Brief ramble on oversharing…

I’ve been thinking a lot about oversharing lately – you know, when someone only needs a certain amount of information but you continue to explain yourself anyway. That’s an overshare.

Particularly, it’s been on my mind whether social media causes us to become ‘oversharers’ in other areas of our lives, too. We become so habituated to sharing the whole story – even if it’s in fits and spurts – that we continue to overshare when we step away from the keyboard.

Oversharing is obviously a rampant problem on sites like Facebook. I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it, and we all hear stories of the person who did it much too big ‘that one time’.

Perhaps a ’stop the oversharing’ PSA is in order…

Culture and Social Media Work

I believe pretty firmly in the subtle cultural differences within the regions of the US. As a person born and raised in the Midwest, I think there are a few key differences that I note (and other people seem to point out to me, too), and I think it’s interesting how they affect my work in public relations/social media.

1. An inherent necessity to at least pretend to be friendly : This one’s actually been pointed out to me by lots of people since I moved, that I ‘can’t be from California’ because I’m ‘too nice’
2. Over-apologizing (sorry for being sorry when you told me to stop saying ’sorry’!)
3. A need to act like I don’t have a life outside of work when I’m at work
4. A need to talk too much about work when I’m away from work
5. A tendency to overshare when dealing with any kind of service representative – waiters, valets, customer service people on the phone, etc.

So why do these things matter to my work?  Because they shape the way that I communicate to people who communicate to me!  I do a fair amount of customer service (as you’ll note from some prior posts here) in my communications role, and my responses tend to embody all of the characteristics I mentioned before.  When I learn of a customer service complaint, the super friendly, very apologetic tone.  And you know what?  It works.

People like that tone when they’re talking to a company.  They WANT you to be too friendly and too apologetic.  But on the other hand, I see the values of a West Coast lifestyle helping with social media in different ways – like the ability to take your work with you but still have fun!  All of these social media folks who live-Tweet events and photograph every attendee – that’s a great skill in social media!  Whereas my Midwestern work ethic means I focus on the moment and often forget to capture things that way, unless I’ve been assigned to take pictures or live-Tweet, but then I often miss the bulk of what’s being said and done!  lol

So what’s your take on cultural differences and work in social media?  Do you buy it?