HSAY 014 - Mark Lindheimer - Social Media and the Holidays Quote: "and just remember you can be more social." Transcript: Thanks for tuning in for downloading or listening, this is podcast episode number 14, this is Mark Lindheimer and I'm your host, I’m just driving home from a meeting and I thought I'd check in. It's the holiday season between Christmas and New Year's and I was just thinking about how social medias become such a big part of our holiday experience, how people you know, tend to share so much about their lives on social media during the holidays, their family gatherings and the Christmas tree and the presents and the travel. The various different things that they're doing and its really neat because you know we all come together during the holidays with our families and we enjoy the time together but sometimes we're not able to be together with our friends and family during the holidays and social media allows us to connect on a level that would be difficult without this amazing platform whether it's Facebook or Instagram or even Twitter. This ability to visually connect, to interact, to engage with our friends and family on social media during this time of year is really special because everybody's pretty positive and happy and optimistic and putting on their best face for the holidays. There's no doubt that people are struggling and experiencing things that are difficult but you know social media allows us to interact and to engage and its really a powerful way for us to be together during the holidays. We’ve all come through a very difficult election with you know very divided united states, divided world really, that election and to come through that as a country and to have the opportunity to celebrate you know something very special during the holidays really, I think, has kind of I hope provided a little bit of a release valve you know kind of letting some air out of the balloon and the pressure as we go into 2017 and all the changes that are on the horizon. I think it's you know a wonderful time that we should all be enjoying and embracing and I for one am extremely grateful that I've gotten to spend time with my mom and my brother and my family and we just got back from Disneyland spending a couple days in that beautiful park, the weather was gorgeous. It was crowded but we got to spend time and go on rides and enjoy ourselves and it's so beautiful this time of year and you know share the pictures on Facebook and Instagram and you know connect with our followers and friends and family in that way. So it's just a wonderful time of year it's a wonderful time for social media it's very positive and uplifting and I hope we can carry that feeling throughout 2017. I for one am very optimistic and I look forward to what the new year has to offer and I’ll share more about that in future podcasts. So thanks everybody, I really appreciate you tuning in and just remember you can be more social. Connect: I hope you enjoyed and found value on this episode of The How Social Are You Podcast please feel free to share it on social media with your followers. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spreaker and Google Play. Your ratings and comments on iTunes are greatly appreciated. If you have questions about The How Social Are You Podcast or would like to be interviewed you can tweet or direct message me on GAB the new People First / Free Speech Social Network https://gab.ai/ at @ML as well as on Twitter @mlindheimer or on Instagram @mlindheimer and lastly on Facebook melindheimer and you can also email me at mlindheimer@gmail.com.