You'll have to call me....

We had dinner last night with some good friends who also happen to be in the industry, and eventually talk turned to how people (artists in particular) are using blogs and social media in their careers. After a few war stories and the trading back and forth of a few favorite blogs to follow – nothing was really decided about the best way for an artist to make use of the various tools now available.

I was, however, happy to find at least one kindred soul in the group who, like me, does not feel the need to live their life in public on Facebook….

It did remind me of some rather shocking statistics that I read in some recent marketing book about the daily bombardment of media in today’s world:
Every day the average person is subjected to over 200 TV commercials, several to several hundred print ads, non-stop advertising on the street, bus, radio, highway and even in public bathrooms, several to one hundred or more emails, and then all the added noise from Twitter, Facebook, blogfeeds, texts, phones and internet advertising….
The result is what they call the “wallpaper effect” where most of it gets tuned out by the brain as a survival mechanism.

I think this is the potential trap of social media, particularly for those who think they are using it for their business but are doing so without any sort of filter on what they say or how often they say it. We monitor a couple of Twitter feeds just to be (regularly!) amazed by what and who they will tweet about – and we know some of their customers are reading them too. I am far from a digital Luddite but I don’t believe that it is necessary to know every detail and movement of every person I come in contact with, nor do I feel the need to tell them the same about me.

I guess I am just not interested in being part of the wallpaper.