Margie Clayman

OK, so to be fair, I was really not reading many blogs (I confess!!!) from January through March. So really, these are my top 100 favorite posts of the last nine months. But 2010 just sounds a lot better. The categories and the posts within each category are listed in no particular order, by the way.

Posts That Made Me Cry

1. You Need a Suzanne Vara, by Chris Brogan. Ok, I’ve mentioned this post a couple of times. I was of course beyond flattered that two amazing and special people would actually  be spending time talking about me, but more than that, I just thought this tribute to Suzanne, who has since become an even more dear friend, was just spectacular and well-deserved.

2. The Power of Not Giving Up – One Blogger’s Story, by Naomi Dunford. This was a guest post at ProBlogger, and not only was I moved by the post itself, but I was also at a point in my budding Social Media career where things didn’t seem to be catching – this post showed me that maybe I wasn’t crazy to think things would get better. If you’re feeling a little low, give this post a read.

3. Why are you scared to be outspoken? by Lisa Barone. A perfect mixture of using the personal to make a professional point, of showing vulnerability and toughness at the same time – and a great message running through it all.

4. The $10 Difference, by Jason Falls. A story of struggle, inspiration, and a call to action.

5. How Social Media Got Me A Message from Superman, by Cristian Gonzales. Cristian had found my #30Thursday posts and asked if he could submit this one. Um, yeah, you think?!? Shake my hand and make me bawl, why doncha? 🙂

6. Fielding Love: The Walk to Remember, from the Sweet Salty Blog. This was hard to read but I’ll never forget it.

7. What I learned about networking when I asked a stranger for a kidney, by Lisa Petrilli. You’ll well up and you’ll learn at the same time. What could be better?

8. Thankful for her unblessings – an astonishing video by Estrella Rosenberg.

9. A Veterans Day message, a vlog by Amber Cleveland

Posts that made me laugh

10. Food Glorious Food, by Molly Campbell. I love all of Molly’s writing, but this one just sticks out in my head.

11. Bring Your Whole Self To Work, by Tristan Bishop. What’s better than a brilliant dude imitating Shrek & Donkey, anyway?

12. The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging, by Sonia Simone at Copyblogger. So funny. So smart. So Sonia 🙂

13. Growing Old Gracefully, by, well, Fadra Nally’s cat! Being a cat person, I loved this post!

Posts that blew my mind

14. It’s time to get to work. Arm yourself with knowledge, by Beth Harte. The amount of information and learning packed into this post is, like, woah.

15. The Social Network: Ecosystem vs. Egosystem, by Brian Solis. If you didn’t need to read this post twice, well, you’re smarter than I am!

16. How to use inception marketing on your blog, by Tommy Walker. A guest post at ProBlogger, this post was enjoyable as the movie!

17. Are we outsourcing common sense to the internet? by Fred McClimans. Brilliant post about the current state of the world, and a lot to think about!

18. The Marketing Solar System: Making it easy for customers makes them more loyal, by Debra Ellis. It’s “just” a picture 🙂

19 Why PR has its head up its ass, by Danny Brown. This blew my mind in a different way than some of the other posts, but it’s still a great post!

20. Socialopoly: The fictional mashup of Social Media and Monopoly, by Brian Rice. I debated whether to put this in the laugh category or this one, but it’s too freakin brilliant not to include here!

21. Confessions of a Narcissist, by Mitch Joel. This post really made me stop, think, and evaluate. I can’t believe I first read it four months ago!

22. It’s Micro-Local isn’t it? by Maya Paveza. Well, this post still has me puzzling. Maya’s post has ramifications for real estate, but also well beyond real estate. Really amazing insight here.

Perspective-Changing Posts

23. The Fine Art of Chunking, by Jonathan Fields. I’m a “grab the whole pie in your mouth with one fell swoop” kind of person, so the idea of chunking really hit home.

