how to change the world using social networking

“YES WE CAN”…an inspi­ra­tional slo­gan from the 2008 Obama cam­paign that inspired mil­lions and put Obama into the pres­i­den­tial office. The Mil­len­nial gen­er­a­tion (those born 1980–2000) is defined by a few key ele­ments, one of which is the indi­vid­ual drive to make a dif­fer­ence in this world. The Mil­len­ni­als don’t care about being pres­i­dent or becom­ing a mil­lion­aire and single-​​handedly chang­ing the world, they just want to do some­thing that makes a dif­fer­ence in this world (and it’s happening). So, this is my appeal to the Mil­len­ni­als and any­one else out there who wants to make a difference.

The rise of the inter­net in our gen­er­a­tion has become one of the most pow­er­ful influ­enc­ing tools in his­tory. There are so many exam­ples of peo­ple who have unin­ten­tion­ally impacted the world through things they’ve put up on web­sites, blogs and videos. Just think what we can do if we inten­tion­ally use the free media out­let at our fin­ger­tips. There’s so many ways to make your voice heard, but I want to focus on social networking.

Face­book is some­what restric­tive as far as how many peo­ple are exposed to what you post. How­ever, Twit­ter and Google+ are, by default, view­able by the entire world. We hear about those who post their every move from when they’re tak­ing a shower to what condi­ment they decided to use on their sand­wich for lunch. I think that kind of use of social net­work­ing is friv­o­lous and a poor use of one’s time. Most of us aren’t that bad, but I think it’s fair to say that we can all admit to some extent of friv­o­lous posting.

This is a call to become more inten­tional with the way we use social net­work­ing. More inten­tional to make a dif­fer­ence in this world. Here’s the stan­dards I’ve set for myself and some ideas that you can implement.

1. Make peo­ple pause. I want to post things that will cause peo­ple to stop, ques­tion, reeval­u­ate, reflect, learn, etc. Chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo and, if relevent, try­ing to inspire action. This includes quotes, videos and links to arti­cles and organizations.
2. Shar­ing your life. One of the great­est things about social net­work­ing is that it has added an ele­ment to rela­tion­ships that no other gen­er­a­tion has had. There’s a bal­ance between post­ing about tak­ing a shower and let­ting peo­ple know I got the job I’ve wanted. I try to post things about myself that define my life story. A good indi­ca­tor is ask­ing your­self what your mom would want to hear about your week if you called her?
3. Inten­tional inter­ac­tion. Social net­work­ing is an aspect of mod­ern rela­tion­ships and like any rela­tion­ship it requires inter­ac­tions on both sides. I want to inter­act, though, in an inten­tional way that encour­ages, chal­lenges and sup­ports. The ideal inten­tional rela­tion­ship doesn’t just stop online, it should be fol­lowed up with a phone call or get­ting together.