Archive for the ‘Guest Posts’ Category
Thursday, October 30th, 2008 |
My good friend Ruud
Hein over at Search
Engine People asked me earlier this month if I would like to write a guest
post on the Search
Engine People Blog. I was thrilled of course…. I am a huge fan of SEP.
I have been a loyal reader of that blog since I met Jeff
Quipp on Sphinn about 16 months ago.
The truth is I feel that the majority of the Search Engine People staff have
got Social Media right. Social Media is all about conversations and collaborating
with others online. But, these interactions need to be genuine… they need
to be sincere. Jeff Quipp and the rest of the staff at Search Engine People
understand that.
So, to me it made perfect sense for my Guest Post on Search Engine People to
be about the values
I follow when I participate in Social Media activities. These are the same
values my mother taught me growing up and I believe have helped me to become
successful in Social Media.
Go check out my guest post over at Search Engine People and let me know what
you think. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe
to their RSS feed. Trust me…. you won’t be disappointed.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Parenting, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips and Tutorials, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Basics | 3 Comments »
Thursday, August 28th, 2008 |
I wrote my first ever guest post over at Hobo
SEO Blog. No, It’s not about SEO….. it’s about my true love, Social Media.
Shaun asked if I would write a post on how
to get involved in Social Media and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I don’t
write about the basics of Social Media often enough. I have a tendency to get
too advanced or talk about special techniques. It was nice to get back to the
basics.
Social Media can be very intimidating for many, so I broke down the process
into four steps making the process a bit easier to handle.
- Figuring out what you want to get out of Social Media
- Creating your Profiles
- Learning the Community
- Becoming an Active Part of the Community
So, check out my guest post and let me know what you thought.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Mixx, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Tips and Tutorials, Twitter, Vlogging, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Basics | 9 Comments »
Friday, August 15th, 2008 |
This Featured Guest Post is by James Duthie of Online
Marketing Banter.
Image by activeside
How many businesses really ‘get’ the social web?
Rand Fishkin recently wrote a post on SEO Moz about ‘getting
it’. By ‘it’ Rand was talking about the web… and
he guesstimated that just one person in every million truly gets the Internet.
My first thought after reading the article was that based on Rand’s estimations,
there must be a hell of a lot of online marketers out there that don’t
get the web (there’s a scary thought for you…). My second thought
was that if so few people get the web, which has been widely accessible for
over a decade, how many actually get the relatively new phenomenon of social
media/ social networking (clue… not many). And my final thought was if
so few people really understand social media, how many businesses have their
finger on the social media pulse…? The answer it seems, is not many.
When the social web goes wrong…
By now, we can all probably recall the most infamous corporate social media
disasters off the top of our heads. Brands such as Dell & Sony immediately
spring to mind. But above all else, it’s probably Wal-Mart that sticks
out above others as the worst exponent of social initiatives on the web. The
two most documented disasters are:
- Wal-Mart
attempted to create its own social networking site targeted towards school
kids entitled ‘The Hub’ (ala MySpace & Facebook). However,
the project was abandoned just 10 weeks after it was launched due to a lack
of usage.
- Wal-Mart was at it again (along with PR firm Edelman) when they published
a fake Wal-mart blog called
‘Walmarting across America’. The suspiciously pro Wal-Mart sentiment
of the blog set alarms bells off in the blogosphere and it wasn’t long
before the blog was exposed as a fraud.
If it achieved nothing else, Wal-Mart has set a fine example of how not to
adopt social media technologies. However, despite the fact the ‘The Hub’
imploded well over two years ago, it seems fellow marketers refuse to learn
from Wal-Mart’s social networking mistakes. The
Wall St Journal recently painted a somewhat frightening picture of the state
of social networks and communities within the corporate world. The key findings,
which were taken from a research report developed by Deloitte, include:
- 35% of corporate online communities had less than 100 members
- 25% of corporate online communities had less than 1,000 members
- 6% of businesses spent more than one million dollars establishing their
community! Let’s hope these 6% aren’t amongst the 35% of businesses
unable to attract more than 100 members to their community!
So what exactly is the corporate world doing wrong when it comes to social
media…? Why have 60% of corporate social networks failed to attract more
than 1,000 members? The answer is quite simple. They’ve failed to recognise
the fundamental principle of the social web - that it’s not all about
them.
