I gave a presentation a few weeks ago at the Seattle Artists Guild on Writing for Social Media. I used to do a lot of public speaking, and it’s been years – not sure I want to admit to how many. I was a bit rusty, but there was a buzz in the room afterward– people told me after that they learned some very useful things – I know I certainly did (learn a lot from them, not from me…).
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about how different social media is for us boomers than it is for younger people. I read something the other day that fascinated me: teens today, who are using Facebook and MySpace will likely be connected to everyone they know for the rest of their lives.
Think about it. How many people have you lost touch with? If you had them all gathered on your Facebook for years and years, you’d have hundreds, if not thousands of contacts, and the girl who sat next to you in first grade might be a resource for a job, travel information, a place to stay when you’re in Mumbai – who knows?
A kid I went to grammar school with is the head honcho of one of the big NYC financial firms – at least three family members sent me the article from the New York Times at the end of 2008 about his $1.2 million year end bonus.
What I remember most about him is that when we traded clothes on our dolls – his GI Joe and my Barbie, his mother called mine and told her she didn’t want us playing together any more. If you’re reading this (doubtful), you know who you are – find me on Facebook! Oh, and I remember he collected pencil shavings in a coffee can.
But, I digress. Do you think, had we stayed in touch (the doll clothes incident notwithstanding!), that he might be a good person to be connected to on Facebook or LinkedIn? That keeping a friendly relationship, even if we only communicated once in while might benefit us both? That’s the opportunity with social media.
Obviously, the younger you are, the more time you have to amass your online social database and keep it vibrant and active. And, for the rest of us, there is the beauty of the degrees-of-separation theory. We can still catch up, especially if we know people who know people. And, finding people you used to know and reconnecting is (for me anyway) part of the voyeuristic and fun part of social media. There are so many people I think of, am curious about, but don’t want to contact in a way that requires a lot of commitment. And, I find keeping in new touch with some old friends is really satisfying – and it’s easy to let go of the ones you don’t want to stay in touch with – without hurting their feelings.
One of the biggest questions people had for me in Seattle was: is spending time on social media, with the aim of building your business worth the time, because it seems so time consuming. The answer is yes. And, it is time consuming so it’s good to have a plan.
Being efficient is definitely an issue, because sometimes you get on social networking sites and you start to feel like your time goes down the rabbit hole and you can lose hours at a clip, and most of us don’t have that kind of time to waste, and it can leave you feeling tired.
SO…my recommendation is spend the time it takes to get to know your way around, whether it’s Facebook, or LinkedIn, or any other site you decide to use. On Facebook particularly, get to know the privacy controls and think about WHO you want to be able to see what. I think it’s important too that you really spend the time getting familiar with others and being known before you launch right in with a business proposition. LinkedIn is more specifically designed for that – people are there to network, but still – you need to ‘bank’ some ‘social coin’ before you go spending (asking for favors/help/promoting yourself too heavily).
Make a calculated time plan of how much time you will spend on social media networking each day or week then do it and get out. Or, be aware that if you spend more time than you budgeted, it’s above and beyond what you planned so you don’t confuse ‘leisure time’ spent online with the actual productive business building time.
I’ve described the time spent as building ‘social coin’ which you get to spend later on when you’ve banked enough of it. Here’s a simple plan and a way to build your ‘coin’. Find 2-3 groups on 1 or 2 sites that speak to you. Don’t just join groups where people do exactly what you do. Join groups where your target audience hangs out.
You can spend some time at first ‘lurking’, getting a feel for the conversation/discussions taking place – or spend some time and read earlier posts to get a feel for a group or site and know whether it’s some place you could contribute something of value. If it is, then jump in and start participating by sharing useful, valuable information and insights on a regular basis. A few times/week is adequate.
Be sure you really say something meaningful. The occasional “great article, I agree” kind of comment is OK, but you need to add something to the discussion for people to take notice of you, and that’s what you want: to show up, contribute and have people start to get to know you. Eventually that will lead to all kinds of contacts and opportunities.
I’ll be writing an article and providing some tips for ‘non-writers’ as soon as I have the time, so please come back if that feels like you! Over and out.
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