As a former (decade long) technology journalist I think it’s very important for people to understand that it is important to not put all your social media eggs in one basket.
Always be aware that social media tools are ever-evolving. This is one of the reasons I don’t ever like being called a “social media expert.” No one can really be a social media expert, because even if you live this stuff 24/7 (which sometimes it feels like I do) you’ll still not be ahead of the developers of these tools and the new options or frameworks they are building with them.
While you don’t have to be an expert to benefit from social media, a key thing to remember is, “Your content is not a fad, however, the tool you use to deliver it might at some point be one.”
If you look at MySpace and how its usage has evolved and then significantly dropped – you will also find folks who put all their efforts only into MySpace and are now left holding the proverbial empty MySpace bag. They are trapped by MySpace because they put all of their efforts into that one “next greatest thing since sliced bread” tool.
As Dr. Seuss says, “Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.” (from – “Oh! The Places You’ll Go)
With social media, it’s doubly important to incorporate a good balancing act at this time when all the major players, Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com are at their highest competitive market and hope to differentiate themselves. This will prevent you from getting trapped holding a less than useful social media basket.
Take things one step at a time. Don’t put all your social media eggs (efforts) into one tool. Don’t push all your fans, partners, customers to one platform and whatever you do, don’t throw out the traditional tools for communication that you use as well.
Don’t shut down your website, if you have a thriving e-newsletter keep it going. The greatest thing you can do for yourself long-term is to consistently produce good content and then use it to empower community both offline and online.
And remember, “Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.” (excerpt fromOh! The Places You’ll Go!)
Great thanks to Jennifer Robenalt too – as we talked about this today and she and I will be talking more about it next week at our panel for the Texas Governor’s Conference For Women. (Follow them on Twitter @TexasWomen) We are very humbled to be a part of such a stellar event.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpWAlvWNZj0[/youtube]
If you think of the Jerry Maguire scene and apply it to your signature line in your email, then make certain you will have them at “hello.”
Five Tips For Having them at Hello: (on your signature line in email)
1. Link to your TwitterID under your name – “Tweet with me TWITTERID”
2. Link to your blog – not just “See my blog here – LINK”, but rather, “See how contrarian I can be at LINK”
3. Link to your LinkedIn.com account- again, put a teensy tiny call to action – Come on you know you want to LINK up – LINKEDIN ID here
4. Change your signature line at least once a month if you can with new innovative short calls to action to your other online platforms.
5. Take your social media IDs on your sig line and make sure when you get a new batch of business cards printed they are also on there as well. It’s not just about having your website on your card anymore.
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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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Fantastic insider’s look at how The New York Times uses the WordPress blogging platform to generate hundreds of posts daily.
If you truly want to understand why blogging is powerful, how it is not going away and why you should be blogging then read this article.
The article was penned by fantastic journalist Paul Boutin and features insight from Damon Darin, The New York Times Technology Editor.
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As you know one of my missions on this blog is to truly dispel all these PR-webinars, more-money-more-money folks who promise you the “secrets to getting on Oprah” and don’t ever really reveal them.
Hmm. Why don’t they reveal them? Perhaps because they themselves have not really ever had a client on Oprah? Or maybe it’s because if they did reveal them you wouldn’t keep buying the seminars?
Or maybe there really aren’t any secrets and all you need to do is work very hard at presenting yourself as authentically as possible, and have a new angle to a story that Oprah and her staff just might want.
Previously on this blog, we covered two other Oprah-stories of success, not created by a PR firm, publicist or viral marketer, but instead created by folks who were willing to get out there and really brainstorm their way to the Oprah show.
Here’s the third installment!
I cannot encourage you enough to study what Mubarakah Ibrahim of Balanced Fitness was willing to do and how it got her on Oprah. (Beware: this did not involve stalking Oprah’s BFF Gayle, or Oprah’s chef, or Oprah’s dog trainer, or even Oprah’s mailman!)
It simply involved Mubarakah having great faith and pride in herself and what she knew was her differentiator from other fitness trainers out there. Bravo!
In less than ten days after Mubarakah went to the Oprah website and emailed them a very brief pitch about herself and her fitness center, she was contacted by Oprah producers and subsequently on the show.
The Web and Web 2.0 offer you amazing abundance if you choose to be brave!
My favorite Rilke quote is, “Be brave and mighty forces will come to your aid,” in Mubarakah’s case, she was her own mighty force! Learn from it!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTLk9Fe9IYw[/youtube]
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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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Curious about how your blog is doing? Try out the BlogGrader by HubSpot and see what you can do to empower your blog’s visibility.
- Image via Wikipedia
Blog carnivals started several years ago, and are still a great way to help promote your blog. Particularly if your blog is new, joining a blog carnival will help bring you some traffic and backlinks, and also helps you authentically promote other bloggers too.
A blog carnival as defined by BlogCarnival.com is “a collection of links pointing to blog posts around a specific topic. Usually a blog carnival will have many editions and every week a different blog will host it.”
Some of the very first carnivals included “Carnival of the Capitalists” which can be found here.
With over 31440 editions of 9114 carnivals and 259 new carnivals in the past 30 days, what are you waiting for?
Look through the full index of carnivals and pick one that you might want to be a part of. Also read the About page for more information on how the carnivals themselves work.
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In Web 2.0, no matter what anyone tells you – you can’t simply put up a shiny blog and expect that milions of people will suddenly arrive to gaze at its beauty.
Just grabbing a Twitter account, polishing up your Linkedin.com account and reading one or two other bloggers is not enough either.
In that same vein, your procession (postings) on the Web using all these tools, should never be a series of over-hyped marketing messaging with little or no real insight.
Instead of looking for the quickest way to have the biggest float in the parade, why not strive instead for slowly making your way – respectfully, truthfully, and creatively.
Don’t let people fool you into thinking that just because you’re here it means you don’t have to do anything else.
Don’t be beguiled by folks who tell you there’s a quicker way of using all these tools that don’t involve work on your part.
If you really want to reap the benefits of Web 2.0, you have to be willing to march with the masses. Let them see who you really are and contribute what you can to benefit everyone.
Don’t view this work as drudgery – view it as a way to find your peeps. Find the tools that work best for you and join in!
And always remember to simply be yourself.
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I’ve had some folks recently email me about where they might hear my take “virtually” on PR and social media – and so once in awhile I will put a link to some of my faves.
This top one focuses on community, Web 2.0, building synergy across the world using 2.0 platform.
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- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
As the modes of monetizing social media continue to expand, it’s very important to keep in mind that each person can be a mighty social media force for all things good.
When we just think about social media in terms of how much money it can make us, how many books it can sell, how many CDs are bought – we can lose the very important piece of how social media can change the world for better.
Here are 5 Tips for Being a Mighty Social Media Force:
1. Don’t be a back to me social media poster child. Always think of how you can mightily expand everyone’s endeavors, not just your own.
2. Focus more on how your social media can empower, instead of the increase it might bring to your bottom line. (Secret - If you do good, you will do well.)
3. Don’t be stingy – share your ideas freely.
4. Power abundant link-love – link to other folks who are brilliant and share their posts as well with your readers.
5. Be real – be the same offline as you are online. Don’t be incongruent.
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