Real. True. Work.

All marketing is psychology. Ultimately, a marketer wants people think and feel a certain way so they take a specific action, usually in the form of buying something.

This is the crux of psychology. We psychologists study how people think, feel and behave. And we have a large body of research that tells us how humans interact with each other, products and brands.

I am currently tired of seeing so called social media ‘experts’ flub up the most basic psychological drivers of online purchasing behavior. It’s not thier fault, they just don’t know better.

Here is the low down on the real psychology of social media marketing based on brain-based research that informs how people think, feel and behave online and off.

1. People are inherently social and want to interact with other humans.  People want to hear from you if you engage with them as a real person. No one goes online to search for a brand name when they are lonely at night. They also don’t want to interact with your logo or a cartoon avatar.

We respond strongly to real faces, eyes, and smiles. Infants a few hours old will track another human’s eyes and smile. They ignore stuffed animals or things in print. This doesn’t change throughout our life.

2. Building relationships builds trust.   My next door neighbor never says hello to me. It’s weird because we live in a cul-de-sac and all the neighbors wave and chat over the the fence, so to speak. Except this guy. He drives by my son and I at the bus stop and never waves. I don’t trust him. My son doesn’t trust him. Why is he so rude? What does it take to wave?

He owns a pub one town over and we have never been there. But a restaurant we regularly go to 3 towns over sends me email updates on monthly specials, gives a birthday coupon. I don’t know the owner by name, but I certainly trust him more than my neighbor.

We are wired to spend time and money with those we are in relationship with and value that more than geography, or service – need match.

3. Relationships are based on consistency and showing up. I had an interseting debate with a few bloggers the other day about frequency of blogging and trust. Their premise was quality of blog posts trumps quantity.

I say “it depends.” If someone I don’t know blogs 1x a month, I really don’t have a lot to go on in terms of building a relationship.  Sure, maybe I optimize the post and get lots of click throughs and email list conversions, but those people can’t quickly build a relationship with me.

Someone who blogs daily will have an easier time connecting with me. I can see they are consistent, show up when they say they will, and are serious about building a community. Maybe not every post is awesome, but they show up and I like them for it.

Biologically this makes sense. Are you closer to people you see once a month, or those you see every day? Sure maybe they aren’t always in a good mood every day ,but you know them better, care about them more, go to their holiday party. The guy you see once a month, eh, his party isn’t a priority.

This is also hard wired in infancy. A mother who gives her kid one awesome hour of mothering a day and then wanders off to do other things is not a good mom. An infant will die with inconsistent parenting like that, even if that one hour is the best hour that mom can offer.  We like to see people in our space often and consistently.

4. People buy with their heart, not their head. You can give me 100 logical reasons to learn SEO but if I’m not feeling it, I won’t invest in that process. Yes, some folks are more logical than others, but most of us make purchases based on how we feel,not what we think.

Add a relationship into the mix and the effect is even stronger. How many times have you bought stuff from someone because you know and like them, more than because you need their thing? Admit it, many times, right? If I like the person I assume I’ll like their stuff too. This is called the halo effect.

5. Relatoinship is hard to measure. We psychologists have been measuring relationships for over a century and I’ll tell you it’s hard to do. Marketers who are looking for measurable ROI of social are looking for a needle in a haystack. Just relate like a person and you’ll see good things happen.

6. Being human isn’t hard. Businesses and marketers make social media hard. “How do we do it!?” they fret. Here’s how you do it: create lots of value for lots of people. Talk to them like you would at a work-related cocktail party – casual, helpful,more informally than in the board room. Respond to questions, ask a few of your own. Share things relevant to your brand. Be a resource. Be nice and kind and give freely. People like that stuff. They do not like blatant pitches for stuff they don’t know about, do you?

7. Novel trumps conventional every time. If a guy walks down the street in Manhattan wearing a blue suit, do you notice him? Of course not. He is conventional, his attire is expected and 100 other guys on the street look just like him. Our brains habituate to the man in the blue suit in New York City.

If a man walks down the street in NYC in a bright pink suit, do you notice him? Yes, you do.

Now if I guy walks into a truck stop in rural North Dakota, do people notice him? My guess is they would. The brain sees that as unexpected in the context of the truck stop. But a guy in jeans isn’t interesting.

