Marjorie Clayman’s Writing Portfolio

Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Margie Clayman

Are you passing the torch?

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Fifty years ago this week, a young Catholic man from Boston named John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States of America. The day of his inauguration was frigidly cold and blindingly bright, two contrasting conditions that pretty well sum up his presidency, if you think about it. People don’t really remember, though, what the temperature was that day. It’s not even an oft-repeated part of our nation’s folklore that poet extraordinaire Robert Frost couldn’t see the paper on which he had written his poem specifically for this occasion. No, what people remember about JFK’s first and only inauguration day is his plea – “Ask not what your country can do for you,” and his proclamation, “A torch is passed.”

In Social Media, the concept of passing the torch is an integral part of the fabric of this world. I would know very little if people had been unwilling to pass their knowledge on to me. I’d have very little to say if I wasn’t interested in passing on what I’ve learned to others. Are you passing the torch?

How do you pass the torch in Social Media?

You’ve probably heard broad statements during your time in Social Media, statements like, “Give everything away” or “Give to get.” What does that really mean, though? How can you give while still building your business or your brand? How can you pass the torch without giving away the store? More to the point, how do you pass the torch while avoiding the pitfall of simply repackaging what others have said before? Here are some ideas.

• Offer advice as you have lived it: There is a lot of advice flying around in this space, but no one has adjusted quite like you did. Instead of offering buzz words, explain how you got to where you are. What worked? What didn’t?

• Don’t try to be everything to everyone: It’s tempting, when you are finding your place online, to try to be the expert at everything. You want to be the expert on Twitter, then Facebook, then blogging. This ambition can cost you credibility. Bow to others who know more about certain areas. When it comes to Facebook, for example, few people I know exceed Tommy Walker’s knowledge. When it comes to Google Analytics, I can’t think of anyone who offers more expertise than Avinash Kaushik. Don’t pass a torch you don’t have.

• Don’t squirrel away all of your secrets: It’s true that we all have a secret sauce that allows us to succeed as we do. However, there is plenty that you can tell people without offering those precise measurements that make you you. If you found shortcuts or if you found huge traps over your time in this world, let people know. Send out warnings or tips at will.

• Look for ways to help: This doesn’t mean that you always have the answer yourself. Passing the torch can mean that you share your networking or your community with someone. You share your awareness of that person’s expertise.

• Always give the gift of you: The best single way to make sure you aren’t just repackaging someone’s stale advice is to be genuinely, authentically, certifiably you. Nobody is experiencing things exactly as you are. No one has your voice. No one has your personality. When you offer advice or tips or warnings or consultation, make it come from you.

Don’t doubt you have something to offer

JFK was the youngest president elected up to that time – you could say it was pretty audacious of him to announce that he was grasping the torch of his generation.  You might think it’s crazy to think that you have enough knowledge and experience to be able to pass anything on. But you’re wrong.

Not only are there tons of people joining this world who are newer than you, but there are also people who have been here longer who don’t know what your experience is. We just know how it was for us. What trials and tribulations are you experiencing? How are you working around them? This is important, because no one has done exactly what you’re doing before. You have something unique to pass on right from the start.

A challenge

Here’s a challenge for you for this week. Pass the torch on to just 1 person. Whether it’s answering a question, writing a blog post with a person in mind, or cheering someone on who is having a hard time breaking in, pass the torch. Pass on some knowledge. Pass on your perspective. And tell your story here in the comments.

Do we have a deal?

Nine great ways to spread the love

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I always hate generalizations, but generally speaking, there are three kinds of posts that tend to do really well in the world of Social Media. The first is the super personal, “Uh, do I know you well enough to be reading this?” post. The second is the “I call BS on…” post. The third is “I’m calling out this person” post.

Now the super personal posts are fine, and in fact a lot of them have a lot of merit. It’s honorable to courageously tell your story so that you can shine a light on a problem or give courage to others who are struggling along with you. It makes sense that these posts get a lot of comments and tweets. Post number two usually does well for two reasons. There are a lot of people who say “Heck yeah” and there are a lot of people who say, “Um, what on EARTH are you talking about?” Then they call BS on each other in the comments section. Basically, it’s the same dynamic in post type number three.

I feel like the “calling out” posts are creating little black holes in the fabric of my Social Media universe. You see, here’s the thing. We all have this great power, right? I mean, when on earth have you ever had 500 people “following” you? What about even more people than that? It’s crazy the amount of “amplification” (to use Klout’s term) that we all have online. The thing constantly nagging at me is, “OK, so I have this ability to reach a lot of people. How can I use this to make the world better?” Because woah, there are so many people who would really love a roof over their heads, not to mention a computer to blog on.

