Social media can be a tremendous force for good - fostering connection, community and reducing isolation.

But it can also be used as a weapon to hurt people.

In this short episode - specially created for Social Media Kindness Day - I share my personal experience of the negative side of social media.

Which might make you think twice before you hit the 'defriend' button.

Key Links

Janet Murray’s Courageous Content Planner

Janet Murray’s website

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Janet Murray on LinkedIn

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

Hi, it's Janet Murray here. And here's a few thoughts for social media, kindness day. I'm going to share something on this episode. That's a bit more personal than I normally get a few months back. I noticed a business connection had gone fairly quiet on me. Someone I'd previously had a positive relationship with. I won't share the details here, but it followed an incident where they done something that made me feel really let down.

And I responded quite honestly that I did feel let down. And I just wish they'd given me a bit more notice because it actually caused me quite a few problems. And the tone of my email was probably on the more short-tempered side for me. I'm not generally short-tempered in emails now. Of course, I should have asked if this person was okay because the behavior was quite uncharacteristic for them.

And they were normally really reliable. I should have tweaked that something was going on, but I was busy and stressy. And it was only when I thought about it a few weeks later, I hadn't heard from them for awhile that I started to worry. Now it was tempting to reach out and say, look, I'm sorry. I was a bit short in my email,

but you really did land me in it. But I know that that is not helpful. So I reached out wholeheartedly and just said, I'm really sorry. I think I was a bit short in my email. And I'm sorry about that because I know that you're really reliable. Generally. I should have asked if everything was okay, is everything okay? And I'm so glad that I reached out in that way.

And when I did, because it turned out there had been a misunderstanding, a big misunderstanding, a misunderstanding of such proportions that if what they believe to be true was actually true, then no wonder they didn't want anything to do with me anymore. The misunderstanding was quickly resolved, but if I hadn't reached out and reached out in the way that I did that relationship could not have been saved.

Now, I'm not saying I've always been so gracious in dealing with situations like this. I know I definitely haven't and I can't guarantee that I will be in the future, but I was very glad I did on this occasion. And particularly because it made me think about something that happened to me earlier this year, which effected me a lot. Someone I know in,

shall we say a professional capacity, defriended me on Facebook. In fact, two people I know did it at the same time, which I only discovered ironically, because I was trying to add them to a Facebook page. I created as part of our, shall we say work together? When I asked why the main person told me it was because we'd had some disagreements and they felt it was best that way.

For both of us, they hoped I understood their reasoning. Now I was aware there had been some tension between myself and this person. I did actually feel that mostly it had been resolved. And personally, I generally feel quite able to separate the professional from the personal, if you like. And it may be part of being a professional writer for so many years,

but I'm genuinely able to see the difference between someone criticizing me or questioning me as a person and someone questioning my work or questioning something that I've done in a kind of more professional capacity. But I realized that not everyone is the same. And I recognize that that's what might be going on with this person. So the very last conversation I'd had with them on social media was suggesting that we meet in person because it felt like there were potentially some misunderstandings which needed to be cleared up.

And personally, I think because there's so much room for misinterpretation in the written word, the best way to do that is in person. And they agreed with me. But when I went back and said, well, I don't actually understand your reason for defending me on Facebook, particularly when you can hide people's content. We won't content. If you don't want people to say it,

they said that if I didn't understand, and that was my problem. At which point I decided enough was enough and I did something I have never ever done before. I wasn't nice or professional about it. I didn't splash it all over social media, but I did tell the people for whom I thought it was relevant. What had happened because defending someone on Facebook,

it might sound like nothing. How growing up, Janet Fannie defended you on Facebook, who cares? And by the way, a further two people had defended people at this point. Well, wait, someone that you see several times a week defending you on Facebook is the equivalent of walking up to you and saying, I don't like you, in fact,

doing so would be a lot more courageous. I'd actually have more respect for somebody who came up and said it to your face. But there we go. Because particularly when social media platforms give you that facility to hide someone's content or to block someone's content, oh, your own actively defending someone is actually quite nasty bullying behavior, which is why I spoke up about it.

Now don't get me wrong. It may be that I had done or said something that had really upset or offended. And I didn't know about it. I certainly don't think there's anything along those lines, but I'm not ruling out the possibility. And this is why I started with the example I did earlier. What if it was a misunderstanding? What if they had thought I'd done or said this terrible thing,

but it was a misunderstanding. Just like in that example, I gave you because it's often the case in situations where there is conflict or disagreement that it's basically down to misunderstanding or misinterpreting something that somebody said, which is why sitting down in front of a person, being able to look at each other's eyes and look at each other's body. Language is so important.

So this was potentially a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with both of us, having the courage, to have an honest conversation about whatever had gone on. Instead they hit the different button and three others around them did the same. And when you take that kind of action, it's very difficult to come back from it. Now I'm sharing this with you on social media,

kindness day, because I feel it was a very unkind thing to do very unkind behavior, regardless of what prompted it. And for me, it was a reminder that social media is a very powerful tool for connection and community. And the irony about this situation was we were working together for the good of he community, which is what made it more ironic,

but in the wrong hands, it can actually be a tool for harm and people can actually use social media as a weapon to hurt. And that's not something that feels very kind to me at all. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people in your life or that there never will be people in your life. That for whatever reason, it really is best that you are disconnected from them on social media.

But what I am saying is hitting the defend button from someone that is a family member or a friend or you're part of a community where you see each other often, that's going to wound and it's going to hurt. Should you do that without first, having a conversation offline to try and resolve things personally, I don't think you should, because if you hit that defend button,

without at least making an attempt to resolve things in person, you're using social media as a weapon, rather than a force for good. And that's not very kind. Would you like to create super engaging content about your business and to it consistently? If so you need my courageous content planner in your life. It's a gorgeous A4 desk diary. That's so simple to use because it's based on my four by four strategy,

which involves posting four styles of content four days a week. Yes. Content planning really can't be that easy there's templates for daily, weekly, monthly, and annual planning. So, you know exactly what's post where and when plus hundreds of ready to go content ideas and prompts. So you'll never run out of ideas for social media posts again, and accountability trackers to keep you consistent with your posting.

The courageous content planner is both practical and pretty with four gorgeous cover design institutes from. So if you want to ditch the content overwhelm and you want a simple content plan, you can actually stick to head over to courageous content, planner.com to order your copy today. Thanks for listening to the courageous content podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on apple podcast or share the episode on social media.

That way more people can benefit from the free tips and strategies I share and be sure to text me when you do I'm at Jan Murray on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.