If you want to stand out, you have to do or say something unexpected–doesn’t have to be shocking, but blending in won’t get anyone’s attention. This is why marketing blueprints and systems suck. Once everyone is doing it, no one is paying attention.  Make sense?

8. But don’t be random and weird. In high school, the kids like the guy who wears a different hat to school every day. He’s cool, unique in a safe way. He is cool and to be his friend is to be cool, too.

However kids do not like the guy who wears a Speedo to school on random days. This is too out of the norm, it’s unpredictable and weird.

Our brains say that someone who is too far out of the realm of expected behavior isn’t safe. We don’t know how to read Speedo kid. Is he a swimmer, a pervert, trying to be funny? When we can’t figure something out we reject it because our brains just can’t process if this person is safe, stable and worth risking our reputation on (remember the halo effect? It works both ways…)

So be unique,  but not so out there that you freak people out.

9. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. People have long memories. If you use sleazy marketing or blast people with tweets that pitch your product all day long, they catch on quickly that you aren’t someone they can trust (see #2 above).

Your tactics may get you a lot of opt-ins, but if you become a jerk once you have the email address, people rule you out as a viable option to spend money with.

We have evolved to reject, ignore and forget things that give us a negative experience. Got food poisoning at McDonalds once? You’ll never eat there again. Girl with nose ring humiliated you at the prom? Won’t date girl with nose ring again. Gave email address to nice guy who then spammed you daily with emails about his new e-book? Can’t trust those internet marketers!

Always respect your community. Otherwise you will work very hard to get their attention and then lose them forever.

Remember, all marketing is social psychology. And because psychology is a soft science, it’s often hard to measure the exact ROI of your social efforts. But taking the time to build relationships and a community pays much bigger dividends than investing thousands into an ad campaign that might get a few clicks from people uninspired and lukewarm about your offer.

Be smart about the brain wiring that leads prospects to choose to buy with you. We are not goign to trump millions of years of evolution. Rather, go with people’s inclinations to want to join in conversation, get to know you as a fellow human, a drive to want to trust someone before investing further. This will make your marketing work much more effective and fun…

 

 

 

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Lately I have been hearing a lot about online entrepreneurs and suicide and depression. And there are many poignant posts out there from the people who know these people online expressing shock, disappointment, surprise.  Some posts focus on telling others to get help if they feel depressed or suicidal.

Ultimately, a few blog posts aren’t going to solve a mental health issue. It’s like posting about cancer and hoping a few solid posts about eating kale or drinking less coffee will ensure you avoid cancer.

And, it’s also like writing about the “guy-down-the-street” who has depression. We know the guy- down-the-street. We wave as we drive by, we talk weather, maybe he comes by for the annual holiday open house. But you and NO IDEA what guy-down-the-street’s life is really like.

Social media is the real world

And tragedy happens in the real world.  We have relationships online. Some are more intimate than others. Most of the people we pass by online are acquaintances. They are the friends we wave at from time to time.

Social media is a tool we use to connect with people. There is no magic in Twitter, Facebook or Google+, despite what some folks will try to sell you. It’s a communication tool, like the phone and  snail mail (remember that?), TV, radio.

And sure, we can talk to more people and use it for free and ‘leverage relationships’ (whatever that really means) and there is more conversation and give and take.  But then what?

My point is, social media is nothing new. It’s people talking to people. Some you know well, most you don’t know at all. And ultimately, you are responsible for your use of it, how you present yourself and how you cope when things don’t go according to plan.

It’s Complicated

I am shocked when I hear about any suicide, child abuse, loss of life – physically or in spirit. And in my line of work, I hear about those things more often than the average person. Even after almost 20 years in the mental health business, my heart still breaks when I hear of loss that could have been prevented.

But I know that what leads to such horrific outcomes is so complex that social media neither created the problem and will never solve it.  Knowing people who have told me they are determined to take their own life (or others) the idea that a stranger met on social media could have any impact or knowledge or power to influence that thinking process is very odd to me. Social media has nothing to do with severe mental illness. Just like it has nothing to do with cancer.

