Seeking attention and an audience on social media

Hello everyone! Allow me to start today's post with something I had noticed on Youtube recently. Whitney Houston is currently at no. 2 in the UK charts with her version of 'Higher Love' and it is actually a cover of a Steve Winwood classic from way back in 1986. Her version has been remixed by Norwegian DJ Kygo to give it a far more contemporary sound and he has clearly done a good job, given the commercial popularity of this version which has been a huge hit. So one thing I did was to listen to Whitney Houston's original version from back in 1990 (she sadly passed away in 2012) and also Steve Winwood's original version from 1986 just out of curiousity to compare the different versions. So there are three versions of this song: Winwood's 1986 original, Houston's 1990 version and the 2019 Kygo remix - what left me shaking my head in disbelief though were the arguments in the comments section of Youtube about which version is better. Now that's purely a subjective matter - whilst we can evaluate the commercial success of each version: I note that the 2019 Kygo version reached no. 2 in the UK charts whilst Winwood's original 1986 version only peaked at no. 13. But can you actually pick one version that's clearly better than the other? And who gets to decide which version is the best?

Well, the simple answer is that you can't - they're different. It's like trying to compare three fruits: kiwi fruits, pineapples and guavas and deciding which one is the best. You can state a preference for one fruit over the others, but to then scream on social media that your choice is the only one that matters is verging on insanity but that's exactly what some of these nutters on the internet have done. I noted that this person left a really long rambling message in the comments section that Winwood's 1986 version was the best and that Whitney Houston didn't do the song justice, that it was horrible and how he hated Kygo's 2019 remix. And my reaction to that was, woah, what makes you think anyone cares what you think? Are you the music critic from some highly influential music magazine or website who has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media? No, you're just some nutter from the middle of nowhere who thinks that people will listen to you if you actually shout loud enough on the internet by leaving loads of very long comments. What makes you think anyone gives a toss what you think or which version you prefer? This same person then went to pick fights with people who liked the other two versions, calling them names, accusing them of not understanding music and yeah - it makes me question this person's sanity. I can imagine this person to be quite a loner with no friends, who has no idea how to make people listen to him/her in real life and that probably accounts for his approach to trying to voice his/her opinion on a simple issue like which version of Higher Love s/he prefers. I felt tempted to leave a comment like, "Steve Winwood sucks, Kygo rocks and I don't care what you think!" But then, I'd rather deny him the privilege of my attention.

Unfortunately, this is a reflection on the poor state of social skills in the age of the internet: the internet may give you a platform to voice your opinion and yes you do have the right to voice your opinion on many issues on various social media platforms. However, just because you may have a burning desire to have your say on a matter doesn't mean that anyone will actually listen to you, even if you resort to flooding the comments section on a Youtube video with loads of your own comments. So in today's post, I am going to give you some guidance as to how to make your opinion heard on social media because this is clearly a topic that some people are struggling with. I am amazed that a lot of these young people have grown up with social media but ironically they simply don't have the social skills to know how to use social media effectively. After all, the clue is in the word 'social': should you be surprised that you need social skills to use social media? But here's the thing about social media - nobody bothers taking a course or even reading a manual when it comes to trying to use a platform like Instagram: we simply sign up, log on and learn as we go along, right? Sometimes when things do go wrong, we will look up solutions on the internet and see how others have dealt with the same problem but otherwise we all simply figure it out as we go along - some more effectively than others. That is why some people are seemingly clueless when it comes to how to engage others on social media and so let's cover a few basic principles now.

1. You reap what you sow on social media

Let's use Youtube as an example: most of us are passive users of Youtube because we simply watch videos. A small number of us are active users of Youtube in that we actually upload videos to Youtube and have our own channel(s). That distinction is clear enough but what about people who leave comments on Youtube videos - are they active or passive users? That's in the grey area but they're only just one step up from the passive users - Youtubers lke myself love receiving comments on their videos because it is a form of validation especially if someone says something nice about your work and even if someone says something nasty or critical, I always think that it is better to be criticized than to be ignored. But how many times have you actually scrolled down to read the comments after having watched the video? Most people don't actually bother doing that unless they really have something to say and want to leave a comment themselves; and even then, it is questionable whether or not they bother reading the other comments before leaving their own comment. Hence a vast majority of the comments on Youtube videos are just ignored and thus even if you have put a lot of time and effort into writing your comment, it is probable that nobody would ever read your comment apart from the Youtuber. So with that in mind, let's set your expectations before you even start to leave that comment: if you really have something insightful or interesting to say, then the only way to really get the attention you want is to become an active user, ie. make a Youtube before. Of course, it is time consuming and a lot of hard work to create a good Youtube video, but you reap what you sow. Be realistic: you're not going to get many people to listen to what you have to say by simply leaving very long comments; create your own Youtube video instead if you really want to be heard.

