Oprah On Facebook and Twitter: Bring On More Global Leaders
I’ve been eager for Oprah to join the Twitterverse for some time. As you can see by this fun comic strip I made back on September 24, 2008, my cartoon self was enthusiastically encouraging cartoon Oprah to join Facebook and Twitter!!
Yesterday on the Oprah and Friends show, even with celeb guest Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) and Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams (@ev), Oprah seemed to be getting to grips with what exactly Twitter is, how to use it, why anyone would want such a large following (one million plus) and what to say! But, I do believe she’s starting to catch the vision.
Here’s the thing: can you imagine the even bigger difference we can make on the planet individually and collectively when more and more visionaries, enlightened leaders and luminaries fully integrate the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter?!
On Monday, I had the absolute privilege of leading a social media webinar for the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC), with cofounders and members including Jack Canfield, Marie Diamond, DC Cordova, John Assaraf, Raymond Aaron, Hale Dwoskin, Ivan Misner, Donna Steinhorn, Jim Bunch, and many more. I am deeply moved at the power of what I’m starting to call Conscious Social Media and Mindful Tweeting.
See, everything matters. Everything counts. It’s all energy. It’s the ripple effect, or the BUTTERFLY EFFECT.
“The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.” [From Wikipedia]
What if more people on Twitter and Facebook really stopped to think about their messages and how much impact even one tweet or Facebook wall post, for example, can make to a person’s life?
I actually believe having a large following — online or offline, but particularly through social media due to the rapid uptake — is a big responsibility. But not responsibility from a point of burden, but of joy and purpose. Surely we can use these mediums to create more good.
I’d love to hear your thoughts below: do you think social media is helping to transform the world? To raise the consciousness of the planet? Do you think those who are already global leaders and have large followings outside of social media have a greater responsibility when joining sites like Twitter? Do you have any wonderful stories to share of how something has touched your life through social media?
Mari, I love the “Butterfly Effect” analogy. Yes, I DO agree with you. With each communication — be it a tweet, video, post, or online hiccup of any kind — there’s an energy. This energy could get lost in the black hole of binary code…
or it COULD reach exactly the right person, at exactly the right time, to incite exactly the right action, that sets a ball (or many!) rolling in the right direction. This aspect of social media is THRILLING to me, and it makes me grateful to know you are promoting and perpetuating this idea(l).
Thanks for investing your time, talents, and energy toward this greater purpose.
I’m not sure how I feel about it. I see the value in it when you see the power President Obama unleashed. But on the other hand you have people like Rush Limbaugh. So I’m just not sure. It could cause more polarization.
Great post, Mari! Love the comic. Love the topic even more :).
I absolutely agree that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are helping to change the world. I have experienced this first hand on both the giving and receiving ends.
I recently dedicated a month to fundraising for an organization that had previously done no marketing. With little advertising and mostly through twitter events, facebook group messages and a cause page, combined with live events across the US, we were able to raise $15,000 and triple the traffic to the organization’s website.
What’s more is that we made contact with the very people we were helping. The organization was a micro finance group in Kenya. We held a Twitter party with the bank’s CEO in Kenya as well as one of the bank’s employees and one of the women who had secured a loan several years ago and had since learned to type and speak English. Putting our community in contact with the very people we were helping personalized and made more relevant the investment people were making to help, resulting in people feeling like they made a real difference as well as new friends. That Twitter made it possible for us to to bridge the location and culture gap without much investment other than time was simply amazing.
In my opinion, if an individual or a group wants to make a difference using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, they can make a huge drop, leading to an enormous ripple effect long term!
Jyl (Mom It Forward/#gno)s last blog post..Make a Meaningful Difference in Your Family’s Life By Being Prepared!
Mari I love this blog!
Yes I agree, there is vast untapped potential in social media for spiritual teachers & leaders.
I’m a ‘Light Coach’, I work with energy, consciousness & spiritual evolution & speaking as a fledgling spiritual teacher I am really slipping into the stream of this revolution in online community.
