Who are your social media buddies? By that, I mean folks who you met through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media sites and who then became more than just a cyberspace connection. They became a friend.

These folks may help you figure out the nuances of that particular social media site. Maybe they can be counted on to share your posts on Facebook or retweet them on Twitter. Perhaps they are the ones who took you aside privately and pointed out how you might have handled a situation differently on that site.

For some reason, when I think of the kindness of these individuals, I am taken back 45 years to my first semester of college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I found myself struggling with my calculus class and wondered how I was ever going to pass it.

Enter Bob Read, a soft-spoken bear of a man who became my personal calculus tutor and helped me out of the goodness of his heart. I met him because he happened to sit next to me in the large lecture hall where we took the class. Without him, I doubt I would have passed the class. With his help, I managed to surprise myself by getting a B.

Back to my social media buddies:

I remember when I first got my iphone and was using it to make a comment on a posting in the Toastmasters members group on LinkedIn. For some reason what I thought was going to one person privately was actually a public post. Oops! My friend John helped me realize my error, and I didn’t make that mistake again.

Two of my newest social media buddies are Javier Arronis @JavierArronis and Thor Roundy @IKnoNetwork, gentlemen I have recently met on Twitter. Both of them have kind of taken me under their wing and helped me start to get a sense of how Twitter works.

Plus I was thrilled when Javier liked my business Facebook page after I had referenced him in one of my blog posts. I was equally thrilled with Thor tweeted links to three of the blog posts I have written.

OK, for your Twitter regulars, you are probably saying, big deal! People on Twitter do that kind of thing all the time. Since I am still a relative newbie to Twitter, I didn’t realize that folks who you just recently met on Twitter could be gracious and helpful so soon after meeting them.

What their acts of generosity have shown to me once again is that by and large, people on social media are among the most helpful people I know.

Whether you are looking for tips on a difficulty you have using LinkedIn, or you are posting on Facebook looking for a better insurance agent, or you find just the article you had been looking for through a tweet posted on Twitter, you can find almost anything you need on social media.

 

Joyce Feustel, Founder of Boomers’ Social Media Tutor, helps people relatively new to social media to become more effective and comfortable in their use of this social media.  Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com