2. Pick the right subject matter - nobody is interested in you. 

Everyone has a mobile phone that can record videos but even if you were to upload a video onto Youtube, what makes you think anyone will want to see it? It will depend on the quality of your content: do you have anything new and unique to offer? So even if that Steve Winwood fan made a video of himself ranting about how Steve Winwood's version of Higher Love is better than the 2019 Kygo remix, he is hardly going to get any hits because most people looking for the song actually just want to hear the song or see the music video, rather than hear a fan expressing an opinion. So if this person genuinely wanted to get people interested in the music of Steve Winwood, then there are many options to take: perhaps he could upload some of the lesser known tracks that were never released as singles, hence allowing young people who weren't around in the 1980s to hear his music for the first time. He could perhaps track down rare footage of Winwood's concerts from earlier in his career or maybe even find footage of interviews that Winwood gave back in the 1980s. But then you see, the focus of the content has got to be about Steve Winwood and his music, rather than how you feel about Steve Winwood because the bottom line is that yes there are many fans of hardcore fans of Steve Winwood out there - he was after all a huge star back in the 1980s. But a big mistake people make on social mistake is that they try to make themselves the subject matter and that often fails for obvious reasons. On my blog, I find that the most popular articles are often those where I interview people who are far more interesting than me but when I get self-indulgent and write something about myself, that is when I painfully realize that hardly anyone is interested in me at all.

3. Who is your target audience? Who are you trying to engage? 

Let's go back to the guy who was leaving many messages on Youtube about which version of 'Higher Love' was better - I'm not sure whom he was trying to appeal to: was he trying to get other Steve Winwood fans to agree with him? Was he trying to provoke or offend the fans of Whitney Houston or Kygo? I'm not sure but I think most people just ignored his comments as the rant of a nutter, not even fans of Steve Winwood would bother engaging someone like that on social media. Allow me to share with you an incident from my recent trip to Argentina: we were in Buenos Aires when there was this woman who was preaching in a public square. Like she was literally standing on a plastic chair and shouting at the crowds whilst passionately waving a bible in her hands. Most people just ignored her of course and nobody lingered around her long enough to hear more than a sentence, hence she effectively had no audience despite being in a rather crowded square near the entrance to a train station. Now my Spanish is pretty good but this woman has a really thick Argentinian accent so I struggled to understand her - she was screaming passionately at the top of her voice rather than speaking slowly and clearly, so the chances of me actually understanding her were pretty darn slim. However, this preacher lady noticed that I was observing her and so she turned her attention to me and started addressing me directly. I was not interested in her message at all as I am an atheist and in either case, I thought she was nuts. Nonetheless, she got off her chair and came to over to me, I thought it would be too rude to run away so I just smiled and said buenos dias.

Rather than get into an awkward conversation with her in Spanish, I simply played the tourist card and said to her in English, "I'm terribly sorry, I don't speak Spanish, I'm a tourist. Do you speak English please?" I thought that would have been enough to deter her from pestering me, but oh no - she didn't give up and she kept following me and preaching in Spanish to the point where I stopped a passer-by for help. I asked this man if he spoke English and he said yes, I do. So I asked him to explain to the preacher lady that I don't speak any Spanish, I couldn't understand what she is saying and it was pointless for her to preach to me in Spanish and if she wanted to preach to me, she needed to do it in English. The man translated what I said but she didn't seem to listen to him at all - she simply continued preaching to us in the same manner and that's when the man said to me, "ignore her, she's fucking crazy you know. She doesn't care if you understand what she is saying, I'm 100% Argentinian, I speak Spanish and even I don't know what the fuck she is saying as she's just shouting completely random things, she is not coherent. She doesn't care if a single person today in the plaza actually stopped and listened to a word she said. She is not having a conversation with you, it is her monologue. She just wants to feel holy and righteous by standing there and preaching at the top of her voice - she probably thinks that god is somehow going to give her a ticket to heaven for spending her days preaching in the streets like that but I think she's just a lonely old woman with no friends, no children and she likes listening to the sound of her own voice. She probably thinks that she sounds so articulate and very convincing but she is oblivious to the fact that everyone around are just ignoring her and she doesn't have an audience. Leave her alone, just walk away, don't waste your time with her."