The social web is about people, not brands or technology!
It seems as if the marketers behind many of the corporate social networks/
communities operated on the premise – ‘If you build it, they will
come’… particularly if you make it really shiny. Unfortunately,
many have had to learn the hard way that this simply isn’t the case. The
fact is that unless you’re Apple, people really aren’t that interested
in your products or services. Deal with it. One of the primary features of Wal-Mart’s
social network ‘The Hub’ was the ability to generate shopping lists.
Hmmm… how many teens do you know that are interested in making their very
own shopping list? Not freakin’ many. Wal-Mart made ‘The Hub’
about them. And that’s why it failed.
For the ultimate example of a self-centred social networking initiative, check
out David Hasselhoff’s personal
social network. Sure… everyone loves to have a good laugh at The Hoff,
but does he really think people care enough about him to make his page their
social networking home…? You do know people laugh at you Hoff…right…?
Social initiatives can go old school… if that’s where your
audience is
I recently wrote a social media strategy practically devoid of technology (some
would even say it was positively old school). The strategy was for the Australian
arm of a major global organisation, with a budget stretching into the hundreds
of thousands of dollars. If I wanted to, I could potentially have sold them
on the development of their very own social network. But I didn’t. Because
I know that social media is not about the technological platform… it’s
about the people.
Instead, my first recommendation was to begin monitoring and participating
within existing online forums. Yes… that’s right… forums.
How very 90’s of me. But the fact was that a community of over 60,000
people had already formed to discuss this company and their products within
online forums. Indeed, they were lucky to be one of the very few companies with
a customer base passionate enough about their product to create an online community
around it. So… instead of trying to host the conversation, why not just
simply join it (at least initially)?
My second recommendation was to establish a company blog. Sure… a blog
isn’t as feature laden (or shiny) as a Facebook clone, but communities
can form around blogs just as effectively as they congregate on social networks.
Just look at Tech Crunch. A blog provides a cost effective way for the organisation
to establish a social media presence without spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars on development (thank you Wordpress!). And who knows… if the
blog takes off we may consider implementing some more advanced social networking
capabilities. But that’s the last consideration, not the first. After
all, if the audience are happy in forums, they don’t need all the bells
and whistles yet.
The social web mind shift
The reason most corporations don’t ‘get’ the social web is
quite simple – success requires a shift in marketing methodologies. Traditional
marketing principles just don’t cut it in online communities. Amongst
the most fundamental shifts in thinking, marketers need to recognise that:
- You don’t need to own the traffic, you just need to own the relationship
- You can’t control the conversation, all you can do is listen and respond
- One size does not fit all, and nor does one message
- Actually talking to your customers isn’t such a bad thing. You may
even learn something from them.
Until marketers ‘get’ these principles of the social web, it seems
we’re destined for more corporate social networks built around shopping
lists… or worse… washed up celebrities.
Author Bio
James Duthie is an Australian
online marketing expert. He writes on all things social media, blogging,
SEO & online marketing at his blog - Online Marketing Banter. Subscribe
to hear more of his ramblings.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Basics | 8 Comments »
Thursday, July 10th, 2008 |
This Featured Guest Post is by Mark Hayward of MyTropicalEscape.com.
Why am I asking - because your clients want to know! How do I know - because I am them.
image source:
azrainman
I am a small business owner in the purest sense of the term, in fact, it’s just my wife and I who run our bed and breakfast here in the Caribbean and marketing dollars are NOT plentiful.
Of course, most people who read Social Desire are social media or SEO experts. Therefore, there is no reason for me to extol the virtues, power, and inherent value of social media to you.
But, what about the small business (non-social media expert) perspective?
Recently, I had a discussion with a really great guest who runs his own business-to-business trade magazine for the wedding industry. Out of curiosity I asked him if his magazine has a website or any type of online presence.
And I almost fell out of my seat when he said, “NO!”
The guest then went on to explain to me that they have run the magazine successfully for over twenty years and he pointedly asked,
“Why should I change now?”
I highlight the above statement because I assume that this is the type of pessimistic attitude that most of you in the social media profession face on a daily basis.
