#holy #hashtags #batman #!

#Kapow!While I’m certainly no expert, I do consider myself to be up to speed on the latest trends in social media. That said, I can definitely say this for myself; it is a constant challenge, every day, for me to understand the latest in people’s digital communication habits.

One thing that I used to understand was the use of hashtags. Like everything else social media, however, it would appear as though the use of hashtags is evolving too.

Lately I’ve been seeing so many random hashtags that I’m finding myself wondering again: am I lost and falling behind? Am I missing something?

To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, here are just a few examples of some really far out there, and seemingly pointless (also some very offensive and hateful) hashtags that I’ve come across recently:

The random:

And, the depressing /  hateful:

And this is just a small sampling. There’s an endless supply of completely random, and useless (at least to my knowledge) hashtags floating through cyber-space at this very moment.

Now, Im not saying that this is right or wrong, as again, I’m not an expert. I’m really just hoping that you can help shed some light on this for me. If you’re a hyper-tagger I want to hear from you. What motivates you to hashtag everything you say? What benefits do you feel you reap from this? Leave comments below!

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Thank you for reading what I have to say today. Signing off, this is Adam Weitner

Can you see the real me?

This past Tuesday I attended Third Tuesday Toronto (#TTT for those on Twitter), an event hosted by Thornley Fallis Marketing Communications. Their guest speaker was Mitch Joel (@mitchjoel), who came to talk to us about “personal brand”.

A big point of his presentation that really resonated with me was when he told us to be ourselves online. Whether it’s your website, blog, or your Facebook profile, your online persona should be a reflection of the “real you”.

I have always done my best to be as transparent as possible in anything that I do online. I never say anything that I wouldn’t in “real life”, and try to be as diplomatic as possible when being at all controversial.

I think that my online presence matches very well with who I really am, but do you? If you know me in person, I ask you to please leave your feedback on this. When you read my blog posts, or visit my website, do you see the real me? If not it is crucial that you tell me now! The last thing that I want to do is project a false image, and would like to correct that right away, if I am.

I also ask both those who do, and those who don’t know me to give their thoughts on being the “real you” online. What if you have opinions, let’s say political for sake of example, that you fear may be looked down upon by your employer, or potential employers. Do you share those thoughts online? What kind of discretion do you use when writing something on your blog?

Any and all thoughts are appreciated!

The video below is completely unrelated to this post, but the headline made me think of this great song (bear with it, the song picks up at 1:00) ENJOY!:

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Thank you for reading what I have to say today. Signing off, this is Adam Weitner

My three minutes of fame; interview with TalentEgg dot ca

Yesterday, whilst touring around downtown Toronto, I made a stop in at the lovely TalentEgg.ca office. Planning simply to meet some of the team (in person, finally), and maybe grab a bite to eat with them, I had no idea what I was truly in for.

TalentEgg.ca founder Lauren Friese (@LaurenFriese), being the great person that she is, decided to take it upon herself to volunteer me for a short interview for the TalentEgg vlog. Entirely unprepared, and somewhat reluctant to cooperate, I finally gave in to her (I think she hypnotized me). The end result is this:

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Thank you for reading what I have to say today. Signing off, this is Adam Weitner