It is election week, and everyone is waiting for the eruption on social media. In week's like this, it becomes clear that everyone has a political opinion, everyone is their own expert, and everyone does not agree.
In the "friendship" world of social media, real life friendships can be lost because someone does not appreciate another person's perspective and hurts everyday relationships.
So how can you not be a (poop emoji) on social media this week and every week:
- Understand that Sometimes the Story Has Multiple Sides- Social media presents the temptation to sound byte complex issues into a single Tweet of text. We live in a world that has many challenges that are worthy of deep discussions that cannot be faithfully represented without a real life conversation.
- Fact Check Before You Post- We must admit the shocking reality that not everything posted on the internet is true. We owe it to our followers to not broadcast false and misleading information through our social media channels.
- Acknowledge that You Cannot Be the Expert on Everything- Though our natural assumption is that we know everything and are inherently awesome, we cannot know everything and be an expert on every topic. A true sign of knowledge is having the humility to understand that there are things that you are not an expert on. We must stop positioning ourselves as experts on all topics online.
- Seek to Promote Kindness Online- In a world of confusion, frustration, and unknown, you can be a part of promoting kindness online. Though you may think that your Facebook friend is an idiot, you can treat them with kindness. Though you may want to debate your platform as the expert, you can kindly leave the debates to the experts. When you spread kindness online, you page becomes a place of life and encouragement for others.
At Reliant Media, we want to encourage you to vote your convictions this week and be passionate about your candidate, but in the midst of that, let kindness mark our social media interactions. Maybe the world would be a better place if we decided that being kind was more important than making sure someone else was right according to our definition of right.