With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we all have the idea of giving thanks on our minds. Perhaps your children are doing projects in school about being thankful or friends or family are sending cards and well wishes, giving thanks for special relationships and moments in the past year. But have you thought about giving thanks for social media? There may be mixed opinions and reports about its influence on our lives, but social media has given many of us a lot to be thankful for. There are quite a few wonderful people I would not have met or had the pleasure of doing business with without my favorite social media site, Twitter. With this in mind, I reached out to a few other busy moms and business women to hear all the reasons they are thankful for Twitter this Thanksgiving. Here are their responses:
Twitter has connected me to women I now regularly collaborate with. I've found business partners, collaborators, cheerleaders and fan clubs. Most of all, I've found true friends who go far beyond 140 characters or less. -- Chrysula Winegar, founder of When You Wake a Mother, You Wake Up the World, Million Moms Challenge and Giving Tuesday.
As a mother and a working professional, who travels a lot, Twitter has become my go-to source for information and conversation... When you work in television, juggle four fantasy football teams, and have two children under the age of seven, there's not another source out there that can compile the numerous community circles you travel in. I'm grateful for Twitter because it gives me a platform to share my own thoughts and opinions and a voice in the conversations that I care about -- from sporting event outcomes to parenting questions... It's real time. And that's what keeps me relevant.
-- Summer Sanders, former Olympic swimming champion, mom and sports reporter
Twitter has given me the ability to sit in a room and say, "I've got a person for that" or "I have a resource for that." If I don't have an answer, I can put the power of the "networked moms" to work to find the answer. -- Holly Pavlike, president of MOMentum Nation and mom of two
Twitter is also a great forum in which we can share with the world those things we are most grateful for. Twitter levels the playing with moms, allowing the mom down the street and celebrity moms to share and help one another in a way never thought possible. After all, when the paparazzi goes home, we are all busy moms who some days need support and other days have a lot to be grateful for. Recently Christina Applegate wrote, "My daughter is turning 1 this week! Unreal. Thank you Sadie for changing my life and letting me love you this hard. You are a gift!"
One weekend morning Kourtney Kardashian wrote, "Happy Sunday! Thankful to God for my blessings."
This Thanksgiving, don't forget about the virtual relationships you may have forged online in the past year. As social media continues to flourish, we can be sure that these relationships will become more and more important to us. As Holly Pavlika says, "I'm thankful for all the new friends and "networked moms" I've made all over the world and their care, support and daily heartfelt wishes." As the virtual and the real merge more and more, it becomes clear that we are truly blessed to be part of this era of social networking. It brings us all closer, humanizing our experiences for those far away and allowing us to support one another in ways never imagined. Now that is something we can all be grateful for.