..and isn’t simple

Bloggers have taken to what they know to address these issues–writing blog posts with the recommendation that people get “real help.” This is nice. It won’t change much of anything. Someone so depressed that they will decide to take their own life either already looked for ‘real help’ or is so ill, they can’t figure out how to access it or aren’t thinking clearly enough to know they need it. Most people who take their own life feel completely out of options.

In the absence of mental health training, sharing your thoughts on others’ mental illness isn’t super useful. I know we now have lots of ‘coaches’ who can give advice and help people be ‘happier,’ but real depression that leads to suicide is down and dirty stuff. It’s nasty and awful and out of control. When your brain is so messed up as to tell you that killing yourself is a good idea and then you take the steps to make that death a reality, you are a very ill person.  I wish blog posts could cure depression.

What you can do

What you can do is take care of you and those closest to you. Most often taking care of ourselves is a big job and taking care of our loved ones fills our quota for care taking. The thing is most people assume they are taking care of themselves and their family, but really aren’t looking that closely at their stuff. They are too busy looking into a screen at other people’s crap.

And taking care of you is hard work. It requires looking yourself in the mirror and reflecting on what is going well and what isn’t.  And then taking some sort of insightful action to move from where you are to a better place. Taking care of your loved ones isn’t any easier. If you really knew someone you care about was suicidal, would you do or say anything? What? Really think about that. Because that is where you will make a difference some day.
I don’t mean to dismiss people’s efforts to make sense of something awful and try to inject their caring souls into it. But I also want us to all understand that this issue is very big. Major Depression isn’t just feeling blue or sad and easy to treat with a few therapy sessions and a little Prozac.

And, I’ll be honest, once someone has made the decision to do something drastic to stop the hell of their depression, often there isn’t much anyone can do. I’ve known people who try to kill themselves while on locked psychiatric hospital units and we knew as soon as they were released they would attempt again and all the therapy and meds we could give them wasn’t going to change their mind. It’s the most helpless feeling in the world.

Take care of you. Treat what ails you, take a walk, eat good food, smile when you can. Hug those you love, give them the best care you can. And use social media as a tool, meet people and wave, spread good will. That is enough. And it is all you can do.

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Today was “Take Your Child to Work Day” in our family.

Here is what that looked like.

The child had no school because our town had live electric wires strewn across streets 3 days after a freak October 29 snowstorm.

Mom and Dad had to work.

First Mom contemplated how she was going to work in a house with no power and indoor temperature of 49 degrees, so she bundled up the child and started out for Starbucks (when in doubt get coffee and hot chocolate). We saw the electric company trucks at the end of our street so this seemed a good omen.

After a 30 minute Starbucks run, we arrived home to heat and electricity!! Mom plugged in her laptop and started to work. The child is now at work with mom. He played with Legos, watched some TV, used the drumming app on mom’s iPhone and sang to Usher over and over and over again. He avoided all attempts of mom to get him to read or do some math pages because, “I’ll do it at dad’s work.”

OK, we had a pinkie promise on that.

12 o’clock rolled around. Kid was hungry and pestering mom and she wasn’t getting any work done, really, so we left to go out for pizza. But first we drove to mom’s office to turn the heat on (yay,heat!). Child checked out every chair, couch pillow and window in mom’s office. Apparently they passed inspection. Once he was on, we checked out new pizza place around the corner from her office (yay, pizza!).

Pizza took longer than expected, so after one slice each, we boxed it up, got in the car and drove 15 minutes to dad’s work. Child left car with a backpack full of books, activity puzzles, box of markers, his Nintendo DS with earphones, a lunch bag with snacks and left over pizza.

Dad came to curb outside of his office building and took child up to his office, mom drove off and back to her office to see clients.

Child then drew pictures (dad texted a few over to mom during the afternoon), ate pizza and read while dad worked. They probably played a few games of ping pong in the break room later in the day.

Child arrived home with dad at 7pm. Mom still at her office writing this blog post.

And that is the real deal with take your child to work day.

Can you relate?

 

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You want to do great things. You have a desire to change the world and make good money and make a difference.

The desire to be great is awesome. It shows that you have good self esteem and believe you can do something worthwhile.

But lots of people I know who want to make a difference-whether it’s a difference to others or improving their own lives, get very, very stuck.  And as I observe their stuck I see this..

They don’t know enough to move forward to do great things.

