I confess, I’m a little confused.
I know, that’s not much of a news flash. Confusion perpetually haunts me, making me adopt the pose of “the thinker.” It’s a chronic problem. No laughing matter.
Here’s the thing I’m confused about lately. Is there anything in the world of Social Media that could happen to you that would make you really happy?
See, I’m noticing all of these blog posts that are kind of, well, cranky. And they’re about all kinds of different things. And yet all the while, the person complaining seems to create situations where that exact thing is bound to happen.
Oh, you want examples, do you? Well, alright. For example…
There are people who complain that they don’t think Social Media works. They aren’t growing their business. It’s all a hoax. But I see them tweeting out YouTube videos all day (and I mean all day).
There are people who complain that they have too many followers, but then they cc big names when they tweet out their blog posts.
There are people who say that they don’t like getting lauded over, but then they also complain that they don’t get enough respect.
Factually, very few things happen in the world of Social Media (or in life, for that matter) without you working towards it. There might be some serendipity involved, but often, it’s about preparation meeting opportunity. If you enjoy sharing fun stuff on Social Media sites, your business will probably not grow. If you continue to tweet and interact with people, humans and bots will continue to follow you. If you indicate that you want respect, and you have earned it, you will receive it. If you say that you don’t want compliments or honors, you probably won’t get them.
This is not rocket science.
However, there are an awful lot of people who seem confused. Maybe even more confused than me. It seems like no matter what happens, they aren’t happy. Objectives are not met. Disappointment wins the day.
Maybe they haven’t been asked lately what they want. What would make them happy. So I’m asking you – what do YOU want? What would make YOU happy? And how are you working towards that goal?
Image by Belovodchenko Anton. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/african_fi
What do I want? TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, really. What I want is to be well regarded among my peers as a great writer and a great person. I want to make enough money so that I can choose to work on a project because I love it, not because I must or be homeless.
I guess I want what everyone wants – some level of acceptance, and a pat on the back every now and then. I am pretty fortunate all things being equal, so I am not going to complain too much. 🙂
Sounds like pretty reasonable stuff to me. Hopefully you aren’t disappointed often, but it sounds like you are only setting yourself up for your success, which is generally a preferred way to go. I think 🙂
I joined twitter (social media) as research. What is going on, how does it work, can I use it for myself or others I mentor or consult for?
In order to really research, you have to participate and that’s what I do. I find many things interesting… I get more followers when I put out almost flippant & shallow tweets than when I tweet what I consider value; in fact I often lose followers after a substance chat:-)
It was really interesting who would actually give me the time of day when I started, and who brushed me off and now with 3K followers whose attitude has changed! Well it’s just like Real Life, however I think you find out quite quickly who the Real people are and when I have had a F2F with some of these REAL people, I have not been disappointed, in fact quite the opposite.
I am very happy with my research, what I have learned and continue to learn especially from people like you
.
@CASUDI
No question, you can learn a lot when you’re just trying to dip your toe in. It kind of sucks you in and keeps you asking for more, doesn’t it?
I’m glad we met on our mutual paths of research and discovery 🙂
Margie this post really struck a chord with me. I believe there are two types of people. Those who see challenges and those who see obstacles. Or in cliche parlance half full vs. half empty.
As a relative newbie to social media, I came in with few preconceptions. Probably similar to Casudi above. I too discovered you can make some great connections. Sure I’ve also been twitter spammed (what the heck is that called anyway?), and had people pitch and walk when they realized I wouldn’t buy immediately. Just treat it like water off a duck.
Social media is like everything else in life, you get out what you put in (GIGO!).
What do I want? To write blog posts like you! Seriously. I appreciate the way you communicate your message and I ALWAYS refer my newbie friends to various blog posts of yours. Aside from that, I really want to have a healthy, profitable amount of projects : ) for my company. Mostly these days though, my immediate wants and needs are to extract the knowledge from my head (which I can articulate so well verbally) into written form. Thanks for all of your insightful blog posts Margie.