Communicators International: Blog

We’re spending more time on social media than ever before, and it accounts for 18% of the time we spend online, according to a new infographic by Morrison Foerster.

Since 2006, the amount of time that the average person spent on social-networking sites has more than doubled, from 2.7 hours to 6.9 hours per month. Two of the fastest-growing groups on social media are males and people over the age of 55. Go figure.

So how much time is too much? Here are some signs you are addicted to social media:

1) You Have Social Media For Breakfast. If you’re checking your streams, posts, messages and tweets before that first cup of coffee or the morning workout, you’re on very shaky ground. Get some of your own thoughts and your own game plan going first before you start reading about everyone else.

2) You Like Your Own Posts. Do you post a comment on Facebook that you find particularly witty and then “like” it, too? Don’t do that. It makes you look like you’re obsessed with yourself. No one likes a narcissist.

3) You share big news online before you call your mom. New job, new baby, new house. If your first inclination is to blast it over Facebook or Twitter instead of calling your friends or loved ones, you might be a tad obsessed.

4) Your mood depends on how many online responses you get. If you’re basing your self esteem on how many of your friends liked or retweeted your picture or witty comment, please don’t. It’s probably a sign that you need to spend some more time with yourself.

5) Your phone buzzes every time there’s a new message or post waiting for you. There’s no sense in being notified every time someone retweets or comments on something you said. It keeps you from being in the moment and focusing on the task at hand.

There once was a stigma among Europeans that Americans were a bit vulgar and had no style. That’s what my mom said, anyway. Growing up as a German-American, I would hear my mother go on for hours about how plain American women used to be. “They look dowdy,” she said. “They have no table manners.” “They don’t know how to use what they have to get what they want.”

by Tanja Kern

Those comments made me cringe. After all, I am an American (albeit a dual-passport-holding one). But those comments also made me pay close attention to first impressions and fitting in. The impression mom wanted to project in the 1970s was that she was the sexy, yet classy, Bond woman who could teach American women a thing or two. In contrast, our American neighbors thought my mother was a bit of a stuck-up maneater. (In reality, she was all bark…no bite).

As you can probably imagine, mom still has a very strong German accent, and she is proud of it. Over the years, however, that accent caused some miscommunication. “I love my husband’s muh-stard,” she would say (when she meant mustache, for example). Everything dramatic was always “tur-ble” (ie “terrible). There was also the little issue of German words that just don’t translate into English. Take fremdgeschämt, for example, which means “to be ashamed for someone else.” You can only imagine how often that word was tossed around in our house.

First impressions are based on your own cultural perspective. What’s acceptable and considered “good” in one country might not be correct for the next. Language is a big part of that.

As a U.S.-based communications and marketing firm, Communicators International speaks English fluently. We also write in English, we joke in English, and we know what images and ideas appeal to the American market. We’ve gotten around the world enough to fully appreciate the nuances of world cultures and how products researched and developed abroad can be repackaged to appeal to American consumers. That’s not to say that European companies shouldn’t play up the sex appeal of Paris or the style of Milan, but they should say it in a way that is clear to their target audience and with the words that will inspire consumers to spring into action.

Tanja Kern is a Writer/Account Executive for Communicators Intl. She can be reached at trk@communicatorsintl.com