Sure, they’re smart and educated, well read, travel, appreciate art and can hold intelligent conversation. They know stuff that can get them do greatness.

What they don’t know is themselves

Because to do awesome things, you need to be focused and passionate and ready to dig in the dirt to get things done. Getting to greatness is not an exercise in being smart, it’s a marathon of being true.

So here’s what I think people who aspire to greatness need to know:

1. Your passion.

This word gets thrown around and is cheapened a bit these days, but having a a passion matters. But I mean Passion with a capital ‘P’. This thing you are building means lots to you.You need to do work that keeps you up at night, that you don’t need to get paid for, and you are willing to sacrifice for. Great stuff doesn’t happen in a 9-5 setting.

2. A goal and a clear focus.

Lots of people walk around claiming a burning desire to change the world and when asked what that looks like, stare blankly because they never sketched out the details. Goals are tricky. We can set a goal to provide enough water to all the children in Jordan, or we can set a goal to get 100 people to donate to Fugee Village. But the goal needs to be focused, concrete and achievable. Changing the world is not a goal. Getting socks to 50 homeless people is a more like it.

3. A very clear understanding of how you work best.

There are so many experts out there telling you how to be productive, make money, blog, use social media. As I have mentioned here before, this is crap. What they are telling you is what works for them. Rather than spend an hour a day reading others advice on how to work, spend that time doing a self assessment of your work patterns and how you get things done. Are you most productive in the morning, night? Do you gravitate more toward writing, making video, doing cartoon drawings? Are you more productive working alone or in a team? Get a very clear sense of how you work best and then endeavor to work that way consistently to get moving toward your goals efficiently.

4. A very clear understanding of how you learn best.

Doing great takes a lot of learning. You just can’t know it all. So this process of producing awesome will require some serious time gaining and applying new knowledge. However, we could spend every waking hour surfing the internet gaining new insight and that isn’t so great, so you need to pare down your process and learn efficiently. Do you learn best by reading, watching video, attending a lecture, teleseminar, webinar, mastermind meetings,consulting a coach, teaching others?? Know how you learn best and doing your best work will come much more easily.

5. A very clear understanding of what you suck at.

Great leaders delegate. People doing the awesome are not awesome at everything. Focus on what you are good at and let others pick up where you suck. Trust me, more good stuff will happen than you can ever imagine if you let everyone show their greatness in the process of reaching a bigger goal.

6. A knowledge of what pumps you up and what gets you down.

Doing something big is big work. It takes all your energy. When you are focused on a passion, it can be easy to be amped up about your work, but there are days when things are just hard. Maybe you are sick or a loved on isn’t well, or you’ve been grinding out things for days with little result. When the down times hit, it’s important to know how to get yourself up and running again.

7. A knowledge of when you need to rest.

It seems that productivity and ‘do something amazing’ gurus have one piece of advice — KEEP WORKING! DON’T GIVE UP! REST IS FOR LOSERS!

Then after a few years we see them burned out and secretly headed to yoga retreats.

Let me share a little free psychological insight for you. You are a human, your body and brain need to rest.  Very, very bad things happen when you push yourself beyond healthy biological capabilities. Things like depression, anxiety, physical illness, broken relationships, failed businesses. Not good.

People doing great things take vacations. They sleep, exercise and eat healthfully (most of the time).

Get to know your signs of burnout and exhaustion and then just take a break. If no one is dying and there is no fire burning in a building in your general vicinity, taking a day off from work is perfectly OK.

 

Knowledge is great, vision is fine, but it is truly knowing who you are, what you are doing, why and how to use yourself as the tool to get there that will catapult you from doing something that is interesting, to achieving great things…

If you want updates on more ways to do great, world changing things while staying sane and healthy sent to your email box…sign up below.

Photo credit: Hurni Christoph

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Hello, my name is Susan and I work from home. I run two businesses and am ramping up a third. The picture above is a snapshot of my “office”and where I am writing now. The stuffed animals belong to my son, but they’re good company while he is at school.

Every few days people say to me, “I have no idea how you do it!  How do you do it?” By “it” assume they mean work and parent and run a household.

So here is how I do it…I warn you, it isn’t fancy or glamorous (this is why there is no picture of ME here), and most of this would not make a fun TV comedy or drama. But here’s the real deal.