I haven’t thought of a really good way to use my voice to help the homeless or the starving yet, but until I figure that out, I figure I can at least use my time online to make little differences. I can spread a little love. If I can create a smile or ease a burden (like telling someone what #FF means in Twitter world) then that’s a great day.

Just in case you are in my hippie dippie camp, I thought I would share some ways that I like to go about spreading the sunshine online. This is stuff that doesn’t really get you a lot of comments or notoriety. It’s just an alternative to the daily grind of “rah rah I’m going to beat you up with my evil typing” stuff.

1. If you’re running a little low on blog topics, write a post about a person you feel is really doing a great job. Or heck, write a post about a bunch of people. I had so much fun writing my “Social Media All Start Team” post because I got to spotlight a ton of really great people.

2. Comment, with a real comment, on someone’s post – on a blog you’ve never commented on before.  You know what a rush it is to get a thoroughly thought-out comment on one of your works of art. Do that for someone else.

3. Introduce two people to each other whom you just know will get along. Whether or not you opt to use Hashable, it’s a real joy to scan your Twitter stream and think, “Oh, I’ll bet those 2 could talk to each other for hours.”

4. Tweet out a link to a post for someone who doesn’t get a lot of blog traffic. It’s like handing someone a bag of gold.

5. Compliment someone out of the blue. I find that this always turns people into complete mush, which is really fun to do.

6. Answer a question that’s really bugging someone. Not long ago, I was having a bear of a time trying to figure out how to add a bit of design to my site. The rush of help from very kind people I didn’t know that well was amazing.

7. Ask people how they are. It seems so basic. In fact, it seems so basic that we almost never do it. I do this especially if I see someone floating by in my Twitter stream whom I haven’t spoken to in awhile. It’s like running into someone at the grocery store. Except there aren’t cold cuts around.

8. Come to someone’s rescue. This can be risky, because you don’t want to get caught up in a big, well, I think the technical term is “hoopty doodle.” But if you see that someone is getting picked on or harassed, at the very least send them a direct message and say, “Hey, do you need help out there?” We all love knights in shining armor, but seldom see them.

9. Invite someone to guest post on your blog. We all feel that our blogs are sacred ground, and our readers probably know we feel that way. With that in mind, tapping someone on the shoulder and saying “Hey, do you want to use my platform?” is a GREAT way to spread the love.

Those are 9 ways that I try to spread the love in my Social Media community.

What’s number ten? You tell me. What can or do you do to make the online world a little brighter?

Is Facebook Really Valuable for Your Business?

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This is the first in a series of posts from Facebook expert Tommy Walker. Tommy not only understands the intricacies of using Facebook for business, but he also can explain things so that other people can make use of Facebook and succeed. Visit with Tommy on Twitter at @tommyismyname.

In short, yes.

But don’t be fooled by the droves of Facebook Marketers out there that will try to sell you on what I call the “Facebook Fantasy”

You know, get a page up on Facebook, post interesting updates, ask interesting questions, and become a viral sensation.

Let’s look at Facebook from a very practical standpoint, in this article we’ll go through the most common objections for marketing a business over Facebook and examine numbers that are digestible, demographics that are relate-able, and from there you can make an educated decision as to whether or not Facebook will be valuable tool for your business.

My target market isn’t on Facebook

This is a common objection people have when contemplating Facebook. So let’s look at the numbers

500 million active users

50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

71% of United States Internet users are on Facebook (cite: AllFacebook)

239,893,600 United States Internet users (cite: Internet World Stats.com) = Roughly 170,324,456 United States Facebook users

U.S Population appox. 311,874,138 (cite: Census.gov) meaning roughly 54.6% of the United States population is on Facebook

Only kids are using Facebook

In 2009, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook in the U.S was Women aged 35-65

fbdemostats4

The trend continues for 2010, in fact if you notice in the chart below there are more 35-54 aged users than any other demographic. Furthermore the Fastest growing demographic in 2010 was the 55+ crowd. The Millennials are right behind them however, so what does this mean really? The two demographics with the most buying power in the United States, the Millennials and the Baby Boomers are well represented on Facebook.

facebook_demographics_chart_statistics_2010

What’s even more interesting is that nearly 30% of U.S Facebook users have identified themselves as either “In College” or as a College Graduate, meaning that U.S Facebook users lean strongly towards higher education.