4. Most people have awful communication skills. 

I get the impression that a lot of the people on social media behave very much like that crazy preacher lady in Argentina - they just want to shout out what they think on social media, they are not even thinking about whom their audience are or how they might respond to the message. They simply have an uncontrollable urge to share with the world what they are thinking - in most cases, they will simply be ignored the same way everyone was just walking past and ignoring that crazy preacher lady. It goes beyond Youtube of course - this kind of verbal diarrhea is best scene on internet forums where even the standard of English is so low it becomes hard to understand what they are trying to say. But then again, I'm afraid most people just aren't that articulate or eloquent when it comes to expressing themselves. After all, I work in sales and marketing - I have to deliver sales pitches all the time and they are designed to coerce people into buying, so my ability to earn money depends entirely on being articulate, eloquent and convincing. I joined an Extinction Rebellion protest in London recently (about improving road safety for cyclists) and I was appalled at just how atrocious some of the speeches were - these speakers were clearly passionate about the topic and they had the technical knowledge, what they lacked however was the skill to organize their thoughts into a concise speech that made an impact and they certainly lacked basic public speaking skills. There was this lady who had this irritating impediment which I thought she was totally oblivious about. I call this the 'erm' infection -try reading the following sentence in a normal voice out aloud.

"Investing $1.8 trillion over the next decade in measures to adapt to climate change could produce net benefits worth more than $7 trillion."

Now try the erm version. 

"Erm, investing erm $1.8 trillion over erm the next decade in erm measures to adapt erm to climate change could erm produce net benefits erm worth erm more than erm $7 trillion."

If I had a dollar every time she said erm during her speech, I would be a very rich man! But of course, because she was a volunteer who was passionate about climate change and saving the environment, nobody had the heart to walk up to her and say, "could I have a word with you about just how awful your public speaking skills are?" No, I didn't have the heart to do that and even if I did point it out to her, then what? Was I willing to spend the a few hours a week with her over the next few months to try to try to improve her public speaking skills, in an Extinction Rebellion remake of the movie The King's Speech? Sorry, no - I don't think she would have thought that was a good use of her time when she was busy planning their next activity to nudge Brexit out of the headlines. But that example goes to show how a lot of people are woefully oblivious to just how inarticulate they are and perhaps their inability to express themselves eloquently on social media is hardly surprising if they are just as inarticulate in real life. Perhaps I am setting the bar rather high when it comes to social skills, public speaking and expressing your opinions - but if you're keen to get your voice heard on social media, if you're not content being a 100% passive consumer on social media and if you want people to pay attention to what you have to say (especially if you are campaigning for a cause you truly believe in like Extinction Rebellion), then you really need to think about improving your communication skills both online and in person.

5. A business opportunity that has emerged from this problem

Ironically, this situation where people have such awful social and communication skills has created a massive industry online, particularly in China! I have already blogged about the live streaming phenomena in China. You see, in China the situation when it comes to social skills is so bad that you have a whole generation of young Chinese people who are clueless when it comes to trying to make friends in real life and they don't even know how to get the attention of others online because they grew up glued to their phones, passively watching videos instead of playing/fighting with their friends in the playground and climbing trees in the park. Hence you have these live streamers who will speak to anyone and treat you like a VIP as long as you tip them during their broadcast - so you don't need to be articulate, eloquent, witty, charming or funny - you just need to give the performer some tips and you have their attention instantly. The more tips you give them, the more they will fuss over you and it is purely a business transaction: they are paying for attention. This whole situation is actually really pathetic - like some of these young Chinese people are so lonely and isolated that the only time they have any real conversations or interactions with anyone is when they pay for someone's attention online. I've also talked about how this business model could be replicated for the elderly care marketing in Singapore as we have the same situation in Singapore. Indeed, we have seen similar business models appear in countries across the region from South Korea to Japan and it is fast gaining popularity in the West as well. Given how inarticulate some of the people I've seen on social media are, I'm not surprised at all they have to pay for attention given how they clearly lack even the most basic social skills to facilitate normal conversations with friends (if they even have any friends in real life). 

6. Read what you are about to post before posting: enforce your own quality control.  

This is something I do all the time on my blog: I do have some element of quality control and even if I had spent ages writing an article, I would read it before publishing it. If I am not happy with the article, I would either choose to edit it to improve it or I may just delete it if I think I am barking up the wrong tree. However, we live in an age when the president of America sends incoherent tweets riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, peddling half-truths and fake news. Nonetheless, in a world where the majority of people have poor communication skills, those who are able to present their ideas in a cogent, succinct manner are going to reach a far bigger audience compared to those who ramble on incoherently. My friend Phoebe works as a marketing consultant and recently she told me a story about how her agency had come up with two versions of a marketing campaign for a big client (with a multi-million dollar budget for this campaign) - the idea was to let the company decide which version they preferred but the client was undecided. So they then spent a lot of money with focus groups, consultants, different kinds of experts and psychologists to analyze which version of the ad would get a better response from the target audience: what I found most shocking was that the two versions weren't that different at all! The vision and the message was essentially the same, it was just the subtle details of the wording in the ad itself, such as the difference between, "this vital change will give you a better experience" and "this important change will give you a better experience." Yes, companies can spend a lot of time and money deciding between two words that mean virtually the same thing but can have a very subtle difference - compare that to your average person on social media who would post the first thing that comes to mind without even checking anything at all.

