personal branding
Blogging and the fairness challenge
Jan 16th
A dear friend was recently lamenting that her blog had become nothing but blah, blah, blah. There was no commentary, discussion, or meaningful debate. But ironically, she said that it was not her style to “take a stand” on any issue. She would rather go with the flow.
Obviously if you stay in the safety zone of “likability,” you’re never going to attract much conversation other than a polite “great post!” But think about this … on the social web, the only distinct value you can deliver is your opinion. And if you never offer an honest opinion, you’re not really creating much value. You are probably well-liked but invisible.
My story
When I was in my 20s, I had a revelation that helped me be a better man and a ultimately, a better blogger.
In a performance review, my boss made an interesting observation: it seemed like it was important — maybe too important — for me to be “liked.” At that time, I just assumed everybody had this same goal, but the more I thought about this, I realized that innovation, change, and progress can never occur if you are preoccupied with just being popular. I’m not saying anybody should be rude or disrespectful. I’m saying that there is tremendous value in learning how to take a stand in a kind and nurturing way.
A focus on being liked as being the end goal may get in the way of being respected. It’s easy to be liked. It’s difficult to become respected.
A new outlook
So I began to re-frame my perspective. It’s impossible (and exhausting) to try to be “liked” by everybody. But I do think it is realistic to have a goal of being seen as “fair.” Somebody who is fair can take a stand and attack issues without attacking people. Somebody who is fair can have the courage to take a strong stand and also exhibit humility and admit when they are wrong. Somebody who is fair is at peace because their beliefs are congruent with their words and actions. I think there is tremendous power in that … in life, and as a blogger.
Trading a goal of being “liked” for one of being “fair” will unleash your creativity and embolden your writing style. Having the courage to start a conversation instead of meekly repeating what you think people want to hear is liberating. And I think you might even be surprised when you voice an opinion and others chime in and say “Yes! Finally somebody is saying what needs to be said.”
Trading in “like” for “fair” will make your words MATTER. Isn’t that important to you?
Three steps to add bling to your blog
Dec 18th
If you think your blog could use a little more punch, listen up! Here are three ideas that anybody can use to make your blog posts sing with some editing bling! Let’s get phat.
Go non-linear. In school and in business, we’re conditioned to write in a linear way. We start at the beginning, discuss the middle, and conclude with the end. To grab your readers and improve your blog immediately, start with the end. That’s right. Tell your readers the conclusion FIRST. The blog-reading public is a busy and unforgiving lot. If you don’t grab them in the first sentence you’re going to lose them. So tell them exactly why they are reading your blog post. Deliver the goods.
Edit ruthlessly. And I don’t mean abandoning your best friend Ruth. I mean cut extraneous writing. There is no good writing, only good re-writing. Go back through your post and delete everything that is not essential to moving your point along. I know that can be difficult, especially if you’re proud of what you wrote, but get tough and do it. Your readers will thank you! I would say most of my posts end up being 20 percent shorter than when they started!
Bring some heat. Dig deep and figure out how to deliver an idea to your readers in a fresh and personal way. The heart of originality is bringing YOUR experience and personality to your writing. Don’t settle for ordinary – go the extra step and add some of your own personal flair to the topic. Here are examples of typical headlines you might see on the blogosphere and a personalized version that would demonstrate some creative bling:
Boring:
A strategy to build a Twitter Community
Blingified:
Bringing Down the Twitter Snobs
Boring:
SEO for Bloggers
Blingified:
Boring:
Building Social Media Relationships
Blingified
Social Media and My Big Conversation Fail
See? Isn’t bling more interesting? Now go forth and make your blogs sing!
If you added a fourth editing tip to this post, what would it be?
OK. 30,000 followers. Now what?
Oct 31st
Back in college I had this hilarious geology professor who told me that “tsunami” was Japanese for “Where in the hell did all that water come from?”
That’s kind of how I feel about life on the web at the moment. I just hit 30,000 followers. That’s crazy.
Two years ago, I started a tradition of documenting my social media journey and at each major milestone, I write a post describing what it is like and how things are going. I just hit 30,000 followers so it is time to reflect on the situation.
When I started writing this post, it started out describing the mechanics of connecting with so many followers but it morphed into a psychological self-examination. I decided to cut out the parts about Twitter tips and expose the raw edge because there has been a significant personal development since my last “journey” blog post.
In a very small way, in a very small niche, I am achieving an element of celebrity. I have a gag reflex even saying that, but I can’t be honest without describing it that way. And I’m not handling this situaiton so well.
The tribe grows
First, the numbers. Friends and followers has grown as I mentioned, but is also escalating. It took me 18 months to get 10,000 followers, a year for 20,000 and six months for 30,000. This is being fueled by teaching, speaking, The Tao Twitter, and the blog.
My virtual assistant and I continue to prune the spammers. If I didn’t do that I would probably have 100,000 followers by now. I love the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, all my Twitter followers are real people. So the number is big, but the tribe is real, and amazing!
Whether it is because of the “social proof” of the numbers or (hopefully) the way I am connecting with people through my speaking and writing, people are starting to describe me as an “A-Lister.” This makes me cringe. I walked into a room last week and somebody said “here’s the superstar.” Some people tell me they are “fans.” Others have said they are afraid to talk to me.
This is a deeply uncomfortable situation. I am just a guy writing a blog, a husband, a father, a friend, a son, a brother, a teacher, a writer, a business adviser. That’s plenty for me. That’s a good place to be.