My Small Business as a Social Media Example
Because he was a paying guest I had to politely disagree with his hesitance to establish an online presence, and furthermore, the next time you come across a skeptical client I would like you to feel free to use my business as an example.
You see, the bed and breakfast that my wife and I purchased a little over a year ago had no real financial records and essentially sat empty with no marketing or promotional activities for over two years. In essence, even though we purchased the business structure, we had to build up a clientele base from scratch.
So with the ink still fresh on the mortgage papers and a new mountain of debt, I thought –
“Oh $hit, what now?”
Paying for advertising in traditional print media was financially out of the question for us, so I only had one option, the internet. From an expertise perspective, I had never run a business before, nor had I blogged, or been into social media and online networking. Pretty much, I assumed blogging and social media were for pimply-faced kids and people with too much time on their hands. But I was desperate and decided to jump in and learn.
What did I do?
The Fruits of My Labor
For the short-term thinker I believe that the concept of social media, as it relates to small business success, can be a very difficult one to grasp.
I know from my own experience when I reached my seventh or eighth month of blogging and trying to promote my business online I was frustrated by my perceived lack of progress. I was ready to give up. In fact, I was so disillusioned that I decided to put my site [MyTropicalEscape.com] up for sale at SitePoint.
Then something crazy happened!
Literally, the day my site was going to go into escrow I received an email from an editor at a fairly large U.S. travel magazine. Turns out that she was working on a story regarding, “The Ten Best Islands to Live On” and she wanted to interview me about my experience on Culebra. When I inquired as to how she found me, she replied,
“Why I just happened to StumbleUpon your blog.”
The interview, which you can see online at Islands Magazine, would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 if I had paid to advertise in the magazine. Because it is currently summer in the northeast US I have not noticed a huge spike in reservations just yet, but the article has already sent well over 2000 visitors to my bed and breakfast’s website, who might not have found us otherwise.
Additionally, just when I did not think my online efforts could net any better results, about two weeks after the Islands Magazine writer emailed I received an actual phone call from a freelance writer for Conde Nast Travel Magazine who wanted to interview me.
Amazingly, the Conde Nast writer was also doing an article on my little island home. During her research phase she just happened to get pointed to my blog from one of her Twitter contacts, which for this former non-social media believer meant I was able to chock up another $25,000 worth of complementary promotional advertising.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the Conde Nast Traveller print article made it online at cntraveller.com but if you have the July issue you can go to the “Word of Mouth” section and you will see my that my business has been written about in a very positive light (and they also included our phone number and a website link) and it did not cost me a dime.
How do I think social media can help (really) small businesses? Pretty much the same way social media can assist large business and mega-corporations:
- promotion
- networking
- branding
- as catalyst for collaboration
However, you must think long-term and be persistent, consistent, and proactive if you want your online efforts to help support your business activities.
(Editor’s note: Mark is getting ready to launch a fairly significant online project with some blogging friends. You can follow him on Twitter or visit his site MyTropicalEscape.)
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | 20 Comments »
Sunday, July 6th, 2008 |
This Featured Guest Post is by Edward Beckett of Florida
Search Engine Optimization.
Image by jakeliefer
It would be interesting to know just how many people in Internet marketing
actually had professional sales experience before marketing on the web. Having
had a bit of experience in several sales sectors, I had my share of small paychecks
before I decided that I really needed to learn what turned prospects into clients
– pain, is a great motivator. That being said, I see many web sites that
do not produce sales and I believe that one of the main reasons for these site’s
lack of success is due to sending the readers the wrong message. To sell a product
or service, a prospective client normally needs to have trust in the
seller. If trust is not established from the message on the web site,
the prospective client will simply move on to a site that captures their attention,
and wins their trust.
To elaborate a bit, I’m going to describe some methods that Hollywood uses
to keep their audience’s attention. I entertain quite a fascination for
movies such as The Zeitgeist Movie,
The Bourne Identity and The Matrix.
In all three of these movies, the one thing I noticed that kept my mind in suspense
was the constant state of flux between believing and disbelieving what is being
implied in the movie’s story lines. In the Matrix reloaded, The Merovingian
retorted when Morpheus stated, “You know why we are here.” with,”
I am a trafficker of information, I know everything I can. The question is,
do you know why you are here?”
