Margie Clayman

A lot of people in the online world talk about time. Some people talk about how much time they invest in, well, social media. Others talk about how much time it may take to build a community online or how much time it takes to get to 1,000 blog subscribers. A fair amount of time is spent talking about how to balance work time with family time, too.

With all of this talk about time floating about, it’s easy to make people feel like they’re forgotten, overlooked, or maybe not as important to you as they really are. You mean to spend time with them or on their questions, but time just seems to slip away at the worst times.

I have been struggling a lot lately with the thought that I don’t express my appreciation to some people as often as I should be. It’s not that I don’t think about them every day and thank my lucky stars that I know them. It’s just they give me so much time and support that I always feel like I’m falling short in showing them my gratitude.

Maybe you have people like that in your online reality too.

Well, I thought maybe I could convince you to do a little exercise with me (because let’s face it, the online world needs some positive vibes!). I’m doing this on Friday as a kind of elaborate take-off on “Follow Friday,” but you can do it whenever. The goal? List five people that you feel you don’t show your appreciation to enough – and do it!

Here are my five folks. They are wonderful people and I want to make sure they know I see everything they do for me and for others.

[Read more…] about Time to appreciate the people you take for granted

There was a time there when I thought the Shrek movies were just the most innovative movies around. I thought that until they did about two sequels too many, in fact. The movies are sort of geared at children, but they are highly amusing for us grown-up types, plus they’re charming and they offer positive messages. What more can you ask for from a movie these days?

There are a lot of lessons one can learn from Shrek, and a lot of the lessons are big, over-arching life lessons like “Don’t judge people.” But there’s one particular lesson I’m thinking about that relates particularly well to Social Media. Are you ready?

In the second Shrek movie (if you haven’t seen it), Shrek the Ogre and his little talking donkey friend take a magical formula and become, in a word, stud-muffins. Donkey becomes a gorgeous white stallion and Shrek gains a “cute button nose and a tight, round buttocks.” Shrek’s wife, Fiona, who is also an ogre most of the time, is also affected, and goes back to being a beautiful, red-headed princess. At the end of the movie, Fiona can decide if she and Shrek will stay in their human forms forever or whether they will go back to their ogre selves. Donky is not part of the conversation, but he is ultimately deeply affected by what the loving couple decide.

When you engage with people in the online world, you are often in the same position as Donkey. If you really come out and support a person, you are staking your credibility on how they will act. If they decide to do a total goofball thing, your credibility, along with theirs, will be affected. If they get into really hot water because they do something wrong, you are also going to receive raised eyebrows because, after all, you suggested to a ton of people that this person is a great find, a great blogger, a great…whatever.

Of course, there’s another side to this coin. For everyone with whom you engage, you’re in the position of Shrek, and everything you do can impact how the members of your community will be received elsewhere in the online world.

At its heart, Social Media engagement is about taking a leap of faith. It’s saying, “I hope, if given the choice, you’ll let me stay a stallion instead of making me turn into a donkey.” In a big way, your online fate is in my hands, and mine is in yours.

Does that, or should that, influence how you act? How you speak? What do you think?

This is post #92 in the Engagement Series. If you are worried about missing posts, please feel free to hit the subscribe button. Thank you!

Image by Damián Martinez. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/amilcarxl

As we wind down on the Engagement Series, I have to admit that I’m filled with a solid mixture of nostalgia and gratitude. I mean, let’s face facts here. Did I know you when I wrote post #1? Statistically speaking, the chances are good I did not!

I’ve learned a lot and (I think) I’ve grown a lot this year and over the duration of this series, so I thought I would use this time to tell you about the experiences and people who helped me get here. I share this information in the hopes that you will be able to enjoy the same benefits as I have!

[Read more…] about Twenty of my favorite ways to engage online

Awhile back, in an apartment building where I lived, I saw something very strange. A person had a living green plant situated outside their door in our windowless hallway. It sat there for days. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I noticed something even stranger. The person had added a little plaster column outside their door and had put the plant on there as if it was a little porch. It looked really pretty, and it almost seemed like a good idea, but eventually the column and the plant disappeared, probably because the person realized that plants need sun, not just fluorescent light, to thrive.

This has been on my mind of late because I too had an idea that I thought was really good, but lately I’m being proven wrong. As I’ve mentioned here before, I hand-pick who I follow back and who I don’t. There are a few things I look for.

1. Do you have a picture of a human being, or do you look like an egg? I can’t assure myself that the person in the picture is you, but a picture is much more encouraging than a pastel egg.

2. Do you have your bio filled out? I’ve learned to distinguish between fake bios and real bios, so don’t think you’ll fool me that way.

3. What are your last few tweets like? Are they all RTs of your own stuff? Are they all tweets of your own blog posts? Or are you talking to people?

For many months now – a year in fact – these methodologies have really done well for me. But, much like a super virus, spammers always seem to get smarter, and I readily admit, I’ve been fooled by a few of them.

But I still didn’t follow YOU back.

Now what’s that all about?

[Read more…] about I’m following spam bots but not you

After the Battle of Chancellorsville ended in the American Civil War, it actually looked like the impossible was going to happen. It looked like the Confederacy might win their independence as a separate country from the United States. But the South only had a couple of days to celebrate. Shortly after the battle, their great hero, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died.

See, Jackson had had a really successful day of battle, but he had started late, so he hadn’t been able to finish up the job. He went out at night between the lines to scout things out. He was actually contemplating some fighting at night. As he rode back to his own line, his skiddish men fired on him. His two aides died instantly. Jackson was shot twice in the arm, had to have the arm amputated, and eventually died of pneumonia.

I always wonder about those men who essentially killed Jackson. Were they beaten up after their mistake was discovered? Did they live with that moment for years after? One thing is clear. The men were too quick to act and not quick enough when it came to thinking through what they were about to do. You could learn a lot from them when it comes to online engagement.

[Read more…] about What we can learn from the death of Stonewall Jackson

So, I woke up this morning, bright eyed and bushytailed…I have a tail in the mornings, part of a lifelong curse. Anyway…I was awake. Being the savvy Social Media NinGuDi (that’s Ninja/Guru/Jedi all mixed in together…you can use it. You know you want to) that I am, I decided I’d check in to the new and exciting world of Google Plus while my coffee was brewing. You know, Google Plus, that place where everything is bright and shiny and new and different.

So, I was scrolling along and there was a post by Chris Brogan regarding a webinar he’ll be offering soon covering Google+. I scanned through the numerous comments and saw that there were a handful of people who were using their time to take absolutely pointless little picky shots at Chris Brogan.

Yep, you can’t see that on any other social media platform. Wait, this just in…you can see that anywhere in the online world.

So, before you roll your eyes and say, “Oh geeze, another person saying that big names can’t be criticized,” understand that you should read the rest of the post. Because I’m not saying that anyone is perfect. Personally, I agree with the idea that it might be a bit too soon to roll out a webinar about Google+. Then again, I haven’t been at the top of the social media game for like, a decade.

The issue I have with these exchanges is that they kind of make me nauseous, and I really don’t appreciate that. How can I enjoy my delicious summer salad if I feel sick? And the reason these exchanges make me feel sick is because the criticizers are not really talking constructively about the concept. They’re taking personal shots at another person. It makes THEM look bad. Then the big name responds, because no one likes being insulted, and that makes the big name look jerky too. So you end up with a big pile of people who aren’t really jerks but who kind of seem like it.

[Read more…] about OMG, You Disagree with Chris Brogan?!? I don’t care.