I love it! I get it! As a result I will be one of the first generation ‘Lightworker Entrepreneurs’ because of the social media explosion. I know I will be guiding the next generation of Lightworkers to embrace all these modern tools to bring spirit & matter together.
The problem has been that many of us spiritual/intuitive folk struggle with technology full stop! Many of us may have felt that the internet was actually more to do with the old paradigm than any new paradigm of evolving consciousness, but we are catching up.
I’m always the youngest in the spiritual leadership circles which is a bit daunting at times but now I get it. The new Lightworker Entrepreneurs need a foot in both camps, they need to speak the language of the great wayshowers (Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay etc)but also get the new technology & use it to spread light, connect with & inspire the next generation Leaders of Light.
I say welcome to the Technospiritual R-evolution!
Blessings,
Kimberley Jones
Hi Mari –
I do agree that as Twitter becomes more widespread, people will realize the power of their messages – and the effect those messages have on people every day. I think the beauty of twitter is that it reminds us how much we have in common and how ordinary and even vulnerable we are – hearing actors and politicians and industry leaders tweet about what makes them tick really allows the rest of us to connect with them in a way we otherwise couldn’t. Twitter does bring people together in the end.
areg
Hi Mari,
Thx again for your presentation to The Transformational Leadership Council and bringing your wisdom to us so we can further our messages.
Im looking forward to our business strategy session with you, John Assaraf and myself at the house next weekend. Look out world…here we come :).
Jim Bunch
I think that Twitter in particular has a potential to be a powerful social transformation catalyst. It’s easy and fast to send out a tweet, you can reach a great breadth of people, and you are liberated from the friends and family context of Facebook, or the colleagues and acquaintances context of LinkedIn (not that either of those are bad.)
This freedom allows you to connect to people based purely on similar interests, such as conscious business, and because of this I think it can be more global.
With or not Twitter ends up being a tool of transformation or a tool to further enhance our self centered me-bubbles that many people live in today, is up to us to decide. Opening up the question and putting our stack in the ground on this issue I believe can have a really big effect.
There is also the evidence of history to look at, that when new forms of communication technology arise–it catalyzes a growth in human culture and consciousness. For example when the Gutenberg Press was invented it spurred our modern industrial, rational, literate society. The internet is another such point of change…and like it or not, this instantaneous communication of the Twittershpere is its most radical development. So we will change… but how?
Something to think about when we next Tweet.
Christiana Briddell
http://www.evolutionaryimpact.com
Christiana Briddells last blog post..3 Human Rules for Reaching Out to New "JV" Partners
I agree with you Mari that good can be created but I think on the other side of the con people need to be really mindful of the power they can exert through Facebook. As an example: back in January I wrote a blog post which was pulled into my FB Notes, about Air Canada and how awful they had been to me at Heathrow airport because I have a UK passport and a Canadian citizenship card (- they were adamant that I had to have a permament resident card to be allowed back into Canada). My FB Note was read (unbeknown to me) by a real friend on Facebook who cited it at a marketing conference in Seoul as an example of how companies no longer have control over the messages that are sent out about their business. The moral of this story is – when those of us with thousands of friends on FB and followers on Twitter mention anything we need to be really sure that we are comfortable that it may well travel the world and be reasinably sure that it could not do harm to someone somewhere.
Yes, Mari, you are right on the money! As in all networking, one of the key mindsets on Twitter is to be a Go-Giver rather than a Go-Getter. Have you read Bob Burg’s amazing book about The Go-Giver?
DId you see today’s Wall Street Journal? They wrote about the Twitter Revolution. You can see more at my blog: http://www.suzipomerantz.com/social-media/the-twitter-revolution-in-todays-wsj/
Cheers!
Suz 🙂
Suzi Pomerantzs last blog post..The Twitter Revolution in Today’s WSJ
That is so funny that your comic strip could actually come true one day! I really love the various charities and causes that are being supported via Twitter. It’s great to see social media being used in such a positive way.
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