With this question, the direction of the dialogue centers on the implied message
that the Merovingian probably knows … a lot. This question sets the stage
for the rest of the conversations that develop for that scene. But what’s
important to us here is that he established credibility by
the way he framed his question – he did not have to show proof of his
knowledge, and no one was led to doubt what he said. He simply assumed control
of the conversation by positioning himself with a question that would poise
him as an authority. The point is that by asking the right questions, you may
imply authority on a matter without having to “sell” someone on
it. Your position may be established by the questions that you ask. Once you
have established credibility … then you might gain your clients trust.
Attempting to sell what you have without first gaining their trust … will
usually fail.
But credibility and trust alone are not enough to keep people interested in
what you have to say. Curiosity keeps people interested in
what you have to say … and to keep them “listening to your questions”,
(a subtle hint?) you have to find something that “they are interested
in.” An old but still effective acronym in consultative sales is: WIIFM,
which means, What’s In It For Me? To let the potential client know what
“they are getting” from what you have to offer. Here is a news flash
which may shock some egomaniac salesmen (and women). Your potential clients
don’t care about you or your product, if it doesn’t satisfy a need
for them. For example, let’s go back to the scene with The Merovingian
and see how Hollywood keeps the audience’s curiosity and attention after
intellectualizing the viewers in a conversation that parallels a logical labyrinth.
To add an element of curiosity (and excitement) to the conversation, the viewing
audience was kept quite amused as The Merovingian went on to describe the climactic
scene which transpires from a dessert he sent to a lady across the room …
He seduced the lady through a programmatically orgasmic dessert. Watching that
lady eat her dessert gave me a sudden urge to speak to my college counselor
about modifying my computer science degree to include a specialty in culinary
programming. Though I didn’t perform eye tracking analytics on the rest
of the audience in the theater with me, I think it’s safe to say that
of the males in the theater we can safely estimate that better than half of
the guy’s eyes were looking at the lower half of the screen as that lady
enjoyed her dessert. Though this is an extreme example, through delivering well
structured questions to your readers, you may open up opportunities to uncover
needs by making your potential clients curious – And if you’re really
good, you might even make them hungry for what you have to offer.
Want some more info on what I can do for ya? Send me a message on my blog
or pay me a visit at Florida Search
Engine Optimization.
Posted in Guest Posts, SEM, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Tips and Tutorials | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 |
Social Desire will be featuring
Guest Posts for the next few weeks. Today’s Featured Guest Post is
by Mark Dykeman.
Image by Steve
& Jemma Copley
Everyone’s got a Top Ten list, an 8 step guide, or some other how-to post to
succeeding in social media.
This isn’t one of those posts. Not exactly. Not really.
OK, maybe a little bit.
What I’ve done is to take each letter of the alphabet and try to find one or
two words that can be used to describe social media. I’ve tried to cover many
of the important points and aspects of social media that I’ve picked up through
my own activities. I hope you enjoy and find it useful.
The A – Z listing for social media
Ask/Acquire – social media is a place where we can ask
questions and acquire knowledge; there are tons of great resources out there.
Bold – push yourself and test your limits. Try things
that might have scared you in the past, either due to lack of confidence or
experience. Be bold!
Communicate – it’s all about the conversations.
Demonstrate – show people what you know; help educate
them. (note: I was very tempted to use the word "desire" here…
)
Evaluate – absorb everything you can, but keep a critical
eye open. As you meet different people you’ll gradually get a sense of who knows
their stuff and who doesn’t. Don’t accept advice blindly – think it over
and make up your own mind.
Friend – "friend" has become a verb in social
media, where you give or are given permission to share stuff with other people.
It’s a key component of social media, hence the word "social".
Give – contribute to the body of knowledge with your
own thoughts, ideas, tips, tricks, critiques, and others. It’s not valuable
if you keep it to yourself.
Help – as per give, take the time to do favors for other
people. Answer their questions; show examples. You get a lot back from this,
even if it doesn’t happen immediately.
Ideas – social media contains some of the coolest parts
of higher education – the discussion and refinement of ideas.
Join – if you’re going to be social, join groups that
interest you. It’s all about relationships.
