I was reading my friend and inspiring mentor Kathy Caprino’s post on how all of us can and should ask for help when we need it, and it inspired me to write this post.
Kathy says, “Blogging, social media, and the digital movement aren’t bad. What is bad, however, is that thousands of people who need help aren’t reaching out to get it. They’re staying stuck, despairing and hopeless because they’re trying to solve their problems themselves without getting help or an outside perspective.
Einstein said that we can’t solve a problem on the same level of consciousness that created it. I believe this with all my heart. In isolation by ourselves, stuck inside our limited minds, we fail to see that shiny new possibilities, opportunities, and miracles are just one small step away. That key step is reaching out to get help.”
Yesterday I was a presenter on social media at the Grassroots Conference in Austin. Each time I present to different conferences, I realize that the most important thing is to encourage everyone first to breath a sigh of social media relief.
I know you’re all feeling overwhelmed by social media. I know these terms at times seems confusing and I know for many this is also accompanied by a feeling of fear.
A feeling of “too lateness” or what someone said to me they called, “digital generation gap.”
I’m writing this post to assure you that no such “digital generation gap” exists, and there is a sure and true path toward using social media tools like Twitter, YouTube, DIGG, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn for your own good and the greater good of your community.
If I can do it, you can do it. I’m considered at this point a dinosaur on the Web, I’ve been on the Web since 1995 and I was there when all the dot com fervor was at its highest and also at its lowest. I’m still here and I feel very blessed to have been a part of this history.
I also feel it is my singular mission to empower everyone as much as possible on utilizing the tools that are right for them. The key in social media is making sure the tools you are using are the best ones for you. Each person, company, community, non-profit is different in what works best for them on Web 2.0.
We’re all suffering from Post Traumatic Social Media Disorder, but I can promise you that it does get better. Now that you’ve been hit over the head with all this Web 2.0 opportunity, the very first thing you need to do is stop wishing it would just go away. It’s not going to go away.
And we shouldn’t want it to. It’s going to be ok and you’re going to be able to learn all this. When people ask me how I did it, I say, “What choice did I have?” I wanted to stay at home with my children when they were young, and I was blessed to be a technology journalist for a decade, writing about all these tools. I also completely believe in what transparent and open communication can achieve.
The great thing about the Web no matter what the number (2.0, 3.0, 80.0) is that you can have access to so much free and valuable information to help you utilize all these tools.
But you have to be willing to let go of fear, you have to let go of feeling too old, or too dumb, or too behind the times.
You are never too old to learn something new. You are never too old to be a genius at social media, life, the arts, social media, music or even happiness. You do, however, have to start somewhere. Sometime. Soon. How bout now?
NOW.
1. Go to LinkedIn.com and claim your name and build your profile there.
2. Go to Twitter.com – and just claim your name. Think about what you might tweet.
3. Go to Google and build your own Google Profile.
Be emboldened, emblazoned, enlivened to create the online and offline career you want.
I did it. You can do it too. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, then please do it for all of us who can surely use your wisdom, your insight and your presence in this Web 2.o world!
Write me and tell me how it’s going!
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRUeEJQSKbs[/youtube]
“It’s time to trust my instincts. Close my eyes and leap. It’s time to try defying gravity. I think I’ll try defying gravity, and you can’t pull me down.” (Defying Gravity – Wicked the Musical)
I’m writing my book fulltime on Sundays and I always try to listen to inspiring and uplifting music when I’m writing. Today my work ended with the soundtrack from Wicked, The Musical.
I’ve seen Wicked close to ten times and plan on seeing it again when I go to New York in October. (I was doubly blessed to take my teenage daughter to it for her first trip in NY last year.)
The book and the musical help inspire me to be more. The story of Elphaba and how hard she works to stay true to her mission, what she gives up along the way, and what she gains in return is timeless.
Elphaba (the green girl) also changes the people and places she comes in contact with. That’s certainly a powerful way to live your life.
For some of us, we face this new world of Web 2.0 with great fear and trepidation, but I can tell you after having been on the Web since 1995, there’s no reason to fear Web 2.0.
