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Marietta, OH

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Four lessons on engaging from William Shakespeare

March 9, 2011 by Margie Clayman 9 Comments

When you think of Social Media, you probably do not think about a man who lived several centuries ago, who wore foofy collars and who, if one can believe the paintings, had very well trimmed facial hair. However, when you are thinking about how to engage with people in the online world, just such a fellow can serve you quite well. His name is William Shakespeare.

There are all kinds of lessons you can borrow from good ole Bill. I chose four, and here they are.

To thine own self be true

By far the most important thing in Social Media, in life, or anywhere else is to be true to yourself. We’ve talked about this a lot here on this blog. You have to set your objectives. You have to decide what is important to you. You have to make the commitment to what you are doing, and you have to decide that your way is the right way for you.

When you are thinking about how to engage with other people, it is 100% necessary to first understand who those people are engaging with when they reach out to you. Are they reaching out to your company logo or to your human face? Are they reaching out to a company name or your name? Why? What will they get when they reach out to you? What will you be comfortable offering? Everything hinges on your own answers to those questions. If you cannot be true to yourself, nothing else about engaging will work for you.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be – unless you own it and mean it

OK, Polonius didn’t have that last part on there when he was sending his son out into the world. The fact is that a big part of engaging in the online world is borrowing from people – whether it’s borrowing inspiration, borrowing ideas, or borrowing time. The flip side to that, and a key to engaging with people successfully, is to lend out as much as you borrow.

In both cases, you need to acknowledge what it is you are doing and why. If you are building on someone’s ideas or borrowing inspiration from someone, you need to give credit to them for that. You need to promise to yourself that you will remember that you borrowed from that person. You need to let them know that while you might not pay them back with exactly what you borrowed, you will pay them back somehow.

On the other side of the coin, you must not lend in the social media world if you are not genuine about it. If you do something nice for someone and then immediately follow up with, “Oh and can you do this for me?” people will pretty quickly get the hint that you are not giving out of a genuine interest in doing so.

Striving to better, oft we mar what ‘s well

One of the biggest traps in Social Media (and in life, if one must be honest) is that we are always left grasping for more. In Twitter-world, when you get your 25th follower, you set your sights on 50. Once you get to 50 followers you realize that 75 would really have you set on the right path. On your blog, you start out wanting that one really good comment, but as soon as you start getting a few regular readers, you want more traffic, more subscribers, and more tweets of your post.

The huge error in this when it comes to engagement is that by failing to feel content at any level, you are kind of telling the people who are in your community, “Eh, you’re not really enough for me.” When you are saying one comment isn’t good enough, you are telling that person who made the comment that their time isn’t really a difference-maker for you. In striving to improve, you actually could lose people who are already supporting you.

The world’s a stage

Always remember that Social Media, all of the networks included therein, it’s all one big stage. Everybody is the star of his or her own play, whatever that may be about. Avatars can be masks. Saying the right thing can be a memorized line. People can act in ways they never would in real life. When you are trying to engage with people, make sure you are starring as yourself, and try to get to the bottom of who other people truly are as well. We all have guards up at various levels. To truly connect, you’ve got to be willing to take off some of the stage make-up and show some of those imperfections or human traits that makes us who we are.

Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

So, what else about engaging online can you learn thanks to William Shakespeare? I’d love to hear what you come up with!

This is post #1 in the Engagement Series.

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Paul Flanigan says

    March 9, 2011 at 9:07 am

    Margie – this one is really great.

    Adding on to your final thought, I remembered something about Shakespeare from college.

    I was in theater in college and did ‘Taming of the Shrew’ (I got to be Petruchio – EPIC). But in the theater courses we were always using Shakespeare in our classes, so I was trying to memorize that stuff all the time. Here’s the thing:

    I had a much better time not only remembering his lines but understanding the cadence and intonation of his lines while practicing on a stage. If I was anywhere but on the stage, I always had a really hard time remembering my lines. When I got up on stage to practice, a few times and it was locked in my head.

    I realized that by practicing where I played, I was much more in tune with the context. It felt much less like “practicing” and much more like “preparation.” Think of it this way: You don’t go practice football on a baseball field.

    When you practice in the arena you plan to play in, you learn faster and grow better because of it.

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      March 9, 2011 at 9:35 am

      Great analogy, Paul. Sounds like a great blog post to me on getting started in Social Media. After all, there’s all kinds of advice out there, but boy, nothing really imitates the actual experience of walking the walk 🙂

      Reply
  2. Rufus Dogg says

    March 9, 2011 at 9:19 am

    “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh?” Merchant of Venice, III,1
    It helps to remember that we are all part of the same ecosystem, that we all feel, get hurt, feel complimented the same way. Before sending out that snarky tweet or that hurtful comment.. or that over-reaching “I totally agree with you” comment, remember there is a real person on the other side of it.

    “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” Richard III, V,4
    Amazing how most people will sell themselves for more followers, more this, more that. Parodied, “My soul! my soul! my soul for a book advance.” Later in the scene, the line “the bloody dog is dead” only has relevancy for me I imagine… 🙂

    “till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane” MacBeth V,5
    Oh, where to start with this one. I have arguments all the time with clients about who to follow. “They are not big CEOs,” “They are not decision-makers” blah, blah, blah. People who engage effectively in social media rarely look like what they are at first glance.

    And of course, rich material for all sorts of blog posts and tweets!
    http://www.dogwalkblog.com/?s=shakespeare

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      March 9, 2011 at 9:36 am

      I am so happy to have met you, Rufus. Your comments are always spectacular.

      Great examples – thank you for adding them here.

      Reply
  3. Joseph Ruiz says

    March 9, 2011 at 10:49 am

    Hi Margie,
    Really like the new look of your site. Appreciated the comments, great advice as usual.
    Thanks

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      March 9, 2011 at 12:09 pm

      thank ya, sir! I appreciate it.

      Also, I have the best community ever 🙂

      Reply
  4. Marilyn Yocum says

    March 9, 2011 at 3:43 pm

    I don’t remember how I linked through to you the other day, but I’m glad I did. I’m really enjoying your eye for how things connect. This one is a gem!

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      March 9, 2011 at 3:59 pm

      Thanks, Marilyn. I really appreciate that 🙂

      Reply
  5. Janet Callaway says

    March 10, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    Margie, aloha. Found your blog through a tweet. Having found it, I will be back again and again and again.

    This analogy with Shakespeare is brilliant. Can’t wait to spread the word on this and read more of your posts.

    Enjoy a glorious day. Aloha. Janet

    Reply

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