It seems like a lot of people are still struggling with the collision of “influence” and Social Media. What does influence mean? How do you measure it?
I’ve been rolling around this question in my head aplenty.
Meanwhile, I’ve watched some amazing charitable works happen on Facebook, on Twitter, and via Blogs. Today, driving home, it hit me. The best kind of influence exists independently of Social Media, but now we can use Social Media to grow it. The best kind of influence is that you gain by doing something that improves a person’s life. Maybe it’s a person you’ll never meet. Maybe it’s someone you see every day and don’t know. Your influence is based on not needing or wanting anything in return. It’s about sending something out into the ether so that someone can catch a break, in a big way or in a small way.
To this end, I have begun a project called The Real Influence Project. I’ve started a page on Facebook and I’ll also be using the Twitter hashtag #RealInfluence. The idea is pretty simple. Post about what you are trying to do to make the world a better place. The community of other real-life influencers will support you, will help spread the word, will assist you when or if you need it, and as we go, we’ll see all of the good that we can accomplish as a truly influential community. And that’s it.
Social Media propagating the best kind of influence there is.
As for me, my first project will be to try to make 100 hats that I’ll have ready to donate to a local women’s homeless shelter in time for the holidays.
Are you in?
I was conversing with someone this week about blogging. They were really having a tough time with it. “Am I using my voice? Am I going to let down the Twitter community I have built if my blog isn’t what they’re interested in?” I’ve had a lot of similar conversations. I’ve witnessed others. People who tweak their posts. People who go back and delete older posts.
When you set out to blog, just like with any craft, you think it’s going to be easy. You know all of the pieces and parts. You’ve seen other people do it. You’ve even gotten lots of helpful tips. Where crafters have patterns, bloggers have tons of informational resources. Then you sit down to blog, and it’s like your brain just starts leaking out of your ears on to your keyboard. When I was learning to crochet, I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the slip knot that you need to make before you even start to do the actual crocheting. This did not bode well, I thought at the time. Learning how to knit, which requires, really, two and a half hands, is also extremely awkward, whereas when a long-time knitter is knitting, it looks effortless and even kind of hypnotic.
So what do you do after you hit this point of despair? Do you just give up your blog and say, “I don’t know. I must just not be meant to blog.” No. The temptation might be there, but blogging, like any craft, is ultimately, in the end, a test of patience. You start to realize that the less you stress about it, the easier and better it gets. My first completed crocheted project, although not a masterpiece, happened when I sat down and said, “Aw heck, I like doing this and I’m just going to do it for fun.” My stitches relaxed. I relaxed. Everything got better.
As I go through and look at people who are following me, I analyze carefully who I follow back and who I decide to just keep my eye on. I’ve come to notice over the last couple of months that there are things I look for in my fellow tweeters, so I thought I would share my top ten (or tep ton as I just typed) ideas for how to get rolling on Twitter. Let me know if these ideas help!
Phew. What a week, and it’s not over yet! I’m really excited about something regarding this project – people are recommending OTHER peoples’ blogs more than their own. These are the kinds of things that give me faith in both humanity and Social Media – in that order. I hope you enjoy these posts. Don’t forget to congratulate the authors, and don’t forget – as soon as you see this post, it’s time to send me new ones for next week!
Being an agency person in the world of Social Media can be an interesting journey. On the one hand, I am out here learning so that I can offer the best advice possible to our clients. But then recommendations come through my Twitter stream that are geared towards the “do it yourself” mentality. This places me in an untenable situation. I can try to argue that something that works decently and is super duper cheap is not really good for you, or I can say, “Hey, try this out everybody!” And talk our agency out of potential projects.
A few months back, I started a brand new Twitter account for myself, and I decided to call myself “real life mad man” (I have since shortened my handle to RLMadMan). The idea came to me when a friend asked if my office and the goings-on were anything like what Mad Men shows. “Well, not exactly,” I said. I thought I would try to create a Twitter account comparing my daily experiences with those of say, Don Draper. As I have discussed before, this modus operandi was not ideal for the Twitter world.