24. Oui Theory, by “Gaga” Susan Fox. I love this post, the tonality, and what it describes.

25. Personal Branding Basics for 2011, by Chris Brogan. Only Chris could use the word “basics” and have it change a way of thinking. Kind of disgusting, really 🙂

26. You’re Already a Community Manager, by Amber Naslund. And she should know!

27. Ask Better Questions, by Chris Brogan. Well, what can I say. I look up to Chris, and there’s a reason for it. Waddya gonna do ’bout it?

On Marketing

28. Marketing Outsourcing, by Stephane Poirier. A brilliant post, really and truly.

29. Dear Marketing and PR Pros: You’re Still Pushing, by Beth Harte. Beth is a great mind, and this post really exemplifies why. If you’re pushing, you’re not really all about the customer.

30. 12 Questions to ask BEFORE investing in mobile marketing assets, by Joe Ruiz. As mobile starts to catch on fire, this is a great fort of knowledge to reference.

31. When the Orchestra Plays Instead of a Solo, by Mary Biever. A truly great way to explain the value of integrated marketing.

32. I’ve Got a Number in Mind, by Dawn Westerberg. It’s not even just local anymore. It’s one on one, individual to individual.

33. The Three Amigos: Email, Blogging, and Social Sharing, by Jay Baer. A brilliant analysis of why using multiple channels at one time can really open the door to some amazing marketing.

Blogging (Yes, some of my favorite blog posts were about blogging. Let’s move on, shall we?)

34 What is the purpose of your blog? by Suzanne Vara. Seems like an easy question to answer. Not so much, though.

35. Still not sure about launching your blog? by Stanford Smith. This is one of Stan’s shortest posts. I also think it’s one of his best.

36. Why you shouldn’t just blog for yourself, by Stanford Smith again. He is the king of bloggy motivation, at least in my world. This post made me realize that this guy was going to be headed straight towards superstardom.

37. How to use a writing frame, by Chris Brogan. If you’re new to blogging, or if you struggle with writing in general, this post may be just what you’re looking for.

38. The Eminem Guide to Becoming a Writing & Marketing Machine, by Sean Platt at Copyblogger. Even if you aren’t an Eminem fan, you’ll find this post pretty amazing. I am an Eminem fan, so I enjoyed this post all the more.

39. Women in Blogging: 125 Fearless Female Bloggers, by Kristi Hines. Well, aside from the fact that I almost passed out when I saw I was on this list, there is so much to learn. Kristi did such a nice job of rounding up women from all different kinds of industries. It was an honor to be part of that crowd!

Social Media

40. Full Disclosure: I think Social Media Marketing is BS, by Tom Moradpour. An interesting blog title for a fellow who is involved a great deal in Social Media Marketing, non? I thought so, too 🙂

41. Did Social Networking Kill the High School Reunion? by Chase Adams. An intriguing thought that certainly has rattled around in my brain. What do you think?

42. Building Relationships that Matter, by Suzanne Vara. This was Suzanne’s response to Chris Brogan’s post about her. While some people would just gush, Suzanne sent out the light to other lucky people in her community, including me. It’s what Social Media is all about.

43 Let Your Voice Be Heard, by Amber Cleveland and Kay Whitaker. Such a simple message, again, but it’s true. Social Media has given us all a voice. Why not use it?

44. We probably wouldn’t be friends in real life, by Dawn Westerberg. I love this post, still, and I hope it resonates with you as much as it did with me.

45. We were right, most Social Media numbers are useless, by Mack Collier. The title pretty much says it all. Great points. Very encouraging if you’re new to this world!

Branding

44. Is there a crisis in crisis management? by Cheryl Burgess. This is more about the dangers brands face online than branding itself, but still, a very important read.

45. Why personal branding is not just an exercise in egoism, by Cristian Gonzales. Can you build your personal brand without becoming an egomaniac?

46. What’s your MO? Does your brand have conversation starters? by Tom Moradpour. Another jewel by Tom, and a way to promote Movember as well. Not bad, eh?