Facebook doesn’t have the tools I need

Facebook has well over 60,000 apps available, allowing you to do a number of things like share files, open a chat room for fans, run polls, publish music or other audio files, share books and broadcast live events. I’ve recently created a list of 33 of the most useful apps to transform your Facebook Page

Facebook also has an advertising platform that lets you target people based on what they enter into their profile (and the pages that they “like”). This gives you the ability to target a very specific type of personality, the type of personality that you’re going to be most likely to resonate with (and at a price that you set).

For example, let’s say I were an independent comic book artist and my story had dark notes like Batman, I would use Batman, and other “gothic” type references (The Crow, Dark City, Alex Proyas, Sin City, Darkman, Jhonan Vasquez etc…) as a starting point to build my ideal target audience. Because they’re already predisposed to like my style of content, chances are likely that if they’re the only people I’m targeting with my ad, there are bound to be more than a few early adopters who will be willing to spread the word.

I tried it before, and it didn’t work

But what were you doing the last time you tried using Facebook for your business? Remember, people use Facebook mostly to keep up with friends and family and things that they care about.

Normally when I ask people what they did the last time they tried using Facebook, the answer is pretty close to the same- Posted links, asked questions, and got no response.

But when asked about the stuff they comment on they usually say Funny Photos, awesome events in my friend’s life, or articles that are relevant to me.

And that’s the key, is that in order to make Facebook, and all online marketing endeavors for that matter, it has to be engaging to your target audience. Fortunately Facebook has all of the tools you need to be engaging to the right people.

For some, it very well could have been the information they were publishing was engaging, they just didn’t have the right people. See when you create a Facebook Page you’re at first limited to only people on your own personal friends list to invite to populate your page. Without running ads, or having some other expansion strategy in place, your updates will go out to friends and family who, let’s face it, aren’t always as engaged in what you’re talking about as you are.

My guess is if you tried it, and it didn’t work, you simply weren’t talking to the right people.

So is Facebook really valuable for your business?

Really that’s up to you to decide. Certainly the “right people” are there with over half of the United States population having membership.

All the tools you could possibly imagine are there to help you engage with the exact people who could benefit from your perspective.

But in the end, it all depends on you.

Are you willing to take a second look at Facebook and see how it can fit into your overall strategy?

What is creativity?

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My friend, Rufus “the dog,” invited me to participate in the #letsblogoff project. Today’s topic is “What is creativity?” No small order to tackle this topic!

Oddly enough, a related question has been running through my head in regards to blogging. I’ve been reading Richard Branson’s “Business Stripped Bare.” He talks about how in the first days of Virgin Records, he bought a manor in the country, turned it into a studio, and it became a creative haven for Virgin musicians. They could really indulge in the creative process, let loose when they were done working, and then go right back into work when the mood was right.

It got me thinking about how I think a lot of us blog. At its heart, blogging should be considered an art – something born of creativity. But do we approach blogging that way? I started thinking about my mode of blogging. I don’t light candles, turn on relaxing music, get a nice cup of tea, and luxuriate in the experience of blogging. I sit down and say, “OK, how many of these ideas can I get written down?”

Is it the same for you? We become producers, not artists, right?

So what is creativity? To me, creativity is not just the act of creating, but it is luxuriating in the ability to do so. It is putting fingers to keyboard, pen to paper, paint to canvas, voice to guitar because you just have to. It is expression without thought of ramifications.

And it’s exceedingly rare.

What do you think? How do you define creativity?

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/arte_ram

Women don’t want a league of our own

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Today, Carol Roth wrote an incredible, blunt, truthful post about the status of women in the world of entrepreneurship, business, and Social Media. It’s called At the Business Table, Where Are the Ladies? One of the key questions Carol asks is, “Why is there a TED for women?

There was a time in our country when the general philosophy regarding racing relations was summarized by the statement, “Separate but equal.” Of course, the “separate” rang a lot more true than the “equal.” Now, we look back on those times and think, “Man, how could our nation have ever gone there?”

And yet, in so many cases, “separate but equal” still summarizes the situation that exists between men and women.

If your gut instinct is to say, “That’s hogwash,” consider the following:

The WNBA

Women’s collegiate teams versus men’s

Women’s high school teams versus men’s

The LPGA

and, as Carol mentions, TED for women.