Celebrity as a mindset
This notion of “celebrity” exists in people’s minds and there is nothing I can do about that, but here is my wish: I want you to know that I am no more worthy than you … or anybody, for that matter. Every person is amazing in their own way.
I know when people use these terms they are meant with affection and I want to handle it with grace but boy I am out of my element with this fan stuff. And it’s about to get much worse.
This situation is going to be profoundly more challenging when my new book comes out in a few months (will be announcing this in a few days when the title is finalized). Here is my promise on the book — It is going to be unlike any other book you have ever read on business and marketing. You are going to love it. And I know that to do a good job for my publisher McGraw Hill, I’m going to have to be in the spotlight. In fact, I will need to seek it.
That “40,000 milestone report” I will be writing for you a few months from now is going to be interesting. How do I promote myself and this book without coming across as a jerk? I am seriously concerned about this. It goes against the grain. I love to write, teach, and help businesses grow, but I don’t seek to be a “celebrity.” Increasingly, that seems impossible to avoid.
The results of the experiment?
Now I know this seems improbable. You may be thinking … “Geez you idiot, how can you expect to write a book and not have to deal with the spotlight?”
I have been simply following what seems like a natural path. Consulting and teaching led to the blog. The blog led to The Tao of Twitter, which took off like a rocket. That book led to more speaking and exposure. New ideas formed and I started writing the next book. And then, I looked up and people were calling me an “A-Lister.” Ummm …. what???
People go into acting to become famous. People run for office to achieve power. I did not start the blog to become a celebrity. It was an experiment.
And here is what the experiment proved. With content and an engaged network, anybody can have influence now. Even me.
So it is what it is. I know that as long as I am engaging and writing, people will have this expectation of me and that’s the way it will be from now on. So I need to view this as a privilege and deal with it gracefully.
This turned into a stream of consciousness blog post, eh? Maybe too weird? Oh well. I decided to let it rip. Yes, this is one of those times I wondered about pushing the “publish” button. I exposed the edge and took a risk but I trust you guys.
Are celebrities made or born? Do you have to have a certain kind of personality to thrive in the spotlight?
I know I can stay centered in my personal life, but is it possible to find joy outside the comfort zone? How do I re-frame this situation so I can stop cringing every time somebody puts me in the spotlight?
When social media destroys a career — The business case for being a fake
Oct 4th
A guest post by {grow} community member Leslie Lewis
Leslie Lewis is not my real name. You don’t need to know my real name, and you may never know it. Here’s why.
I’ve worked in social media since 2005, and I knew I needed a tightly controlled message and presence online. You could Google my real name and find my blog, or find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, or Facebook.
Like you, I used my real name, shared real stories, photos, and details from my life. I was as transparent and authentic as I preached to my clients that they needed to be.
All of that ended in early 2010 when someone launched an online smear campaign against me, with allegations that were wholly baseless and untrue but were professionally damaging.
I contacted law enforcement officials, but they were helpless to stop the flow of fake accounts being created in my name due to issues of state, federal and international jurisdiction complications.
After consulting with several lawyers I was told that civil action would be a long, disruptive, and expensive process. In the end I was advised that my best option would be to directly contact Google or LinkedIn every time a new one appeared. Not very practical.
The end of my brand
My career nearly ground to a halt. After several months, I consulted with friends, family and people in the social media community, and I decided I needed to go “underground.” I locked down, and in several cases deleted, my social media presence.
Five years of community building and establishing a brand behind my name were gone. For nine months I had virtually no social media footprint, but at least the attacks finally stopped.
The transparency that we all advocate to our clients was what was used to harm me. While going underground brought an end to the attacks, it has hurt me professionally. Social media strategy is a practical discipline: We show that we are able to do for our clients by doing for ourselves.
In December of 2010 I inched back online, using Twitter with a pseudonym. As I began making and rebuilding connections the pushback I have received from social media professionals on Twitter has been unexpected.
When my email address and Twitter name don’t correspond, I am frequently met with stark skepticism of my intentions or the implication that I am “doing social media wrong.”
As social media professionals we tend to conflate the concepts of “transparency” and “authenticity.” Frequently they are used as synonyms, or, that if one is not present it invalidates the other.
Transparency is not the same as authenticity and authenticity is not dependent on transparency.
Moving forward
In the real world we meet people every day and accept them at face value, rarely stopping to question their identity. In real life we don’t demand the type of immediate transparency of each other that we do online. The neighbor with the unlisted phone number, the friend who goes by his middle name or the parent with a different last name than their child; we don’t (or at least the polite among us don’t) demand explanations of them.
We shrug our shoulders at these incongruities and don’t allow them to take away from our enjoyment of, or the credibility of these individuals. Why then, don’t we do this online? I could just as easily be an SEO mole as the neighbor with the unlisted phone number could be a bank robber. Why don’t we explain away similar incongruities in online identity that we do offline?
These are issues that are not new to online communication, yet they seem to linger. We have all seen social media go wrong and unfortunately we have all seen it used as a weapon of destruction. My situation is, sadly, not all that uncommon. As a profession we need to move towards a framework wherein privacy and security concerns are not trumped by demands for transparency and authenticity.
Don’t we?
Leslie Lewis is a digital media strategist working in public health, social marketing and behavior change at a Washington, DC based
NGO. She’s still trying to get this pseudonym thing worked out and is accepting suggestions
Illustration: citypeoplefashion.com
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