47. How to manage an enterprise Twitter presence: Avatars, account structure, and basic response methodology, by Olivier Blanchard (aka The Brand Builder). This also easily could have gone into my “Blows my mind” category, but, you kind of have to have Oliver in the branding section. I mean, really.

Influence

48. Google and Bing reveal that social influence bumps search engine results, by Mark W. Schaefer. A fairly recent post, but truly fantastic analysis.

49. Improve your influence, by Chris Brogan. Everything I believe about Social Media influence. He takes all my best ideas, I swear 🙂

50. 6 common habits of highly effective social media rockstars, part 1: The speaking circuit, by Olivier Blanchard. Some interesting points about what real rock-stardom could, or should, look like.

51. The Great Influence Debate – What if Watts and Gladwell are both wrong and right? by Jeff Wilson. I keep coming back to this post because it bowled me over. Give it a read!

Woman Power

52. I hope that you love- or despise – my book cover, by Carol Roth. A very interesting insight into the minefields out there in the publishing world.

53.  Twisted Sisters, by Tamsen McMahon. I love this post. It says so much, and it still resonates with me as strongly as it did 2 months ago.

Motivation – of all kinds

54. Entrepreneurs Share Their 95 Balls-to-the-walls crazy (BTWC) Business Goals, by Carol Roth. When you read some of these goals, you can’t help but think of your own.

55. Diary of a wimpy blogger, by Stan Smith. Read this, then get blogging. Immediately.

56.  Can we really just bury our failures? by Suzanne Vara. Inspired by her Jets, this post got me thinking about all kinds of ways Suzanne’s words could be used as motivation.

57. Your Trajectory and Course-Correction, by Chris Garrett (at My Escape Velocity). All of Chris’s posts are great, but this one has really stuck with me and resonated.

58. Don’t fear making the leap to new beginnings, by Lou Imbriano. This post is so beautifully written, so motivational, personal, and it has a great message to boot. My kind of post, Lou. Well done!

On Social Good

59. This is Tanner, a post by Catherine (HerBadMother). This was the background to the campaign run by Scott Stratten on Twitter, which was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.

60. Air Canada Ignores Dying Boy Til He Goes Viral, by Lisa Barone. Sadly, Lisa’s community of commenters got nasty in some instances, but her post captures the power anyone who witnessed the Tutus for Tanner campaign felt.

61. Teens and Social Media Bullying – Why Find Help App is So Important, by Danny Brown. I found this post to be so helpful that I actually was able to base a chat around it on Twitter, and Danny, being a gentleman, joined in. Layers of good. Like a great cake!

62. Hope: the 1st update, by Megin for Elolam. Learn more about this group. They are doing GREAT things!

63. The New Deal for Charity – You can make a difference, by the ladies of Sterling Hope, Amber Cleveland and Kay Whitaker – using a new business to do social good, and blogging about it. Yep.

64. Thank you! a blog from Tom Moradpour reporting on the Didier Drogba campaign, another amazing Twitter campaign for good.

65. How to be a SuperDad, by Amber Osborne. A bit on our “MitchGiving” campaign for Mitch Neff and his family.

66. Becoming Visible, a post Chris Brogan wrote highlighting the immense good that Mark Horvath is doing in the world.

On Bullying

67.  I was Bullied, by Julie Mangano. A heart-wrenching, brave blog post.

68. Confessions of a Bully, by Kat Caverly. This is an amazing post, and I’m so glad Lady Greetums shared it.

69. On Bullying, by Jim Mitchem. An amazing post and a great perspective.

70. Was I a Bully? By Danny Garcia for The Online Safe House. I love this post. It’s like you’re jumping inside Danny’s head. Gently…

71. Bullying will never go away. So how can we minimize the impacts? by Patrick Prothe for The Online Safe House. Patrick was such a great help this year in blogging for my side project. I owe him a lot.