I get up around 7 AM. Luckily the kid’s bus doesn’t come until 8:10, so that leaves us time to get dressed, eat breakfast, make lunches and get one cat, one child and one husband out the door.

By 8:30 I’m at my kitchen table and check email, do a quick pass through Twitter and Google+.

9:00 I usually start writing. Some days it’s a blog post, others it’s a newsletter or an article. I’m not too regimented about what I’m writing, but 9 AM is writing time.

Throughout the morning, I alternate between writing, answering email and social media use. Sometimes I do administrative things such as insurance billing, banking, you know business-y stuff.

I know, I know, multitasking is frowned upon. But this flow works for me. When my brain gets tired I put on music and dance around the kitchen. Yes, yes, I do. It’s a good brain break and exercise that doesn’t require a trip to the gym or a shower afterwards…

Depending on the day, I get ready for client calls or meetings about 12 noon. I do shower : ).  Two days a week I head into my clinical practice office and typically see clients from 2 – 7 or 8pm. (I also see clients on alternating Saturdays.)  Other days I do coaching phone or Skype calls from my kitchen table.

If I’m not in my clinical office, I try to take a walk in the mid-afternoon before my son gets off the bus.

On days I am home, around 3:30 I start to wrap up emails, send final things to my assistant and get ready for Alex’s bus. He gets home around 3:45 and then I am all mom. I do snack, homework help, bring him to soccer practice (or sport du season), dinner, a little TV, help with shower, jammies, read stories and off to bed. It’s my favorite part of my day.

By 8:15pm the little dude is asleep and I usually head down to my couch, turn on mindless TV and do my social media fun stuff. I chat with friends, join a Twitter chat if something interesting is going on. My husband and I catch up on the day.

Everything gets powered down at 10pm and I head to bed to read something non-work related and I’m usually asleep by 11pm.

Of note

There are a lot of things I do NOT do that allow me to focus intensely on my work and my family.

I will be the first to admit that our home is not Pottery Barn tidy (see photo above).  I do not obsess about made beds, clean bedrooms and every knick knack in it’s place. We’re not slobs and nor do we live  in squalor, but we dig through laundry baskets to find clean underwear more days than not around here. All the clothes are clean, just not in the drawers…just to clarify.

I do not pursue perfection in anything. Honestly, through the years I have mellowed out a lot. “Good enough” is my mantra. I do work hard and focus on goals and outcomes, but I don’t push hard on things that aren’t coming easily. Same goes for parenting. Alex is a great kid. He does well in school, does homework with few complaints, he plays sports, he does some drumming app on my iphone that drives me batty.  He also eats fewer vegetables than he should and probably has pizza more nights than he should. I think he’ll turn out ok.

The things I do

If you notice my schedule, I work all the hours my son is in school. I’m not throwing in laundry at noon, going out to Starbucks for a break. I work the hours I have to myself.

I do send Alex to after school care 3 days a week. He loves it. And it allows me to work 2 afternoons in my office. His dad picks him up and they have a grand old time in the evening when I work late.

Right now I do work every other Saturday. I have done this for 7 years. It’s a great day to see clients in my office and adds a lot of goodness to the bottom line. But in a few months I will drop Saturday from my schedule so I can be home with the family. The extra income will come from another source…

I do get 8 hours of sleep a night. If I don’t sleep, I’m not functional. Those people who tell you to crank it late into the night or get up at 3AM are nuts.

I try to eat well and exercise. This I’m not as consistent with as I would like. Working on it.

So that’s it…there are variations to this, of course. There are times I travel, vacations to take, sick days for the kid, rarely for myself. The code phrase around here is “flexible productivity.” Things get done, but it’s not always the way we planned.

So tell me how you do it all? What is your schedule like? Do you schedule in breaks, fun, are you as productive as you would like?
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I just screamed at my laptop after reading yet another ‘expert’ post on what NOT to do on social media.

I scream because I care

You see, we are all expert at something and lots of social media types are very good at what they do.

Unfortunately, they don’t do what you do, so their advice is often useless to your world.

For example, you read a post from an expert blogger. He makes 6 figures from his blog every year talking to other bloggers about blogging (there are at least 100 people you know in this category and I’m not singling anyone out.)

