Do You Use Google+ ?
On the very last page of the #Room753 Bloggers Trip to Queensland, Australia itinerary there were a few conditions regarding the minimum number of posts per day regarding the trip using the proper hashtags across different social media channels. Conditions like “3 posts daily on Instagram, a post daily on twitter and Facebook” were easily met. However, I did notice they had a condition to post daily on a social media channel I’ve never heard of, let alone used before, called “Google+”. Apparently its used widely in Australia and across the world, for the other bloggers of #Room753 were using it to conduct meetings even after the end of their trip experience.
I personally don’t know anyone who uses Google+, and I had to admit that I barely log into my Facebook account anymore, the same goes for my foursquare account. I’m recently growing accustomed to using Twitter again especially after the suffocating political wave has receded a bit, buts its mostly instagram and the blog I’m using and even when I type in my blog and update my readers Kuwaitis would go “Shakhbari! Who reads blog anymore? Why don’t you quit!”. Because social media usage in Kuwait is subject to habbas, or trends, like everything else in our society, the trend is now to ogle fashionistas on instagram and make silly faces in the privacy of your snap chat contacts, hoping beyond hope that nothing you post over snap chat is actually saved somewhere. If you are to follow the Kuwaiti trends, then all you need to make it these days is instagram. If you are thinking on a more global scale, you would realise that though instagram has swept the social media audience off their frets, there are many other applications that are used and are quite popular all around the world.
Tumblr, for example, was a favourite of mine during a phase I’ve gone through earlier this year. I believe I’ve previewed the entire Sherlock series on Tumblr via moving GIFs before I even watched the series and I even stooped to the level of using the word “feels”, I was so horrified that I made myself stop. I love pin interest and it is quite interesting indeed but I barely have time to post anything there, I also was never very big on youtube postings but I realised it makes my life easier if I simply imbed videos I’ve uploaded on youtube to my blog so I’m beginning to post there, and after the last #Room753 Skype session when I returned to Kuwait I promised to check Google+ and here I am, staring at the screens and feeling very lonely indeed.
My point being, just because a social media channel is no longer popular in Kuwait doesn’t mean its time to neglect it like it never happened. Facebook is still strong all over the world, Twitter is still changing people’s lives everyday, and blogs are as interesting as they’ve always been, you just have to look a little bit harder and perhaps surrender to the fact that you might not find as many Kuwaiti blogs around as they used to be, which is both a blessing and a curse for the ones who might still be around are not posting recycled material in hopes of “making it big”. Keep the faith, keep doing what you are doing, and if you are on Google+ would you please let me know what the fuss is all about :p