On Twitter

72. What Twitter’s $200 Million Cash Infusion Means to You, by Heidi Cohen. This is one of Heidi’s best posts, I think. Her analysis is spot on.

73. Being a Twitter snob is a good thing, by Mitch Joel. I still think about this post regularly. Sometimes I think I still disagree with it. Other times, I think I might be coming around a bit. Hard to tell 🙂

74. Bringing down the Twitter snobs, by Mark Schaefer. Of course, I still think about Mark’s response, too.

75. The #usguys, by Chase Adams. The post that outlined the first vision of this Twitter phenomenon.

76. Slinging #Hashtags at the Virtual Diner, by Karen Lund. This post could be in the “posts that made me cry” section. Karen did a beautiful job (unsolicited) of hitting all of the points that Stan and I were hoping for when we started #Tweetdiner on Twitter 3 months ago. Truly a lovely tribute, and a pretty darned good explanation of what Twitter communities can be about.

On Doing It Right

77. Are Real Estate Agents Interested in Doing Social Media Right or Just Doing It? By Maya Paveza. This post is specific to the Real Estate world, but I think the question applies for everyone.

78. What People Care About (Not Social Media), by Geoff Livingston. Of course, doing it right in Social Media may, just may, not be the most important thing ever. Ssssh.

79. You’re Doing it Wrong, by Chris Brogan. True, this post is from 2009, but Chris sure did link to it a lot this year. So, I’m counting it. Because, well. I am.

Miscellany Goodness

80. I am a marketing stylist, by Lisa Alexander. I just adore Lisa, and this post always brings a smile to my face when I think about it.

81. The College Drop-off: Can we cut the crying parents some slack? By Ann Handley. I just thought this was such a great mixture of happy and sad, proud and, well, sad. I think about it a lot when I think back on my own college days 🙂

82. The Future of Marketing, by Tommy Walker. Tommy talks about all of the new marketing techniques the scare the heck out of me but make him happy.

83. An Exercise to Develop Your Observational Skills, by Mark Dykeman. I still think about this post a lot. It says so much about the current state of our society.

84. You’re famous, by Seth Godin. I don’t usually find that a lot of Seth’s blog posts stick with me, but this one did. It’s such a positive message. I like positive.

85. The Privatization of Culture and the Illusion of Depth, by Julien Smith. In his most recent post, Julie makes fun of this post and says it was way too obscure. Well, I liked it, Julien. So there. Phhhht.

The #30Thursday Posts

For 86-95, check out holiday reading, a collection of these posts.

Some of these posts are in my top faves on their own, some are not. They’re all worth reading, for sure.

And five posts I wrote meself

I guess it’s okay to pick five of your own favorite posts too, right?

96. I never thought it would happen to me: lessons on community

97. Agencies Can’t.

98. What Lincoln’s Generals Can Teach Us

99. Where will you be 50 years from now?

100. and just for fun (and bitterness), My open letter to LeBron.

I hope you enjoy these 100 posts. I enjoyed reflecting on all of them. Happy Holidays, to those who celebrate.

Lately, and I don’t want to get into any specifics here, I’ve seen a disturbing trend. Maybe you’ve noticed it too if you hang out on Twitter. If you don’t then maybe it hasn’t been as prevalent. But lately, I’ve seen a lot of “hater” behavior. My friend Nic Wirtz mentioned a similar trend during the Tweetdiner chat this past Saturday. Now, just like silly bands, hater behavior can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. For example:

Arnie the Argumentative Aardvark: This kind of hater will argue with certain people until said people react, usually in a not good way.

Sally the Slap-Happy Sloth: It’s really easy to “slap” people, especially in Twitter. Sally figures that since the Twitter stream rolls by so quickly, the person she is slapping may not even notice. It’s really easy, in 140 characters, to take a little slap at somebody.

