Sharing:It’s A Social Thing

Recently I’ve been using the “share” feature a lot on Pandora. I listen to music while I write and I love Pandora for the same reason every other user does – because it takes what I like and mixes it up. I’ve been exposed to some great music that I otherwise would either never have found or wouldn’t have paid as much attention to as I do when I’m working. In the past I’ve been very cautious about “auto-posting” to Twitter or Facebook.

Gradually though I am changing my approach. Certain types of sharing actually start conversations. I have had conversations with people who auto-post their Foursquare checkins to their Facebook stream. I’m personally not a fan of doing this unless its somewhere really cool. However, these people have said that they actually get a lot of interaction and feedback on these posts, even when they are the most mundane of locations.

In posting the music I am listening to it has started some great conversations, about my music taste, about the period of music that I’m listening too. It has also led to me receiving some great recommendations for other music that I might like. I’ve even had requests to share the entire Pandora station that I am listening to (if you are interested in my current favorite its here). However, not everyone is a fan of all this sharing. Seeing it more as Spam than anything else. Tweetdeck has a “Location” column that allows users to remove checkins from their main stream so that it doesn’t get cluttered with this type of tweet, perhaps they should consider “music” & “Video” columns so that people like me who share those things from other sites don’t clog up the stream of those that could care less what music I’m listening to.

The point of all this is, that trying things that you have previously thought might be annoying can actually lead to positive results. I’m not advocating spamming people. But I am advocating stepping outside your social media comfort zone and seeing what the effect is. You might be pleasantly surprised.

What could you share that you don’t yet?

image used under creative commons by Miguel Ramirez