But you write a blog not-for-bloggers. You write about car repair, doll making, health care, parenting, politics, or celebrity gossip.

So when blogger expert declares that you should:

• Never have a pop up opt-in
• Always keep your posts short (or long)
• Post less than 5x a week
• Ask for retweets only in times of emergency or for a cause

…he is wrong.

Yes, the expert is wrong when it comes to YOUR blog and YOUR business. He has no idea what people who read a blog about doll making want. No idea.  Maybe those in the car repair business need a pop up to remind them to get their free report. Maybe the health care folks like posts that are over 1000 words. And the parents who read you pithy posts on kid wrangling may want to hear from you 7 days a week

The problem is this

Bloggers have this way of stating opintion and personal preferance as fact. We have drifted so far away from distiguishing between research-based facts and some dude’s opinion that happens to work out  in his world, that newcomers to the world of online business and networking are at a huge disadvantage. Because it all becomes contradictory noise.

And sometimes there are facts involved, but they are facts based on one kind of business.

Think of it this way…

Here’s a marketing story that (I hope) outlines my point.

Sally is a big fan of Life is Good..the t-shirts,the brand,the message. The marketing from Life is Good speaks to her.  Everything they do online makes her smile. She likes their Facebook page, follows on Twitter, has them in a “Groovy” circle on Google+. She owns 4 Life is Good t-shirts,gives them as presents and goes to their annual concert every fall. She really digs Jake, the stick figure mascot.

Fred is a Wrestle Mania  fan. He loves their message and the marketing style draws him in leading him to buy tickets to their events and the products. He buys his son wrestling action figures. He joins over 6 million people who like WWE’s Facebook page that has a  picture of screaming black man on it. And he’s psyched to see Snooki joining in on some WWE fun.

Would you market to these people in the same way? Of course you wouldn’t! Any advice Life is Good would give to WWE on marketing would be useless. They are two distinct demographics.

The same holds true for that blogging expert and you. That expert is an expert in what he does best, writing for and marketing to his people. You need to get good at what you do best, writing for and marketing to your people.

Sure, there are some universal truths, but not that many, when it comes right down to it. Ultimately, we need to take the information that is useful to us and apply it. Sometimes we need to experiment, test, ask our audience for feedback.

So, am I the crazy one? Should we take expert blogging opinion at face value or carefully develop a style that works for our business, expert advice be damned? What have you found that works with your blog and business?

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I admit it here, I am a Beyonce fan.

And this is one of my favorite songs…it’s sassy, sexy and has her husband giving her props for making him and his business better. Very nice…

Who upgrades you? Do you let them have a say, influence, make suggestions, do what they are good at so you can do your magic?

Surround yourself with people who are pushing you harder and expect great things. Return the favor.

No one does it alone, not even Jay-Z.

 

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By now you have probably seen Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. If not, you can watch it here:

After listening to this, consider how he found his real true work.

He was unique, brave, courageous, he hung on to hope.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, so you have to trust in something.”

Hard Work and Loss

He built a company from 2 people in a garage, to a billion dollar company with 4000 employees. Well, just wow…And then he was kicked out.

“I’d been rejected, but I was still in love, so I started over.”

Luckily his start over was Pixar…

“You’ve got to find work that you love. The only way to do great work is to love it.”

“If you live each day as if it were you last, some day you will certainly be right.”

We all die. All fears fall away in the face of death.

As many of you know, my mother-in-law died this summer of pancreatic cancer. She lived 20 days with the diagnosis. I now live each day as if it could be my last. Because, it could be.

I don’t take anything for granted. I only do work I enjoy. I make time for my husband and son. I go out for a walk every day. My house isn’t the cleanest, decorated in any fancy way, our lawn has some weeds. These are my choices in how I live my life. I want my son to feel loved, have a life rich in experiences, grow up compassionate and caring, fulfilled in doing his true work.

As Steve said: “You’re time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions  drown out your own inner voice.”

Do your real true work, whatever that looks like. Other’s opinions don’t matter. They really don’t. If Steve waited for permission, I’d have no phone.

“Stay hungry, stay foolish…”

Love to all of you! We’ll miss you Steve…

 

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If you spend any time hanging out in social media, you may be noticing a shift.