Knowledge/Learn – this K and L go together like peanut
butter and jelly; learn stuff, increase your knowledge.
Mentor – help a beginner and you could have a good friend
for life.
Name – names are important, doubly so in social media.
Meet people, remember their names. They’ll do the same for you!
Open – be as transparent as you can. Consider different
points of view, as well. Speak respectfully, but freely.
Passion – that burning sensation isn’t an, um, infection,
it’s the power of love and desire when you discover something that you love
to do.
Question – questions drive social media. Why? Because
we all want to find answers!
Reveal – tell the world about yourself to the extent
that you feel comfortable to do so. People want to know something about their
follow social mediaites!
Share – as with giving, sharing means doing things that
don’t just benefit yourself, they benefit other people as well. Give credit
where credit is due and share the rewards!
Teach – again, show people what you know and we all
benefit.
Understand – this is critical, because language is an
imperfect means of communication. It can be very easy to misinterpret someone
else’s writing, especially if it hits an emotional hot button. Make sure your
reactions are tempered by understanding so that you know what was really meant
within a communication.
Vigor – show some life there, sparky!
World – it’s a big world out there and social media
will expose you to places that you never knew existed.
X-Ray – look inside and see what’s really happening.
Don’t be fooled by exteriors or pretenses. Get the real story.
Yearn – satisfy those self- actual cravings, at least
temporarily, through social media participation. But stay hungry – there’s
always more.
Zen – practice, be mindful, and learn constantly as
a path to enlightenment (of sorts). You might not become a spiritual master,
but these principles can still lead to fulfillment in social media.
Social media from A – Z – there it is. I hope you were paying attention
because there’s a test coming up!
(Of course, the test never ends… )
If you enjoyed this post check out more of Mark Dykeman’s work at Broadcasting
Brain, his blog about communication and social media.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Humor, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Tips and Tutorials, Uncategorized, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Basics | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 |
This Featured Guest Post is by James Duthie of Online Marketing Banter
Image by dmax3270
Do onto others as you would do to yourself. It’s a fine philosophy to
live by. The laws of karma state that our personal actions & behaviour influence
future experiences. In other words, we’re responsible for our own destinies
and the ultimate happiness & success we achieve. I can’t think of
any other environment in which karma is more relevant than social media…
Free is the new currency of the Internet. Social media is a perfect example.
How many people make real money from blogging? Very few. Yet every day millions
of bloggers produce content for free distribution. Why? Because they believe
in karma. They believe that giving their content away will lead to positive
future outcomes, whether they be business or personal.
Social news communities such as Digg and Sphinn are even better examples of
karma in action. A selfless attitude is expected within social news communities.
Good karma can only be earned by dedicating free time to positive community
activities such as:
- Submitting content that the community values
- Creating relationships with other community members
- Contributing to blogs of community members via comments & guest posts
- Reading and voting for your friends’ content
- Adding meaningful insights to conversations within the community
- Asking for nothing in turn for your positive contributions
People who succeed in social media embrace the principles of good karma. They
don’t ask for support from the community, but they receive it anyway because
of the positive contribution they make.
Newbies in particular need to display the strongest faith in social media karma,
because the karmic circle takes time to turn. In my case it has taken months
of participation within Sphinn before the good karma returned some personal
rewards. But good things come to those who wait…
Social media karma in action
About a month ago I crossed paths with a blogger named Robin Cannon. Robin
manages Fog of Eternity,
a blog dedicated to web design, social media and online marketing. Like me Robin
is fairly new to the game, and is still establishing his blog and audience.
I liked Robin’s work and quickly subscribed to his blog. I also began
to submit his work to Sphinn and StumbleUpon because his stuff was well written
and deserved a broader audience.
According to Robin, it was my social media support that helped give his blog
the kick start it needed. A number of my Stumbles helped him generated thousands
of visitors a day (who ever knew my Stumbles were so powerful…?). Before
long that momentum grew and he was averaging over a thousand visits a week.
In fact, in just a couple of weeks he had far surpassed my own traffic levels.
Robin has thanked me a number of times for the social media love I gave him.
He didn’t need to. After all, social media submission also shines the
limelight on the submitter if it goes hot… But despite that, Robin made me
a special offer recently. Noticing that my own blog design was a little uninspired,
Robin offered his design skills to help give it a little spark. As someone without
an iota of design experience or skill, this offer was like gold to me!
