Yesterday was a big day in Massachusetts, but this isn’t a post about the outcome. Rather, it’s about a valuable reminder and lessons learned while chatting nervously on Twitter last night prior to the announcement of the election results.

Choosing to respond. The typical feeling in social media these days is that responding is better than not responding. When a customer mentions your product in a negative way the web grants a unique opportunity. You can engage openly. You can listen and learn from the individual or community. The result is the overwhelming potential for a productive dialogue and outcome to the initial criticism.

Reigning in instantaneous communication. Here’s the caveat. What happens when engaging results in something that isn’t productive? The web enables instantaneous responses, but that doesn’t mean we should respond instantly. This is where I found myself – I needed a reminder of the power of pause.

Opting out of the conversation. Twitter was a flurry of activity last night. I tweeted a few items that were reflective of my nervousness and unrest. I received a response. It wasn’t particularly negative, but it was in direct contrast to my particular political pursuations – and was intended to instigate. I took a moment before responding:

- What did I want to say? Would it be valuable or purely based in feelings?
- What was the intention of the responder in writing such an aggressive statement?
- What would be the potential outcome if I responded to the statement?

In my ears rang my mother, “…if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Granted, this wasn’t simply an instance of me not having anything nice to say. I have learned the value of thinking through my responses and self censorship when appropriate (especially in the context of a digital age). This was about someone on the other end wanting to instigate an unproductive conversation. I chose not to participate.

Lessons learned: First, I need to think about which topics I want to pursue digitally. Politics is not one of them. I keep away from it at larger social gatherings and I think it’s time to follow my personal rule of thumb on that for my social networks as well.

Secondly, there are instances when silence is an appropriate solution. If the result is an unproductive conversation and/or the intention of the provoker is an online altercation, then don’t respond. Find other ways to reflect and/or to address the situation, um, like blogging about your experience for instance.

[Twitter bird logo icon illustration courtesy of matthamm, Flickr]