, hopeful and drained, it’s in our posts that we have promoted our inner selves to the world, so we shouldn’t blame the tools for helping us but rather ourselves and who we are deep down.

A person who has done something badly will seek to lay the blame on their equipment rather than admit their own lack of skill.

Let’s work on who we are as humans  and improve our personas so that we can relate well on and off line. And for those who say what the post online is not a direct reflection of them should seek medical help because that there is a personality disorder.

Patricia Kahill

Patricia Kahill is a multipotentialite Christian entrepreneur, Content Marketing Coach and founder of the Content Marketing agency, Kahill Insights that helps business owners create engaging and interactive content items for digital platforms with a focus on returning a desired outcome. Patricia was the producer of SlamDunk Basketball Talk a show on House of Talent online TV, a former fellow at Harvest Institute for leadership and now an assessor there, and an alumnus of the YELP class of 2017. A member of the BNI Integrity chapter and African Women Entrepreneur Cooperative. She is driven by passion and curiosity, been taking every opportunity that has been given to her with an ambition of stamping her footprint on the world.