Thanksgiving is coming and, as I spend more and more time in front of my computer or with my cell phone — hopping between Twitter, Facebook and what feels like millions of blogs and RSS feeds — I’m careful to be thankful and not to lose track of what’s really important (too easy to do in the race to keep up with the “media” world).

A quickie compare-and-contrast….

The real purpose of social media:

Connecting - I’ve made many friends, virtual and otherwise in the past year, either on Social Media sites, or around the topic of Social Media — at meetings, events, Tweetups. I’m humbled and grateful.

Providing value – It’s a constant mantra — to be sure that what messages I’m sending, tweeting or posting have something to offer to someone. Intelligence on the media industry, news items, items I find quirky and worth sharing, a link to a great song or recipe (what’s life, especially online, if you don’t have a sense of humor?).

Creating community - Groups, tribes, clusters, pods of like-minded people who can share.  Find them, join them, create them, link to them.

And then translate the above values into what my husband calls “wetware” — real live human interaction….

Connecting: Pick up the phone instead of sending an email, go OUT to lunch instead of eating it at your desk, wander down the hall and talk to a compadre if you are destined to be in the office. Flesh — press it.

Providing value: Donate time to a local charity, or give a few cans to the Boy Scouts food drive this year, read to your local kindergarten class — and even if just once, explain once again to your dad what it is that you do for a living. Talk to people, talk talk talk.

Creating community: Invite two new people to dinner or for a glass of wine at your house who didn’t know each other before (takeout food is OK; Martha Stewart is not taking notes). Extra points if they bring their kids (then pizza is really OK!).

Happy Thanksgiving, both online and off. May the latter continue to prevail.