The next social media imperative: Defining YOU
Oct 11th
Was I clever enough?
Was I charming?
Did I make at least one good pun?
Was I disconcerting? Disarming?
Was I wise? Was I wan? Was I fun?
From “Thoughts While Driving Home” by John Updike
I’m going off the chart a bit. Over the next few days I want to explore your sense of “self” and social media. This is not an easy topic but I want to engage with you to discuss:
How are you different on social media … for better or for worse? How do you show up? What is your “brand?”
Is social media the ultimate equalizer, the greatest democracy, or a funhouse mirror warping our view of society?
From a very intimate, personal standpoint, what does it take to succeed on the social web?
To kick things off, I need to pose a very serious question: Who the hell am I … out here?
In my recent post about the social media “country club,” I made a comment that seemed to resonate with a lot of folks: “In social media, the medium isn’t the message. The messenger is the message.”
The idea of having a “personal brand” becomes enormous when everybody has their own global broadcast channel. That’s what social media is, really. When you pay attention to somebody’s blog or tweets, you’re tuning in to their channel. Welcome to Station M-A-R-K, spinnin’ and grinnin’ from the great State of Tennessee.
What type of station are you? News? Entertainment? Sports? Variety? Or Talk All the Time?
I ask because I don’t know myself. I went out to lunch with a new friend last week and he said he enjoyed following me on Twitter. Why? What’s my “on-air” personality? I truly don’t know. I think I have reasonable self-awareness in real life, but the web is another matter …
Sometimes I’m funny, sometimes I’m serious, sometimes I’m absent. I hide the pain and private stuff. I’m often pre-occupied. How does this sum up?
One Twitter-friend referred to me as a gentleman. It only made me wonder — what brought that on?
If 80% of communication is non-verbal and that is completely eliminated through social media, what’s the impact on perceived personality? Pretty dramatic I would think.
How do people perceive us when they only catch snippets at certain times of the day? Believe me, the people who “tune in” to the groggy morning Mark get a vastly different picture than those who catch the late night jokester.
There seems to be an app for everything so I explored the web for answers. Who am I, Mr. Internet? My Twitter Grader number is 99.8 out of 100. But does that mean I’m likable? Engaging? Cranky? My Twitter Analyzer says my celebrity rating is 72 today … but was 2 last week. Twitterholic, Twitter rank, and Twitalyzer provide rankings relative to all other Twitter users. One said I had a lot of “clout” last week but not this week. Twinfluence says I have a velocity of 20,471 second-order followers a day and high social capital. Huh???
While all of these scores are mildly amusing, it still doesn’t help us see ourselves in a new way: Through the eyes of your social media audience. How do we come across to people who have never met us, spoken to us, touched us, or observed a single facial expression … and probably never will?
I’m not asking you to literally tell me about me. I’m thinking you may also be wondering about how you come across in cyberspace? If personal brand is paramount on social media, how do you really know what your brand is?
A formula for social media business success
Aug 2nd
Starbucks. Dell. Mark Schaefer.
Yes, I am now up there with the mega-brand big dogs, at least momentarily, in an article in Forbes recently. Not only that, but I was acknowledged as a Twitter marketing authority in the same breath as Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang, two national marketing luminaries.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I make up about 75% of what I say and fabricate the other 25%. You’re thinking that now too, aren’t you? No, it’s true. I’m really in there.
How did this happen?? Through social media, of course. And it’s a great case study on the Social Media Formula for Business Benefit:
Connection + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Business Benefit
Let’s see how this worked in the real world.
CONNECTION
It started about nine months ago when I attended a free webinar featuring Nathan Egan, a former Linked-In exec who had just started a company call Freesource. I thought he was an exceptionally bright guy and decided to comply with his public request to “link” with him. I also looked him up on Twitter and he became one of the first people I followed.
MEANINGFUL CONTENT
Through his posts, I grew to appreciate Nathan’s vision and he became a regular reader of my blog. He was so interested in one particular article that he called and talked to me for over an hour, deepening the respect and connection between us.
AUTHENTIC HELPFULNESS
Our friendship has grown and now we routinely support each other. We discuss new ideas and bounce around solutions to business challenges. Nathan recently asked for my help on a new app his company was developing (which I will also be featuring on a future blog article). He has tweeted out my blog posts, helping to grow my readership. That’s what social media is all about!
BUSINESS RESULTS
When Nathan was interviewed by Forbes, he was asked if there was anybody he could recommend who had done an exceptionally good job nurturing business relationships through social media. And he thought of me.
So now I had an opportunity to extend content and helpfulness to a reporter at Forbes. Over a lengthy phone call, I brought him up to speed on my experiences, my client’s social media successes, and ideas about the future of social media. And now we’re friends, too.
As Nathan’s business has expanded, he turned to me to take over some of the company’s marketing functions he no longer has time to handle. Our social media connection has turned into a fantastic opportunity for both of us.
That’s how social media works for business: C + MC + AH = Business Benefits. Look at ANY B2B or B2C success story and these three elements were in place — none can be missing. Over the next three days, we’re going to look at this STEP BY STEP and come up with some new, actionable ideas that you can use to realize your own business benefits from social media.
But here’s the best part. YOU AND I ARE CONNECTED, TOO! Who knows what will happen NEXT?
If this article made you think, please consider leaving comments. I’d love to hear from you!
Other articles in this series … each one builds on this theme:
Part 2: Building meaningful business connections
Part 3: The biggest obstacle to social media business succcess
Social media imperatives for small businesses
Jul 1st
Take advantage of short-cuts and automated systems. There are many free applications to help you work more efficiently once you get started.Lessons from a marketing strategy gone wrong (mine!)
Jun 29th
- Over time I have been writing less about small business marketing fundamentals, and more about B2B and social media. It’s what’s interesting to me right now, so I went with it!
- The people who read my blog and follow my tweets now come from all over the world — relatively few from my core market.
- Based on my social media presence, including the blog, Twitter, and my web page, I am getting new customers from California, Switzerland and Australia — not what I originally had in mind.
In a matter of weeks, my core business competency and customer base changed dramatically, because my message and audience changed dramatically. Isn’t that interesting? I wasn’t consistent and now I’m challenged to match my STRATEGY to my inconsistent MESSAGE!!
How did this happen? I lost sight of my core mission because writing the blog became so much fun. I wasn’t “marketing.” I was being me. And it worked out fine. I didn’t choose my audience. My audience chose me.
What did I learn? Perhaps in social media, “being me” IS the strategy.
Subscribe
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
Groups We Believe In