And that, my friends, is the circle of social media karma in action.
Robin never asked me for social media support, but I gave it anyway because
his work was great quality. I would never have dreamed of asking Robin to redesign
my blog, but he offered anyway out of goodwill.
If you’re not succeeding in social media, perhaps you should take a look
at your own behaviour… Are you exuding an aura of good karma…?
Author Bio:
James Duthie is an Australian
digital marketing expert. He writes on all things social media, blogging,
SEO & digital marketing at his blog - Online Marketing Banter. Subscribe
to hear more of his ramblings here.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Social Media, Social Networking, Sphinn | 16 Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2008 |
Social Desire will be featuring
Guest Posts for the next few weeks. Today’s Featured Guest Post is by Chris Estes. He is a Frequent blogster at SEO by Chris
When I set out to help Shana I couldn’t come up with a topic. Topic block
or writers block plagues lots of bloggers. If you are like me you want to write
something people want to read or add value to the subject. That is often hard
to do. I had a manager
that was always asking “how does this add value?” Not all post add
value, like this post, sometimes it is about the status quo.
A while back problogger posted “How
to have a Constant Stream of Blogging Ideas”. In the article the authors
acknowledge that everyday print newspapers aren’t filled with exciting
or breaking news. The difference between bloggers and newspapers is typically
bloggers are lone writers and do not have a staff to write articles like newspapers.
So occasionally a generic blog post is necessary.
Problogger talks about setting up a blogging plan. On your calendar put two
headings. 1. Post topic 2. Topic title. The topic title should be something
that you can write about at any given time, generic topics if you will. Then
follow the schedule and write it. But what about the breaking news and other
off plan topics? Write them too and post them but still stick with the blogging
calendar. Don’t substitute trade or move your calendar around. Post the
planned topics on the days you plan and make the other breaking news flashes
bonus post.
When setting up your calendar the topics can be hard to come up with. Do what
I do. Pick one of your friends that aren’t tech savvy, my parents make
good partners for me, and bounce Ideas off of them. The less tech savvy seem
to always have an interesting take on your subject material. I get more of my
posting ideas from explaining what I do than what they suggest to write about.
I hope you enjoyed the post and follow more of my post at Search
Engine Optimization by Chris. I wanted to speak to Shana’s heart felt
story about keeping her illness private and away from public view. I understand
her situation with conditions of my own. Since I get to use SocialDesire.com
as my own for a post I would like to give the greatest gift of charity we can
do as marketers with a link. Because it will benefit me personally I charity
link to the American
Sleep Association (ASA).
See now you have A blog post Idea. Post a snippet of information about your
charity and why you are giving them this link. Then once you put the post up
come back and comment about it and share the link to your post. Giving back
will only take you a couple seconds and plus it makes you look good.
Happy blogging!
The author Chris Estes is a Frequent blogster at SEO
by Chris and has started a new business in Birmingham, AL – Birmingham
Search Engine Optimization
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Link Love, Social Media | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 |
Social Desire will be featuring
Guest Posts for the next few weeks. Today’s Featured Guest Post is by Peter
Newsome of SiteMost.
Image by Lady-bug
Offline Reality Online
When I catch-up with friends we’ll usually talk about the highlights
of our week, we’ll have a whinge about the things that got under our skin
and we will vocalise our opinions some of the current events that we feel strongly
about.
Take away the face-to-face interaction, convert the speech to text (although
not in every case thanks to how easy it is to create and share audio and video
content) and you have a blog.
When I get home from work, I’ll look through the cupboards and fridge
and work-out what I’m going to make for dinner. Once I’ve made a
decision, I’ll usually vocalise this to myself - “Tonight I’m
going to make spaghetti bolognese!” (yes, I know that talking to yourself
is the first sign of insanity and a lot of my friends already think I am a little
insane).
I’ll also continue talking to myself as I prepare the meal “a little
bit of oregano, a dash of wine…” and as the TV is usually on in
the other room, I’ll often make comments about the day’s stories
“Interest rates are up again, there’s still conflict in the Middle
East and Britney Spears did what?!?”