It’s just another upgrade. In fact, it’s one you can make easily and bring together the best of yourself offline blended with the offline. As they say in the musical, ”Let the green girl go.”
You’ve nothing to lose by using these tools and you and your community have so much to gain. The only thing Web 2.0 asks of you, your company or your community is to be just who you are.
Turns out the more authentic you are, the better off you are on the Web.
Web 2.0 doesn’t have any of the old smoke and mirrors tricks. Web 2.0 has disrobed the wizard controlling the masses through fear. For the first time in a long time, you can be who you want to be and create a highly engaged following.
You can be unlimited in Web 2.0. You might even be popular.
You might even be like me, a woman who started a career on the Web in 1995 (to stay at home with my young children) and is still blessed and lucky enough to be going strong after all this time.
You can absolutely engender success on the Web 2.0, but you have to participate. You have to defy gravity along with the rest of us. Take your hits and keep flying.
Here are five ways to “defy gravity’ using Web 2.0.
1. Build your page on Facebook.
2. Build your LinkedIn.com profile to 100%
3. Stop waiting for permission to be who you are.
4. Find the people that care about your causes on places like Twitter, Facebook and other social sites.
5. Start participating by embracing your mission and your messages and sharing them across the Web without fear.
You can do it. Sweep away all your fears of failure and start flying.
If I can do it, you can do it. If they can do it, we can do it. Just take one small leap and defy gravity.
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- Image by vincos via Flickr
As the success of using social media continues to rise, one of the key things to keep in mind is the “economy of effort” as it relates to the time you’re spending on all your social media endeavors.
Instead of trying to be active on all the grouplists, all the social media sites as well as on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook, you need to first take a step back and define your purpose on these sites and which ones will work best for you long-term.
As you think about the purpose for your involvement in social media keep this in mind:
If you try to be active on every social media platform, every group list, every online conversation, you’re going to run out of social media steam.
Web 2.0 is not going to go away, but you certainly should not let it drive you into a frenzied effort of trying to be all things to all social media.
Just pick out three things and commit to doing them well on the social media landscape.
Define how much time you are able to spend on each of those three things.
Block this time into your calendar just as you would any other standing appointment and block out 30 minutes three times a week to devote to this work.
If you have a blog then you need to probably block out more like an hour three times a week, so that you can incorporate what you’re doing on your blog too.
Keep track of your time spent, so that you have a good barometer of what your efforts entail.
Commit to your social media efforts for six months and you will see results.
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Obama has not yet created a “Social Media Czar” – so I thought in lieu of that, I would create what I think a Social Media Czar’s job description might be.
Social Media Czar Description:
1. Must be conversant, witty and have fast keyboard skills.
2. Must reduce blog flame wars and avoid addiction to Mafia wars on Facebook.
3. Must have social czar blog “The Social Czar Said So” and post to it three times weekly.
4. No retweeting – must create and post his own “social czarish” insight.
5. Must use keywords on all blog posts and categories cannot include, “Because I’m the Czar”, “Czar Rules”, “Don’t Mess with the Czar.”
6. Must attend a once monthly virtual potluck and bring his/her own social media dish.
7. Must be willing to create link-love and not only use internal linking but also link externally to others.
8. Must be able to post his entire bio in 160 characters or less on Twitter profile.
9. Must not ever judge a blog by its cover.
10. Must be willing, ready and able to respond to any Twitter queries in real-time and in 140 characters without ‘bureacratic-speak.”
11. Must never use emoticons, or send cute “czarish” gifts to fans on Facebook.
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![Silueta de hormiga [Ant's silhouette]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3002/2444709410_f6d136e0cd_m.jpg "Silueta de hormiga [Ant's silhouette]")
- Image by ETicas via Flickr
Too often corporations, non-profits, musicians, and authors are throwing up a blog and thinking of them as a tiny insignificant ant amongst the more firm terra cotta of an entire website.
In reality, that tiny ant is the key to your long-term visibility on the Web.