Eva the Explosive Emu: This kind of hater seems to go along all nice and happy until suddenly, for no apparent reason, they explode at somebody, taking that poor somebody off guard.

The list goes on and on. Maybe you have some other members of the set at home.

Here’s the problem, though. When you are on the receiving end of this kind of haterific behavior, the pressure is on you, not the hater, to act in a mature fashion.

Bummer, right? However, I’ve seen this played out over and over again. Someone says something mean to person A. Person A retaliates. Everyone says tsk tsk tsk to person A. For whatever reason, no matter how unfair it is, the person who reacts gets a lot more attention than the person who initiated the squabble in the first place.

Avoid becoming Victor the Victimized Vampire Bat

There are a lot of ways to handle haters without making yourself look bad. The following are some of my recommendations. Maybe you have some as well?

• Shine out an aura of unending patience: The online world is kind of nice in that the general public only sees what you type. If you find that someone is driving you batty, go ahead and punch a pillow, kick a blanket, hit your bed, but when you come back to Twitter or your blog or wherever it is, be as calm and as still as a sea in Summer. Agree that the Arnie the argumentative aardvark is totally entitled to his point of view. Ask Ellen the explosive emu if everything is okay. If a person is truly trying to be a hater, nothing will upset them more. If something more friendly is going on, you’ll get down to the nugget of it rather than becoming an explosive emu yourself.

• Ignore the person: I know, this seems like it might be really boring, but just a thought – if you see a train crash, do you drive your car right into the middle of it, or do you drive away as fast as you can (while maybe looking at the madness in your rear view mirror)? If someone is trying to bait you into an online fight because they’re having a bad day, just refuse to participate. If they keep bugging you, unfollow them, report them as spam, or tell your friends what’s going on so you can get some back-up.

• Pay more attention to people who are treating you well: A lot of haters are fed by the attention they receive for their unseemly behavior. It’s kind of like Ghost Busters II, which altogether was not a great movie, but remember how the slime kept feeding off of everyone’s misery? Online haters are just like that sometimes. So, instead of blasting out a really happy and uplifting song, sing out praises for valued members of your community. Tweet out really good blog posts. Show the hater what he or she could experience if only they would stop hating. And if they’re just plain hungry for misery, let them go somewhere else.

• Explain to the hater that their behavior is unacceptable: I view this as a last resort, as it’s only a step or two away from engaging. However, if you’ve had friendly communications with the person, it sometimes doesn’t hurt to send an email or a personal message just to say, “Hey, you’re really not doing yourself any favors here. I’m concerned about you.” Now, you could also tweet this out in public but that just seems really passive aggressive. And it’s feeding the beast.

Don’t fight fire with fire

Whether you choose any of these methods or none of them, one core fact remains. In the online world, you are what you type. Very often, your followers or the people in your community will only see what you are saying to someone else. If they see you ranting and raving at someone, it’s kind of like seeing someone ranting and raving in the middle of a sidewalk for no apparent reason. They don’t see that someone is irking you. They don’t know that you have been patient for 27 months and now finally you’re losing it. They just see what you’re doing and what you’re typing. This is always the case. You never get a break. So before you retaliate, try to weigh the usefulness of your fireball against what it might cost you in terms of trust and credibility from people who like and respect you. Usually – this makes the decision pretty easy.

Oh, and by the way…

It’s really easy to come off as a hater in a place like Twitter-world. People don’t know you. They don’t know the tone of voice you have in your head. Always play on the safe side, even if you think you’re getting to know someone well enough to joke around with them. As somebody really smart said one time, “Better to be safe than sorry.”

Agree? Disagree? Hate? Love? Share in the comments below!

Image by Felix atsoram. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/atsoram

Tell me if you’ve had an experience like this before.