The above examples of small conversations that we have with ourselves everyday
could easily be seen by having a quick skim through Twitter logs.
When you’re at school, the more friends you have, the ‘cooler’
you are – aka MySpace, Facebook
etc. etc.
Take away the cheesy voice-over and Benny Hill music from ‘Funniest Home
Videos’ and I’ve just described at least a third of YouTube’s
content.
My mother sticks little yellow Post-It notes on the side of her computer monitor
listing websites she’s found and wants to remember how to get back to
them – if she understood what I was talking about when I tried to teach
her about del.icio.us
For your daily dose of tabloid news in an online format you don’t need
to look much further than Digg.
And just like you’ll need Amy Winehouse throwing-up on your shoes if you
want your pic in the tabloids, you’ll also need some Social
Media Celebrity Endorsement if you want your articles to appear on the front-page
of Digg.
So as you can see, most online social media has been inspired by something
offline (even if the inspiration was far from the examples above, you still
get the general idea). The only problem is that there is still a very big disconnect
between the real and the virtual worlds.
It’s like comparing reality TV with actual reality. I don’t know
who’s reality it is, but I can’t recall the last time someone locked
me in a house with a bunch of strangers and recorded my every move whilst making
me perform challenges like eating worms or pouring spiders on my head, or watched
me painfully sing karaoke, or become a model, or survive on a desert island
or made me lose half my body weight etc. etc.
Sure, it might be entertaining, but it certainly isn’t what happens to
you and I on a daily basis.
I’ve met bloggers that write well, seem quite entertaining and have hundreds
of subscribers but in person they are very shy and introverted or waaaay over
the top and are incredibly annoying to have a conversation with.
Whereas other bloggers that only have a handful of regular readers have been
charming, interesting and insightful when I’ve met them face-to-face.
There was a guy I went to school with who still lives with his parents, works
for the local government in an accounting role, hasn’t changed one little
bit from the weedy, nerdy, annoying guy from senior school… but his Facebook
page says he has 300+ friends.
Now I’m not trying to say that one’s online persona is inversely
proportional to how popular they are offline… there are some really great
people that I’ve met who are very popular both online and offline.
Although I think that we should observe how the online world has taken most
of its inspiration from the real world and as it continues to do this, there
will become a requirement for social media mavens to genuinely be as interesting
and insightful in reality as they are online. Otherwise they may find that the
virtual reputation they’ve worked so hard to build won’t hold-up
as the two worlds (offline and online) become one.
If you enjoyed this Guest Post you can check out more of Peter’s work at SiteMost.
And, while you are at it subscribe to the SiteMost
Feed.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 26th, 2008 |
Image by gruntzooki
A couple of months ago I
briefly mentioned that I had a Chronic Illness. It was something that was
very difficult for me to do as I was afraid that mentioning it would make me
look weak. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but if you have ever met me or
if we ever spoke for any length of time you would understand why. I am a perfectionist…..
an over achiever. Showing this side of me is not an easy thing for me to do.
Would I feel any less about anybody else if I heard they had a chronic
illness?? Of course not. Why then am I so hard on myself?? That answer, my friends,
is a whole other story.
Not too long ago a
friend of mine told me to ask for help. My response was, "I just
can’t. It’s way too difficult." He told me that not asking
people for help was a selfish thing to do.
What?? How could this be? In my mind not asking for help was me
being tough…. me being selfless. How would anyone think that me "toughing
it out" be selfish??
It took me a couple months into my Lupus Flair, two months of "toughing
it out", to realize what Edward meant when he said that I was being
selfish for not asking for help. But, I believe I have figured it out
and I’m ready to no longer be selfish.
In the next few days you will notice Guest Posts on Social Desire. As painful
as it was for me to ask, I posted a Tweet requesting guest blog posts about
Social Media and Web 2.0. I was thrilled to find quite a few bloggers ready
and willing to help me out.
Please bear with me as I rest a bit longer. God willing I will be heading back
into my Lupus Remission shortly and I will be back "full force". In
the meantime, please enjoy Social Desire’s guest posts. And, if you would like
to be featured as a Guest Blogger on Social Desire please contact
me.
Posted in Blogging, Guest Posts, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0 | 12 Comments »