This is not the 1940s

I suppose it’s easy to think that all of these female-specific leagues and groups are progress. After all, when we watch a movie like A League of Their Own, we see how happy women were to have their own baseball league.

There’s just a couple of little problems with this line of thinking. First, that story takes place in the 1940s, during World War II. And second, the only reason THAT league formed was because the men were off fighting the Fascists, which took a higher priority (thank goodness).

We’re into a whole new century now, not to mention several decades away from those times. Isn’t it time we move beyond a league of our own?

Women and Social Media

There are so many amazing, strong, genius women online right now that it’s truly hard to mention just a few. In addition to Carol, my days are filled with the intelligence and leadership epitomized by women like Liz Strauss, Lisa Petrilli, Amber Naslund, Marsha Collier, Ann Handley, Beth Harte, Mari Smith, Denise Wakeman, Jill Manty, Debra Leitl, Kristi Hines, and tons more. And yet, as Carol points out, if you ask who the “big names” are in Social Media, it’s mostly men who will be mentioned. Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, Brian Solis. The women seem kind of pushed over to the side. There are lists that focus exclusively on women, but seldom are women equally applauded with men. Seldom are women rewarded with the same respect and pull.

Why?

Maybe we need to make it happen

Maybe women aren’t getting the same kind of respect because we aren’t demanding it. I would say that it’s hard for a woman to aggressively demand respect. It is so easy in our society to call such women bad names or to attribute their ambition to “that time of the month.” But maybe we just need to keep enduring the insults. Maybe we just need to change the conversation. Maybe we need to say “no thanks” to a group slotted out for “us types.” Mix us in, please.

What do you think?

Are we stuck in a 1940s mentality, where a “league” or “group” created for women is thought to be equality? Is something else afoot?

Let’s continue the conversation.

5 enemies of post sharing

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If you are blogging, you probably often scratch your head and wonder why some posts get comments and others get tweeted out. Some posts benefit from both kinds of affection. What is the difference?

I am certainly not the be-all and end-all of blog readers, but I thought I would offer some insight into what molds my decision making process when I’m reading a post. There are five things that automatically make me not tweet a link out to your post. And here they are.

1. Cussing: I know that this is a controversial issue. A lot of people feel like you should be able to talk online just like you do in real life. If you cuss a lot in real life, cuss a lot in your blog posts. Well, this is in direct combat with my general philosophy that when I’m online, I’m at work. I’m talking to, potentially, existing and future clients, family members, your 85-year-old grandmother, and who knows who else is out there. I wouldn’t introduce myself to any of those people by saying, “Hi, I’m bleeping Margie Clayman. Who the bleep are you?” I won’t send out a post full of swear words for the same reason.

2. Tearing someone down: A lot of people have noticed that a great way to get a lot of comments is to rip someone to shreds. While I may comment on such posts (usually in a “REALLY?!?” kind of way), I am not going to support this behavior, nor do I usually want to directly associate my Twitter account with such content.

3. Lots of grammar mistakes: I don’t know about you, but to me, if I tweet out a post, I feel like I’m saying, “I think this is so awesome that I just have to share it with you.” If your post has a ton of grammatical errors, I just can’t feel like I can recommend it. I don’t lambaste people in the comments sections of posts like that, but some of the mistakes I see in posts reflect poorly on the blogger. If I tweet it out, it will also reflect poorly on me. Some examples? Your/You’re. It/It’s. These are really basic, really important things to get right when you are writing a lot.

4. Lots of spelling errors: I know that by now you’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking what a jerk I am, but this is just part of my analysis process. Spelling errors in a post make you look sloppy, especially since most blog sites offer a simple spell check feature that you could click. Again, if I stand behind a post, it needs to meet the standards I set for myself. That means definitely should not be spelled definately. Just an example.

5. Super personal stuff: It’s hard to define what TMI is, but generally, if you are doing one of those “I’m going to get personal here” posts, I won’t share it. I always go back and forth in my head about this. You posted it to the public domain, so you must have thought there was a chance it would get shared. It just doesn’t seem like my place to tell people I don’t know to check out really personal information about you. I’ll likely comment, but it just usually makes me feel weird to tweet out a post called something like “My personal battle with cancer” or “My struggles with domestic violence.” It’s your story to tell.

Are there triggers that make you pause before sharing a post? Do any of these resonate with you? Let’s talk about it in the comments section!

Image by Kjell-Einar Pettersen. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Kjelle69