People are redefining who “friends” are, unfollowing in droves, seeking deeper relationships.

We are also starting conversations about what we like/dislike about blogs, how to handle spam and negative trolls. Some folks are shutting down blogs and social media accounts altogether.

These conversations fascinate me. They suggest a shift from social media as a tool that can be used to build relationships and business to something else.

The first wave was cool but…

The first wave of social media evangelists were brave and outspoken. They stood up and owned these tools, even as they were making it up as they went along (they had to make it up, there was no precedent). Experimentation abounded as some claimed expert status when they found a social media interaction that “worked.”

We paid good money to learn these tools and approaches for our own use. Whether we were trying to build a community to raise money for a cause or build an online business, there was a zeitgeist that “relationships first” was THE way to do online stuff.

People railed against spam, closed rank on negative noise and it was cool for awhile.

Growing pains

But, like all technology, the general public catches up. And the general public is diverse.  Just like the Dr. Seuss book, “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,” the social web is now make up of, well, everyone.  Big business, small business, no business, nice, nasty, creepy–yeah, all here.

Now I see so much angst about these negative types. Many of the bigger names in social media seem totally overwhelmed with the spam and negative stuff. This strikes me as naive. We all went to middle school, right? Think Oprah doesn’t get her share of hate mail? And complaining about spam..please, let me write some blog posts about my junk mail — it will be fascinating.

And not everyone is going to do things the way the first wave envisioned.  Yes, relational social media works when done well. But big brands use broadcast modalities to good effect. They use the “old school advertising” approaches in social media. And this offends some “experts.”

Creativity Blocked?

It feels like a ceiling has been reached with the social media profession in the face of lots more people in the space. Suddenly opinion posts about how to get more followers, tweets that attract clients and how to leverage Facebook are passe.

The truth is there is NO ONE WAY to use these tools. Every business needs to customize their social media use. This is why we see abandoned blogs and accounts. People tried to do it the “right” way and got no traction with their community. In the absence of any other voices about ways to effectively leverage these tools, people assumed they were doing it “wrong” and gave up.

In many ways the social media community has itself to blame. How many blog  posts with titles like “The 10 things you do every day that kill conversions” can we read before we feel like hopeless losers, who will never get it?  No wonder people are loathe to hire a social media marketing consultant. They fear being humiliated and shamed in public.

And when we devolve to writing about spam and haters..we’ve run out of new things to say. Things need to shift to a new way of doing things.

Social Media 2.0: Creators

Social media is shifting away from experts to creators. Blogs about blogging are boring. Tweets about Twitter are lame. It’s like picking up the phone, calling your mom and saying, “Hey, I’m talking to you on the phone!” So what?

My new use of social media is to create new things and to find others creating in similar ways. I want to know who is using the tools to build real communities, support causes, heal hurt, collaborate to make something bigger than what each of us can build alone.

I’m intrigued by Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRECord.com, a self-described open collaborative production company. Check it out, so cool.

And I want to spend more time looking at SkillShare.com. “Learn anything from anyone.” Why not?

Life is Good is doing some amazing, online-offline community building to support it’s non-profit, Life is Good Playmakers.

Put Up or Shut Up

So, here is where I need to contribute my part, right? Enough, “Blah,blah, blah” and more doing, I say!

Here on RealTrueWork.com, I’m going to bring social media creators to you! I am on a mission to find the coolest stuff going on out there, bring those people here to do interviews, share samples,  inspire your own ideas and projects.  We will be a social media creative hub!

Ultimately, the success of your online endeavors hinge on doing something new. The tools we have now allow us to create up a storm. There is no “right” there is no “wrong.” There is “do or not do” (as Yoda once said).

Stay tuned..cool stuff is coming!

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When I listen to Five for Fighting’s “Slice,” it brings to mind that those of you who figure out how to bridge digital relationships into real communities will have magic happen. We need to help people feel more than just a slice of our world, but a part of a bigger experience. Otherwise, what motivates folks to stick around?

Connecting is a basic human need. People don’t want your content, they want your attention and validation that they matter. Make everything you do more than a slice and watch good things happen.

Can connecting in this way  be done solely online, or do we need to bring the online community together to physically join a visceral experience?

 

There is no official video for this song. Just listen along-it’s catchy : ).

 

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