The Double-Edged Sword

Knights of old learned very quickly the dangers of the double-edged sword. One side could cut the enemy down; but, the other, if not handled properly, could also cut down the one wielding the blow.

Today's double edge is not as easy to recognize. That fact is obvious by the sheer number of those who continually slice themselves up over and over again.

These are the social media sites on the Internet, like Facebook, where postings of all sorts and kinds appear in a common area called the “news feed”.

To mix the metaphor, this is also a double sided coin with the one side being politics and the other religion.

Granddad always said, “never talk religion or politics in public, you can't make as many friends as you can enemies.” Granddad didn't know about social media or he would have included “posting” along with “talking.”

The danger for the bluegrass artist, promoter, festival or any other business is that you have no idea who reads your posts and of what persuasion they may be. Fans like you for your music or for what you do for the bluegrass community, but not necessarily for what your political or religious beliefs may be.

The most ardent fan (also referred to as a consumer by the marketing people) can so easily be turned away when they discover that your personal views are not even close to their own. It's simply a case of too much information.

The idiom “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” suggests that each of us has a point where we cross the line between like and dislike of another in direct relation to knowledge about the other.

A recent study by Michael I. Norton from the Harvard Business School and colleagues shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others actually leads, on average, to less liking. The results showed: “The more information people had about others the less they liked them. Once we perceive a dissimilarity, it's all downhill from there.”

This is not to say that one can not campaign for a candidate using the social media pipeline, but rather that caution should be exercised on the “when” and “how” of it.

If you're in business, you depend upon more people liking you than disliking you so it's a judgment call on whether or not any one political posting can actually help your candidate more than it can hurt you.

If you're posting is appearing on your actual business page, it's far different than if it were on your personal page. That is unless your name is also part of your business name (as in: “Joe Plumber's Pipe Band”), in which case the lines between personal and professional are already blurred and anything Joe may do on his personal sight will surely affect his business simply by virtue of having his name on the business.

The social media tools we have today are simply fantastic and are moving us faster than ever before down an information and knowledge-sharing highway. But like any new tool, the more sophisticated the tool, the more learning time necessary to master it. The unfortunate set of circumstances we have to live with, however, are best described as “trial and error” or “learn as you go.” So do be very aware of the double-edged sword.