If your whole site is not built on a blog platform (like mine is), at the very least your blog link needs to be front and Web-page center on your website.
Web 2.0 is changing everything we thought we knew about websites and how they drive search and build community. All these methods and ideas are slowly being uprooted by this new, persistent, unyielding blog ant. (Think rubber tree plant and what the ant did to it.)
The Web is the rubber tree plant and the blog is the ant.
“Anyone knows an ant, can’t move a rubber tree plant.” Or can it?
IT CAN.
All the major news sites including NPR, CNN, Washington Post and countless others are incorporating blogs. Not only do blogs provide an immense amount of value in terms of driving search engine traffic, but they also provide an immediate conduit for conversation with your colony.
The conversation that starts with one blog post is then taken to hundreds of others via the Sharethis widget under each blog post. (This makes it easy for everyone to share messaging out on the Web.)
If you don’t have a way for folks to pass your content on easily after each post, please go to Sharethis and get the widget.
When your content is shared, it in turn grows and feeds your colony, boosts your “link love” and your Google Page Rank and empowers your message.
Having a blog can be incredibly valuable if you’re willing to work to link to other bloggers, blog 3 times weekly and post your blogs out to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. (Work hard, little ant.)
Your blog also opens up a beautiful way for you to interact with your readers. Through comment forms and your own comments, you constantly underscore the value of your colony and the more important value of their part in the “joint conversation.”
(Side note: On the power of Ants and the colony - (Excerpted from Wikipedia) - “The colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.
Ant societies have division of labor, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems. These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study.”
Your blog builds your colony for you. Think inspiring, uplifting and engaging and your colony will grow.
The days of websites just serving as adpages or long marketing messaging are gone. The best sites and blogs incorporate real, authentic, story-driven content. We all want to feel a part of a bigger colony.
You see, it’s good to be an ant.
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Think big. Think media. Think YOU.
1. Make sure your picture and bio are readily available on your blog or your site as a high-res downloadable jpg.
2. Don’t ask anyone to register on your site anywhere just to get your bio or downloadable press kit. The easier access you give to reporters the more they like you!
3. If you have some really good short videos of yourself, make sure those are posted on your site and don’t forget to also post links to them in your LinkedIn profile.
4. Write your content on your blog and your website so that it’s actionable and engages story ideas and angles for reporters to pitch to their editors.
5. Make sure you have an easy way for reporters to directly contact you.
6. Understand that posts you make on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.com are considered free game by most journalists so post your very best ideas and thought leadership.
7. Read the JOURNALISTS you hope might cover you someday so you truly get a feel for what kind of stories they write and how they write them. Each journalist has a style and if you’ll be conscientious about reading them, you can learn a great deal about how they find experts and how you might position yourself as one.
8. Contribute bylined articles for free to leading online sites in your vertical. Don’t start at the bottom – aim for the top, so don’t just crank out articles that you’re going to place into the old article syndication sites, instead write articles and find 5 online publications to pitch them to. Think of sites like Raintoday.com or Boomercafe.com .
9. At least once every three months use an affordable news release service like PRWeb.com and submit an “article” in the form of a press release. “Ten Ways You can Think Strategically,” “Five Tips for Building Partnerships,” etc., “Five Tips to Empower Creative Writing.” – Make sure these “news releases” have real value, strong content and if you can put something topical to the news that is the best hook.
10. Don’t get discouraged. Pitch, pitch, pitch. Make sure you’re active on the social networking sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.com where reporters are sourcing their stories. Always respond graciously to any journalist query.
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Interesting article as tweeted by Richard Laermer, which is on Poynter Online in regard to NYTimes policy on Facebook and other social networking sites.
Some excerpts from the article to keep in mind in regard to your online visibility and how journalists can use that information:
1. “What people write on Facebook is publicly available information, like anything posted on a site that is not encrypted.”
2. “Be careful not to write anything on a blog or a personal Web page that you could not write in the Times –don’t editorialize, for instance, if you work for the News Department.”
3. “Should we avoid consenting to be a Facebook “friends” of people in the news we cover? Mostly no, but the answer can depend on the situation.”
