Social Media Sullivan in 2021

The seesaw of the year's first seasons, between the snow and muck of March and the gentle rains and greening of April, has begun.

Most people will agree that the winter of 2020 - 2021 felt like the longest and hardest of their lives. Such loneliness, to the marrow! -- From November on, it was most evenings over on Mitchell Street just the two cats, me, the laptop or a book propped on my lap, and a shot or two (or three) of golden bourbon fizzing away in the bottom of a crystal beaker.

Our days are getting longer now; the explosion of light brings daily hope. I received my Johnson & Johnson three weeks ago and though I got a bit sick afterward, I was proud of my chills and aching joints and headache. My immune system was working as the Operation Warp Speed vaccine developers intended.

Now if Americans can just contain our natural enthusiasm for congregating in large groups a wee bit longer, the newly-arriving mutant strains of coronavirus won't be able to spread among our unvaccinated young people. Go get your vaccine and keep masking up! Soon we will all enjoy a sense of liberation again after a year and a winter of darkness, loneliness, and death.

Besides tending to the cats, one other activity kept me sane this winter, and that was self-education. I subscribed to one online course after another, and sometimes several all at once, driven by the idea that a learning mind is a happier place to inhabit than an indolent, unfocussed mind.

One of the best courses I took originates right here in Sullivan County and is offered by a company called “Superfine Social.” Its two married principals, Danielle Gaebel and Jennifer Bitetto, launched their six-hour online course this past January. “OptimizeMySocial” is aimed at any small business owner or organization struggling to control and manipulate their Facebook and Google and Instagram accounts.

The course is a goldmine of information and a great potential enabler for anyone needing to communicate via social media or do something so basic—WAIT! did you even know it was basic?—as manipulate hashtags. (If not, you were born before 2000.) “The small business owner is always struggling to communicate,” says Danielle. “Running a business can mean immersing yourself in workaday details to the point there's no time left to tell the story of your services and products. It's midnight, you've got a menu to send out somehow, and you're sweeping wood shavings off the floor…” Jennifer, who works primarily in the background as strategist and support, and Danielle, who presents the videos in a lively RAH-RAH-RAH manner, put this course together to teach the uninitiated how to explain their business value or mission to potential customers.

I found the course revelatory and no longer fear Instagram or Facebook. The group of students I joined in early January for the course came primarily from our area, yet people from as far away as Australia and the UK also participated.

I'd recommend OptimizeMySocial to anyone needing social media. For a minimum charge, you'll learn a lot and be of happier mind. Take a look at superfinesocial.com!