Once upon a time, I saw a link to a blog that seemed pretty interesting. It was a somewhat controversial blog post, the general jist of which being that the blogger in question was always getting blamed for not following through on what was promised. “I always comment back to my commenters” was one of the statements in the post. Well, being the sympathetic, heartily interested type, I left a comment. It seemed like the blogger was making good on their promise. Lots and lots of comments back. But then, after about a day, the comments stopped. This was about 3 or 4 months ago, and do you know what? I still haven’t gotten a response back.

I’m not the kind of person who really stresses if I don’t get a response back on a comment. However, if you make a big stink about how good you are at replying and then you don’t, it makes me stroke my invisible beard.

It can happen a million times a day

Now here’s the reason why this post is not going to turn into a “boy did that person smell like old baked beans” post. We’ve been talking about the quid pro quo nature of Social Media, right? The “give to get” modus operandi for success. This means that you are constantly faced with a situation where you could be saying yes to people because you honestly want to help them in whatever way you can. You say yes to reading a blog post. You say yes to proofreading something. You say yes to offering advice.

In addition to all of that, there are blog posts you write talking about how you’ll never do this or you’ll always do that.

Are you keeping track of that?

Keep it simple

It’s not a bad thing to have high objectives for yourself. In fact, it’s a very good thing. But in the world of Social Media, your words leave prints, and people seem to have a knack for remembering your words exactly when you don’t live up to them (it’s an odd quirk, that). One way around this problem is to verbalize your goals, but to be a little…imprecise about them. For example:

Instead of saying, “I will respond to every single comment,” set the expectation that you will do your best to respond to comments.

Instead of saying, “Yes, I can definitely do that for you,” set an expectation for the person. “I’ll try to get to that tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Honesty is really important in Social Media. A lot of people talk about transparency, but this is a little bit different. It’s honesty in the old-fashioned, “I mean what I say, Horton Hears a Who” kind of way. So, if someone asks you to read a 75 page novelette and you know you just don’t have the time for it, say so. Right then. My experience has been that if you say no (apologetically is nice), the person will rush to find someone else. If you dangle a person, they will start to get frustrated, and rightfully so.

Before you hit send or publish, do a gut check

If you are not sure if you are over-promising, take a period of time and really look carefully at what you are saying in your blogs and/or in your tweets. Are you using words like “never” or “always?” Are you using words like “yes” instead of “maybe”? If you were a stranger coming to your blog, would you have certain expectations (there’s that word again) based on the language you see?

The bull in the china shop

Walking your talk is a very delicate dance in the online world. You’re communicating a lot with a lot of different people. The more you make good on your promises, the better your reputation will become, which is great. But if you make a real big disconnect between a promise and an action, it can be like a bull in a china shop, and all of that hard work building trust will go down the toilet.

As we have discussed, we can’t control others’ expectations of us, but we can strive to set our own expectations, and we can strive to live up to those expectations. Make sure the expectations you are placing on yourself are achievable and realistic. Better to create small goals and always meet them then to publicly set a large goal and miss it.

Does this make sense? Any questions?

Tonight, TweetDiner will be marking its approximate 3-month birthday! By the time a baby turns 3 months old, they are starting to learn how to do a few things, like smile and roll over maybe. Well, in our efforts to grow and develop, we are going to be starting something new tonight (at 9 PM EST on Twitter, using the hashtag #Tweetdiner).

Because Tweetdiner’s primary mission is incorporate people new to Social Media and help them get acclimated to Twitter and the world of chats, we are going to exemplify the good spirit of sharing, promoting others, and “giving to get” by asking that everyone come in with a link to 1 post that they read during the week that really stuck with them.

Envision it like we’re all sitting around a table at a restaurant (or a diner), and we go around with everyone listing 1 thing they really liked during the week.

There are only two rules.

In good faith – don’t share a link to something that some folks might deem offensive (bad language, etc)

And don’t promote your own blog as part of this exercise.

I’ll publish a list on Sunday with all of the blogs that folks mention so that we can all go back and review.

Sound good? Any questions?