If you look at just the top 3 of the article that you should definitely read in full, the key thing for you to understand is how journalists are sourcing material for coverage. Every single time you’re on a social media site, or your blog, or Facebook etc. keep in mind that journalists are also finding stories and experts from those places. So be your best, brightest and non-snarkiest in your social media presence.
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I realized today that I’ve hit my limit with fan pages, Facebook pages, Networked blogs, Six Degrees of Social Media Separation and/or Togetherness, over-embellished status updates and tweets about oatmeal.
It’s not that I don’t love, admire and stand in awe of all the folks who are able to micromanage all these updates, groups, 2.0 togetherness…it’s more that I need a break from it.
Oh, I’ll keep updating and you won’t see me gone from LinkedIn and my tweets will still keep their busy tweetyness, but I’m feeling a powerful urge to at least block all the group invitations and other social 2.0 shenanigans from my purview for awhile.
Here are the five things I will do today:
1. I’m turning off the computer and I’m going to see “Funny People,” a movie that I know will make me cry, just so I can feel real tears streaming down my face instead of searching the keyboard for how to make the perfect sad emoticon :>( .
2. I’m going to actually walk outside and take a deep breath of fresh air, instead of participating in a challenge on how long I can virtually hold my breath on YouTube.
3. I’m unjoining these groups, “Join Us to Feel as Though You Belong”, “Fans of Library Books and How they Smell”, “Moms Who Never Make Cookies from Scratch.”
4. I’m going to wash my face and put on some lipstick and change out of my Big Lebowski, “the Dude minds” shirt.
5. I’m going to stop tweeting whilst driving and start trying to write in longhand in more than 140 characters. Wait I have to buy pens first from the office store.
What are You going to DO?
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- Image via Wikipedia
I had to post a link to this story about Ben Mezrich, author of “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal”, which landed in bookstores on Tuesday. I’ve not read the book but the quotes in the story are priceless so I had to share a few of them. These are excerpted from the Reuters article.
“It’s not a nonfiction book. It’s a true story, “Mezrich told Reuters. “I am a narrative nonfiction writer in a way that other people don’t write. I’m trying to create my own genre of nonfiction.”
“Anybody who read this book who was in it, Mark Zuckerberg for instance –what he says publicly is different–but if he sat in his room and read it, he would put it down and say, ‘Yeah, that’s what happened,” Mezrich said. “And that’s what makes it n0n-fiction.”
To that end, because of my decade long career as a technology journalist I’ve thought up some other good titles for books that have to do with Silicon Valley.
“The Dark Ellison Oracle: A Tale of Software, Hard Drives and Boas on Keyboards” – book detailing Larry Ellison‘s Oracle corporation.
“One F-ing Book At A Time: How Bezos Lost Hair and Gained Marketshare” - Amazon’s story.
“The Big Blue Downfall – Navy Suits, Old Cigars, Giant Mainframes and Crushed Monitors” – IBM‘s story
“Twitter -The Dark Side of the Tweets and What the Ouija Board Told Biz Stone” – Twitter story
“Geeks Searching For Booze, Girls, Jet Planes, and Silk Sweatpants: How Google Took Over the World” – Google Story
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Long before you tap a digital strategist or a traditional PR person to help get the word out about your book, you need to be actively working toward your putting your own PR-face forward.
You can impact your own word of mouth power by using web 2.0 tools. Just pick a couple at the start, so you don’t feel overwhelmed and start using them way ahead of your book release.
I recommend Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn.com is your corporate “boardroom”, Facebook is your playground and Twitter is your real time conduit for communicating your very best ideas.
And whatever you do, don’t constantly employ the “back to me” content! Always make your tweets, blog posts, e-newsletter focus around the readers, “back to you…my readers.” Don’t build your platform with your ego, build it with your heart and your mission to share your insight so everyone can benefit from it!
If you always put your heart and sharing your insight first, then your visibility will continue to rise because of it.
Read this article on how Facebook’s demographics are changing.
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