The One Thing That Made Social Media So Awesome Is the One Thing That's Ruining It

When this blog launched in early 2006, within a couple of months it had about 30 readers. The interesting thing was, I knew about half those readers personally, because they commented on almost every post I wrote.  As a result, I got to know them. I knew who they were, where they lived, what they did.  They commented here, I would go and read their blogs and return the favor. We knew each other and there was a real sense of community.

Then a few months later, people started buzzing about this new site called 'Twitter'. I finally took the plunge and joined Twitter in March of 2007.  It took me a few months to get the hang of it, but when I did, I loved it. Suddenly, I had the ability to connect with ANYONE and EVERYONE.

Looking back, in a way it was like opening a digital version of Pandora's Box. The thing about being connected to everyone is that you really don't know anyone. I hear so many people that have been in social media as old as I have lamenting the fact that we miss how it was 'in the good ole days'.  Before Facebook, before Twitter.  When blogs dominated the social media landscape. None of us had thousands of 'followers', but we actually KNEW the people we were connected to.  Maybe it was only 50 people or even 10, the fact remains that actually KNOWING 10 people is better than being connected to 1,000 strangers.

Look at Facebook over the past year.  Each time we go to Facebook, our Newsfeed is a stream of political posts.  I would constantly think 'OMG I had no idea she was that crazy about politics!'

(Sidenote: It's amazing to me how many people that market themselves as 'social media experts' will then get on Facebook and make complete fools out of themselves over politics. Effectively breaking every rule that they claim to teach companies about how not to act on Facebook.  But I digress...)

I'm constantly seeing posts/updates/tweets left from a follower and think to myself "Wow I had no idea they felt that way!"  Which is really my way of realizing that I had no idea who this person was.  I probably followed them because they were either the friend of another friend I barely knew, or they were on one of those 'People you should follow on Twitter' lists.

The bottom line is that social media makes it easy for us to connect with everyone, but more difficult to really truly KNOW anyone.

And that's a problem I think many of us are dealing with, and I'm not sure what the answer is. I do know that more and more I find myself missing 2006 and the days of your blog being a front porch where just a few close friends met and chatted. That turned into 2017 where a few thousand strangers come together and throw links to our latest post at each other.

Progress.      

Looking back on 2011

I was checking recently and realized I hadn't written a post here in over a year! I couldn't bear to let all of 2011 go by without even a single new post at The Viral Garden, so here we are.

I've been doing a lot of planning ahead for 2012 recently. And obviously that planning is influenced in great part by what's happened in 2011. This was an interesting year for me; my consulting business actually shrank this year, compared to last. But that was mostly due to hosting 7 Live #Blogchats throughout the year. The income from those events allowed me to focus my business more on training and consulting projects, and less on project execution work. Looking forward, there are many opportunities to expand the #Blogchat brand, and it looks like that will be an even bigger portion of my business in 2012.

But in reviewing 2011, I wanted to share some of the lessons I've learned from this year:

1 - Failure is your friend. There's too much potential in this space to have a fear of failure. In January, I had a heart-to-heart with my checkbook and realized that I wasn't going to be able to go to South By Southwest this year. I just couldn't rationalize spending $2,500 to go to the event. I was about to throw in the towel, when I had an idea: What if I tried to find sponsors for a Live #Blogchat event at SXSW? What if it didn't work? I figured I had nothing to lose, if I failed, that just meant I wouldn't go to SXSW, and hell I wasn't going anyway, so why not? I wrote up a post saying I wanted sponsors, and waited to see what happened. Within an hour of writing the post, I had a deal in place for the main sponsorship, and I was off to SXSW.

I've watched others in this space, and I've noticed the same thing: They are trying things even though they know they might fail. The thing about failure is this: If you DO fail, then you can LEARN from that failure, and improve your efforts the next time you try. This might be the biggest lesson I learned from this year. And BTW, it's not a coincidence that the loudest hecklers are usually the ones that never fail because they never risk anything.

2 - The line between the 'online' and 'offline' world is rapidly disappearing. This actually became a bit of a problem for me this year. Most people only know me from online interactions, and as such, assume I am an extrovert. But my close friends know that I am actually very introverted. Social Media is a wonderful outlet for me, because it's a way for me to very comfortably connect with complete strangers. But in an offline setting, I am still very uncomfortable connecting with strangers. I really noticed this at Blog World, I went to a few 'parties' at night after the day's sessions, or even in the hotel bar at night, and I was very slow to engage others. Which can create a misconception if someone only knows me from online, and they assume I am very outgoing in person. Then they see me at an event, and I am quiet and reserved. It can give them the false impression that I just didn't like them, or was 'stuck up'. This is something I am trying to work on, and will continue to do so in 2012.

3 - If you want to find out who your real friends are, ask for help. Thankfully, I haven't had to ask for a lot of help this year, but I've known friends that had real personal and business issues that forced them to call on their networks for help. Every time, they told me the same thing: A few people that they didn't think they had a close connection with, went out of their way to help them, while a few people that they thought were their close friends, couldn't be bothered to help in the slightest.

4 - There are two types of content creators: Those that want to draw attention to themselves, and those that want to draw attention to their ideas. I've also learned this year that I am definitely in the latter group ;) Neither group is better than the other, per se, it's about understanding who you are, and where your comfort zone lies.

So those are some quick thoughts on the year that was. And I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I promise it won't be another year before we talk again ;)

I won't speak for free

As a stats freak, I am constantly examining sites that claim to tell me more about my social media efforts. For example, I follow a few sites devoted to analyzing my Twitter network and giving me more info on my network, who is following me, how many followers I am gaining, etc.

