Monday, January 26, 2015

Lessons Learned from a Short but Sweet Social Media Cleanse

Happiness is a form of courage... You may not know this but I'm not popular. Not in the traditional sense of the word. The only power I have is with my words. My greatest source of influence is with this blog. Here, I surprisingly reach 200 people per post. Recently, I have been getting upset over social media. It's changed and not what it once was. Thanks to the new algorithms they started using, I feel as though hardly anyone on my social media sites can see my posts, and that includes my Tweets.

Personally, I always felt drawn to Twitter just because of the idea of reaching people you don't even know, and getting their attention with a 140 character little blurb of just the right words (and now emojis). I also loved how you could instantly tweet your fave celebs and they would reply right back. It was like a dream come true for a girl like me who loved writing fan mail letters to her fave male celebrities. Plus, I loved how on Twitter your posts were seen by everyone regardless. There was no minimum number of likes you needed or shares or comments. You just got to express yourself and somebody somewhere who either followed you or didn't would start a conversation, retweet your tweet if they agreed, and well, I always thought the favorite tweets were reserved for the really cool tweets you got back from that one celebrity you never thought would see your mention, etc.

Up until 2012, I had like 15 tweets in my favorites. Most of them were replies I got from my favorite authors or skateboarders.

Like for instance, this tweet. I was the first fan that Ryan ever replied to. (All those fan letters did aid in my favor).

Yet, now Twitter has become a competition of who can get the most retweets and favorites on each tweet. I started getting upset because my own sisters were not supporting me on social media. Then, there was the people on my TimeLine on Twitter who got like 30 favorites and 50 plus retweets per Tweet. For example, on Christmas, I was on Twitter and Ansel Elgort posted a tweet and within 7 seconds he had 617 retweets and 538 favorites. IN SEVEN SECONDS. There is no fault in them stars there. ♥

Anyway, I'm not someone who has ever begged for attention because I always leave it in God's hands and if something is meant to reach people, God will see to it that it reaches the people that need it or need to see it.

So this past Wednesday, I was fed up (once again) with social media. I also was dealing with a ton of family drama that I didn't want to vent to social media about (I'm training myself on being a better PR professional). My social media cleanse would include all social media (Facebook, Twitter, and I couldn't even stalk my fave celebrities instagrams). It went from Wednesday January 21 at noon to Monday January 26 at noon.

Surprisingly, I found that even though I wasn't posting on social media, I still heard from people. People even sent me texts to check up on me. It was incredibly wonderful. Yet, I learned something about myself from this whole experiment:


That and I MATTER to the world much more than RTs, Faves, Likes, Comments, or Algorithms can define. 

Albert Einstein once said, "Don't strive to be a success; strive to be of value."♥ 

As much as I would love to have my phone explode because my Tweets literally shut down Twitter, or to get that blue check mark that means you are Twitter Verified, I like me and my social media the way it is. I mean, I use it to connect with people. Not to market myself first, to become famous, or even to make money. Those are nice ideas but they don't impress me. My life goal is and always has been to be an inspiration to young people everywhere and to connect with people on a personal level. So yeah, I may tweet about personal matters sometimes but that is because it keeps me aware that at the end of the day, I may have accomplished a lot of REALLY AMAZING, GREAT things so far in my life but I'm still ordinary Chelsea. And I don't ever want to change that no matter who verifies me or chooses to support me.♥

Some people you just have to follow on Twitter have some wise words I love seeing in my Twitter Timeline:

Follow her at @MissMandyHale on Twitter


Follow her at @Emitoms

Mandy Hale aka @TheSingleWoman recently posted a short blog on comparing your life with others.

Lastly, do I think this blog will make me popular? Maybe, maybe not. The truth is I had fun writing it and I'm just happy I have a place to share my thoughts with those who care enough to read them. 

Emily Thomas just tweeted something that I think concludes this blog rather nicely:


Until next time, remember: "Jesus made himself of no reputation...We all want to be well thought of but to be free, you have to be you." -Joyce Meyer♥

Love Times Infinity,
Chelsea 
xoxo
God Bless!
~Just Keep Swimming~





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