Social Media and You

A circus is the best metaphor for the state of social media marketing currently.

There are three rings, of course, for the Big Three platforms; endlessly entertaining feats of technical acrobatics, and the madly inventive clowns keeping us entranced. There are the marketing fillies and stallions; blogging monkeys; elephantine Amazons and Wikipedias; and spammy mice scuttling everywhere.

The circus scene boggles a kid’s mind. Interfacing with the web, we’re all kids at a circus. Many of us, much of the time, fall into P.T. Barnum’s famous ‘sucker’ classification, letting the lures and wiles of the circus substitute for true productivity.

Drilling down to what is authentically relevant and useful to your particular situation requires patience, skill, and experience.

Often people contact me wanting a blog or Facebook Business Page or website because other people have told them they should have one. But they have no idea how to use these tools; they don’t know what they don’t know about social media; and just like circus-goers, they’re reacting to the press of the crowd rather than looking out for their best interests.

Want to start up your online marketing? Get a professional to help you. Don’t run away with the circus.

You may have heard the observation that the web’s divided between content-producers, commenters, and lurkers. Relatively few people want to spend any of their time producing content; not many are willing even to compose a comment.

Therefore, although inbound marketing and social media are key strategies for every business, it is not to be assumed that the business owner is the Voice of their online presence.

If you run a business but don’t wish to be a content producer for the internet, what are your choices? I’ll offer just a few basic solutions here.

1. Get a digital voice recorder and talk into it. Let your virtual assistant transcribe and upload.
2. Identify someone in your company who can be trusted to take on the role.
3. Organize your company so that all workers share in the demands of online responsiveness.
4. Work with a social media assistant who can help you devise the best solutions for your specific situation.

Generous sharing of knowledge is what you are doing online, demonstrating sufficient personal investment to win your visitors’ trust.

Your internet Voice has to be real and honest, but it does not have to be your own Voice or nothing.

Social media gurus make a big deal about being authentic, as the best way to create your most effective online presence.

There’s a general consensus that you should be as You as possible, liberally sharing your personality. Gary Vaynerchuk-style.  Or Hugh MacLeod.

Many stand firmly behind the notion that all updates must be your own expressions, that anything ghost- or staff-written on the internet is bogus.

The relative raw immediacy of social media may be one reason why people want online exchanges to be transparent.  Relationships formed online are vulnerable to suspicion and mistrust. You have to overdo it in the transparency department if you’re going to be believed.

But if we relegate the web only to those who are capable of regularly expressing themselves there, it won’t be of much use. The internet is truly for everyone; businesses of all kinds have to be able to use it profitably. It’s not just for coaches and authors and marketers: it’s not only for language-oriented types.

So the voice of your business online becomes a critical question. If it is not to be your voice, whose voice can it authentically, transparently, and powerfully be? Next post, we’ll look at some possibilities.

Well, there’s no doubt what to crow about in this post. I just read Valeria Maltoni’s “100 Thoughts on Social Media.” Go there now. Read. Come back.

How much of that amazing post did you bookmark? I found delectable description after incise commentary after another delectable description throughout. It’s rare to read the truth about inbound marketing so clearly written.

“…use your content and smarts to elevate the other.”

This is the pith of it.

Way back when I studied theatrical improvisation, we learned a fundamental rule to that hair-raising art. We were trained to look out for your fellow actor. Make your fellow actor look good. This will make you look good.

The lesson was an epiphany for me at the time, and continues to reveal itself as I age. I’m blown away that the Conversation Agent has nailed the same attitude as essential to social media.

There are 100 of these pearls on the one blog post, folks. The most profound analysis of the state of social media I’ve ever seen. Affirming so much of what I’ve suspected all along.

Look at this one! ” … choose teaching over winning.”  And this solemn call: “…want less, do more.”

A requirement of acceptable social media content is that it must be characterized by something we label, authenticity.

Not many people could give you a sound definition of the word;  even fewer would agree on what authenticity means. But I think it’s correct to say that what we are implying when we say online content is authentic is that it inspires our trust.

Generally, we distinguish the authenticity of the new rules of marketing and PR from the harassment of the stereotypical greasy car salesman. We want to buy from folks made of flesh, guilt, and aspirations, who are just like us; we no longer abide the smooth plastic replicas of style that graced billboards and television commercials of yore.

But if this is true, how come we’re hard pressed to find anything but the most upbeat, pearly smiling attitudes in social media updates? How come people don’t tweet, “Having a lousy day.  Hate everybody”? How come they don’t update their Facebook pages with “Who cares what any of you say, Avatar was a stupid movie”?  Why is risk-taking, especially unmitigated being-yourself-even-if-it’s-ugly virtually absent from the social networks?

It’s a long way before we and the internet realize our potential.