Most of these sites have an area where people can buy an 'ad' promoting them so people can follow them, similar to the one on the right. Twice now on different sites I have seen people that I know and am following, that have bought ads for themselves so that others will follow them.

Now personally, I would never do this, and what irks me about this is that in both cases, these are people that are acknowledged as being 'social media experts'. And these people regularly trumpet the value of social media as a way to authentically engage with people. And yes, they are often propped up for their large number of Twitter followers.

Which it appears, at least in part, they have bought.

And I don't want to mention who these people are, because I don't want the discussion to revolve around them, but rather what they are doing. As I said, I could never do this, and it feels inconsistent to me with their message that building networks authentically is what works.

But maybe I am off my rocker. Do I need to just accept that 'biggest number wins', and realize that I need to do whatever is necessary to inflate my number of followers/readers/friends in order to appear more 'credible'?

What do you think? How would you feel if someone that you viewed as a 'social media expert' had 'bought' half of their 50,000 Twitter followers? Would you be outraged, or would you think they were making smart use of the existing business environment? Is this just another sign that Twitter is all just a 'numbers game'?

In March of 2008 I had a pair of 'firsts' that were both scary as hell for me at the time. First, I flew on an airplane for the first time in my life, and second, I spoke at SXSW. Actually I moderated a panel, but it was the first time since graduate school 5 years prior, that I spoke in front of an audience.

Now as an introvert, an introvert that had never spoken professionally at the time, my first thought when I was contacted about moderating a panel at SXSW was "There's no way I can do this!"

My second thought was "There's no way I can't do this!"

So although I was literally worried sick about speaking at SXSW, I went ahead with it. It ended up being one of the best decisions I've made in the last 2 years, and now I actually love speaking at social media conferences, something I would have never imagined this time two years ago. And I've gotten to be a pretty good speaker, I get good reviews every time I speak, and at every event I have had at least one attendee tell me afterward that my presentation alone justified the cost of the event for them.

For each event I speak at I spend on average 10 hours creating the slide deck, and about 20 hours rehearsing the presentation, unless it's an existing presentation/deck, then that time is much less. The end result is that I spend anywhere from 15-30 hours preparing/rehearsing the presentation, and lose a minimum of one day due to travel, usually two days.

So there's a pretty big time commitment necessary for me to speak at an event. And yet even with the time investment required, even though I have spoken at most of the biggest social media events and get rave reviews when I speak, I still have conference organizers that contact me expecting me to speak at their event for free.

And when I say 'free', I don't mean that they won't pay a speaking fee. I mean that they won't cover a speaking fee OR any of the speaker's travel costs TO the event.

About a year ago, I adopted a strict policy for speaking at events: I won't speak for free. If you want me to speak at your event, the bare minimum requirement is that you cover my travel. I'll probably require a speaking fee as well, but one certainty is that I won't be paying to come speak at your event so you can sell more tickets. I have turned down a lot of speaking requests in the last year because the event organizers wanted me to speak for free.

I won't. Period.

I'm sorry, but if you are an event organizer, my expertise and time are both worth money, and I'm going to ask for it. I've worked with event organizers before, so I understand that very few social media conferences are cash cows. But a lot more could be compensating their speakers, even if it's only their travel to the event.

Besides that, it's the right thing to do.

Why Your Community-Building and Social Media Efforts Aren't Working...

Paul Chaney was nice enough to interview me recently for his upcoming book on social media marketing. One of the things we talked about was how companies that use social media need to align their goals with how their customers are using social media. Many companies want to use social media as a channel to push marketing messages at customers, while those customers are using social media as tools to connect with and communicate with others. They have almost zero interest in receiving marketing messages via social media, so predictably, companies that try to do just that, see their efforts falter.

Along these same lines, Aaron recently had a post asking if you would join a toothpaste community. This is another area where many companies fail. They want to 'create' a community because they want to use that community as a way to generate revenue for their business.

Problem: Communities do not come together around the idea of being monetized.

People do not come together and form a community around a particular product, at least not in most cases. They come together because of a 'bigger' idea. They have a common association or feeling that's related to that product.

So if your company is wanting to use social media, or if it is wanting to participate in or 'create' a community online, you have to align your goals with those of the people you want to reach. People aren't going to interact with you via social media so you can beam marketing messages at them. And they aren't going to come together and form communities so they can promote your product and grow your business.

Remember that social media is a great way of making things happen indirectly? What this means to companies is that they should take their direct goal (making money) for social media, and make it their INdirect goal.

Think about how your customers are using social media, and more importantly, think about WHY they are using social media. They view social media as communication channels, so you need to as well. They are creating and sharing content that they find valuable, so you need to as well.

You need to use social media in the same way that your customers are, and for the same reasons. That needs to be your DIRECT goal for using social media. If you do this effectively, then you'll also meet your INdirect goal, of growing your business and making more money. But if that's your DIRECT goal, then you are screwed.

The same thing with online communities. You have to give people a reason to come together and form a community. Don't try to form the community around your product, form it instead around a shared association and something that people find value in. Why does The Fiskateers community work, because it's a place where Fiskars customers can come together and talk about orange-handled scissors? No, it's a place where scrapbookers can come together and talk about and share their passion. Someone once asked me if you could create a community around paperclips. No, you probably can't. You instead try to create a community around how people use paperclips, and try to create something of value for these people.

If you want to use social media, consider why and how your customers use social media, and align your goals for your efforts accordingly.

If you want to create an online community, don't view it as a money-making venture, instead consider how you can attract customers by creating something of value for them.

Remember that at the end of the day, you are wanting to reach people. Respect them and their time, and you'll be rewarded for your efforts.

Pic via Flickr user cameronparkins