Image by Jonathon Monk. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/jon3782001

A new member of my community here at ye olde blog, Juan Pablo Hurtado, asked a really good question in response to my last post, so I thought I would share it, and my answer, for everyone to see.

Juan asked how we can tell whether we are sharing or pushing, and how we can avoid pushing.

Great question, right?

Here’s my take on it, and we’ll see if you agree.

Show and Tell

Remember show and tell from when you were a kid? You’d stand up in front of your classmates and say, “Well, this is a very spiffy pencil that I got and it  has feathers on it and it’s very pretty.” Okay, so you probably wouldn’t show and tell a pencil, but anyway, show and tell was not inherently about bragging per se, right? It was more about, “Well, here is this thing that I want to tell you about.”

If you want to make sure you are sharing in the world of Social Media but you’re not sure where that line of icky is, try to imagine you are standing in front of, well, everyone who follows you, and it’s show and tell time.  If you have a new post up on your blog, say, “Hey, I have this information I’d like to share with you if you want.”

Ways to share

There are a lot of ways to share with this kind of tonality. A lot of it is just using your common sense. Here are some great ways to “show and tell” blog posts or other content without being pushy.

• If/when you tweet out your posts over a certain time period, try to vary how you present the information. Like anything, try to make it interesting and conversational. This has several benefits. First, it shows that you are not just broadcasting information but rather are legitimately trying to share. Second, for people who see your tweets on a regular basis, they won’t feel like they are experiencing deja vous all over again. Adapting how you share also allows you to evolve with the situation. For example, if you are getting a lot of good comments on a post, maybe tweet just that fact out instead of the name of your post.

• If you are engaged in a conversation and you just happened to write a post about that specific subject, mention that you have written on the topic and include a link to your post. Don’t press people to “go read now.” Just let it sit there. This logic holds true for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even, on occasion, in comment sections of other peoples’ blog posts. Use this last one sparingly though. Pointedly linking to one of your blog posts when on someone else’s site can be a bit like showing everyone pictures of your new house at someone’s house warming party.

• Perhaps the trickiest method of sharing is CCing someone or mentioning someone when you tweet out a post. If you have a genuine reason to do so, it can be nice. For example, when I wrote my blog promotion post, I wanted Dawn and Dan to know that I had mentioned them, so I CCd them on Twitter. However, if you CC or mention different people over and over again as you promote the post, and if there’s no mention of them in the post, that can start to rub people the wrong way. My personal preference is for someone to ask me directly, “Can you please help me promote my post.” This is often done via email or direct message.

What is being pushy?

So if all of the above could be categorized as sharing, what is pushing? Let’s go back to the show and tell scenario. Imagine that another kid is presenting his cute pencil. Suddenly, you storm out from the corner of the classroom and shove him out of the way. Then you calmly start talking about your pencil.

That’s being pushy.

So what is the online version of being a Kindergarten wrestler?

Think about what the opposites of the above actions would be. So, in other words:

• Send direct messages to 27 people with a link to your post, but do not otherwise speak to them (there’s that get to give again, right?)

• Pepper all of your comments with links to your latest 5 blog posts

• Promote other people but always tack on a link to your own content or project at the end

• Tweet your post half a dozen times, each time listing 6 or 7 people after the link (for no apparent reason)

I’ve seen a couple of scenarios recently where people have, in my opinion, crossed the line between sharing and being pushy. They are good people, so I am sure they are not meaning to be pushy. But that is what can happen. You can start to rub people the wrong way, and rather than confront you, people will just say, “Oh, man. That person. Well, I’m unfollowing, unfriending, unsubscribing, and uninterested.”

Did this help?

The difference between sharing and pushing information in the world of Social Media really gets to the crux of what we’ve been talking about this week – getting your information out, being nice about it, and giving as much feedback as you want to receive.

Do you see it differently? Any questions? Give a holler in the comments and let’s talk about it!

Image by Alan Rainbow. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Wia-Tirol