7. Find a community you can identify with.

Let's go back to the Extinction Rebellion protest that I attended and saw that woman struggle through a speech - despite the fact that her speech was awful and she sucked at public speaking, she got loads of cheers and applause from the crowd because they were a bunch of people who truly believed in her cause. This was a classic case of 'preaching to the choir' - it mean that you are presenting an argument or opinion to people who already agree with it, so in such a situation you're likely to get away with a lousy speech. But imagine if we had invited the same woman to deliver a speech at an oil and gas conference where practically everyone there is a climate change denier or are far more interested in their company's profits rather than the environment, well she would certainly have to be a lot better prepared to begin with if she wanted to convince anyone to listen to her message. Not everyone can be articulate, eloquent, persuasive and witty online, but the bar is actually set a lot lower for you if you're merely seeking out others whom you're merely going to agree with. It is a completely different kind of challenge if you're thinking of trying to persuade people who disagree with you to change their minds after listening to you. By that token, the obvious thing to do is to simply find a community of people online where you share a common interest and hence you will find it very easy to find common ground with them - this can be very niche communities that would have never existed without social media. So for example, I belong to a group of people who are fanatics about the reality TV show The Amazing Race - the kinds of conversations I have with them are totally different from a conversation I might have with someone who hardly ever watches any reality TV. It is a lot easier to engage with people from within that community: so I'm 'preaching to the choir' when I am in that community.

8. Are you aware of what others are saying on the topic?

Before we tackle this last point, I want to invite you back to my primary school classroom and analyze a certain facet of children's behaviour. Imagine if it was a science lesson and the teacher was discussing how different animals adapt to conditions in different parts of the world and then the teacher says, "can anyone name me an animal which can live in the hot desert?" Then of course, all hell breaks lose as the children all raised their hands, some even shouted out the word 'camel' because they are so excited and desperate to let the teacher know that they know that camels live in the desert. Yeah, that's how some children behave when they know the answer to a question. But you'll be amazed how many people actually behave the same way when they get excited about something on social media - kinda like that guy which I had started this piece with. He listened to the three versions of Higher Love and decided he liked that he liked the original best - then for whatever reason, he somehow felt compelled to flood Youtube with comments to let the world know what he thought without thinking about whom he was addressing or if he was expressing a cogent argument. No, it was just verbal diarrhea that spilled out uncontrollably and incoherently. But let's go back to my primary school classroom. So the teacher noted, "yes class, camels do live in the desert, but so do many other animals. Can you name me any of those?" Some of us fell silent as we were thinking hard for the less obvious answers but then this kid, let's call him Billy (not his real name), put his hand up and shouted, "Camels!" The teacher made a face, took a deep breath and said, "Billy, were you not paying attention? The others have already mentioned camels a moment ago." To which Billy replied, "yes but I wanted you to know that I also know the right answer too - camels!" Oh you should have seen the teacher's face as the class roared with laughter - it was only then that Billy realized that he had misjudged the situation.

There are unfortunately a lot of people just like Billy out there on social media, they may not have anything original or new to add to the argument but they just want to have their say regardless. Did Billy impress the teacher by informing her that he knew the right answer? No, clearly not in this context - the teacher just felt exasperated with him. In fact, the other students in the class were a lot more unforgiving: for the next few weeks, they would run up to him in the school yard and taunt him about camels. Billy failed to observe what was going on around him - his original hypothesis was correct: the teacher asked a question, he knew the correct answer and this was his chance to impress the teacher with the right answer. However, his brain somehow got stuck there, he stopped observing what was going on around him and he failed to notice that practically everybody in the class knew the right answer and the situation had evolved quickly. This is a classic sign of autism - being unable to observe and process the social situation you are in and adapt accordingly, that's why autistic people could come across as awkward, tactless or even downright rude when they say something totally inappropriate. They don't mean to cause offence, but they are simply so focused on their own point of view they have failed to take into account anybody else's and that leads to situation the one I had described with my classmate Billy. Heck, I am autistic too, my parents are severely autistic and I can look back and say, yup - that's exactly how autistic people behave. You get stuck on your own agenda and you pursue it whilst being totally oblivious to others around you.

So that's it from me on this topic. What do you think? Do you control what you post on social media or do you say the first thing that comes to mind? Do you know who your target audience is on social media? Are you able to get your voice heard on social media? Who are the kinds of people you interact with on social media and do you have a captive audience within a niche community? Why are some people still so clueless about this aspect of social media then? I know that Billy was introduced to you in this story as a clueless young child, but have you met anyone in real life who behaves like that? I wonder what Billy is like as an adult today - would he have grown up and developed some vital social skills or would he be just as clueless even as an adult today? Please leave a message below, many thanks for reading.