The evolution of my addiction

I remember my first time using it. It was 2006 and I went to visit my friend Vincent, who had recently moved from Luther, Mich. to the fast life in Chicago. Everyone in Chicago was using it – it was full of color, memories, friends and expression. Vincent called it a “revolution,” and I was yearning to be a part of it. He warned me it would become addictive; I told him I don’t have an addictive personality and not to worry. I was wrong.

I’m Jamie and I’m a socialholic.

Since my exposure to MySpace during my trip to Chicago, I’ve grown to crave more social media stimuli. MySpace was the gateway to Facebook, which became my site of choice for the majority of my college years. I heard some people were experimenting with Twitter at the time, but I thought of it as a downgraded Facebook status update.

When I was on Facebook, it was like I was a different person. I was free to write whatever I felt. Everyone was using it, but some people, including me, used it too often. I began to notice changes in my life due to my obsession. My relationship ended, my grades began slipping and the happiest part of my day was seeing how many notifications I received.

Since then, my social media addiction has intensified. At Eisbrenner Public Relations, I met Holly, the social media rock star. She told me about all sorts of sites like Linkedin, Flickr, foursquare and Twitter. Turns out, the reason Twitter wasn’t fulfilling my cravings back in college was because I wasn’t using it properly. It’s more than a status update, Twitter’s about engaging with people and now it’s the place I go for news, job opportunities and entertainment.

Usually, I anticipate using Twitter for a few minutes. The next thing I know, two hours have gone by and I’m compulsively retweeting, making new connections and engaging in all sorts of conversations. I can’t go without using social media for too long. If I do, I feel disconnected from the world. Thankfully, I can tweet, update my location on foursquare and change my Facebook status from my phone.

Social media truly is a revolution, especially for public relations professionals. It’s a way to get our ideas into the world, free of cost. What started as a means for personal expression developed into a new realm of communication where people share their stories and promote interaction. Social media has already made a dramatic transformation in the last five years and I can’t wait to see where it will be in the next five.

Are you as infatuated with social media as I am? Follow my Twitter handle @JamieLMaynard. I can’t wait to get some conversation flowing!

Inauguration 2009: Communication Galore

Yesterday was incredible. Not because of politics or the number of people who peacefully gathered in one place to be part of a moment in history. It was incredible because of the sheer volume of people who used new forms of communication outlets to watch the inauguration events and to interact with each other.

Long gone are the days of families sitting by the radio or the TV and simply talking about programs with their families and friends. From now on people will turn to the internet and social media sites, as well as radio and TV. There will be more two-way communication between people from across the globe and yesterday proved it.

People viewed the inauguration festivities from their TV and computer screens and listened to it on the radio. People tweeted about it, blogged about it and changed their Facebook and MySpace statuses to reveal their feelings or to describe what they were doing to celebrate the moment. These responses were in real time and allowed for communication between people from all over the world. To me, that is incredible!

The historic moment opened my eyes and revealed to me that new communication outlets will be introduced all the time and they not only influence how we communicate with each other, but it changes the way we do business and how we handle various situations. We are more interconnected than we’ve ever been and in the PR realm it’s so important for us to stay current with these changes because it will help us do what we do best – communicate and build relationships!