Continuing my series on social media virtues; my fun way to impart sage advice for learning good social media practices. I started with Temperance, and today for part to I will discuss Patience.

This one is easy and I have talked about it before: Don’t expect overnight success! This takes time!

A slow and steady succession of actions will bring you far more success than any get “1,000 Twitter Fans in 2-days or 10,000 website visitors by doing x” type of schemes. If you have been involved in traditional marketing you will know that patience is usually allowed, with “click here” “buy now!” numbers, numbers, numbers, but this methodology just does not work when it comes to social media, so if that is how you plan to measure success, you might want to rethink things.

There is no substitution for hard work and time. You need time to build credibility. You need time to build influence. You need time to engage and become a part of a community.

So there are no get-rich-quick schemes for success, it is a long-term activity using long-term strategies and lots of patience.

Now that I have completed my series on the 7 Sins of Social Media I thought it might be beneficial to review the 7 Virtues! After all, there are two parts to every story! We have reviewed what to do to prevent bad habits, now let’s look into the positive practices that should be encouraged.

I will start with Temperence. Wikipedia defines it as: constant mindfulness of others and one’s surroundings; practicing self-control, abstention, and moderation. In social media this relates to listening. If you read anything about social media best practices and strategies you will no doubt have seen over and the over that the first action you should take when considering social media activity is actually inaction, or in reality, active listening!

Use Google Alerts and Twitter Search, as well as a dozen of other listening tools to find where your community is and start watching and listening to what they have to say.

Listen to those conversations before getting involved. Understand who the community is, what their interests are, what problems or issues they face and how they engage with each other. And when you think you have listened enough, listen some more!

Once you are really ready to start engaging, keep your first interactions simple, helpful. Do not pitch. This is the practicing self-control part. You need to be accepted as part of the community first. You can read more about this concept of community acceptance in Chapter 3 of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s book Trust Agents – called One of Us.

In summary, seek our your community, listen closely, be mindful of your participation within that community and begin interacting with moderation and forethought.

The past week I have sent to emails to people to provide a list of listening tools. It struck as something that other people would be interested in as well!

If you read anything about social media best practices and strategies you will no doubt have seen over and the over that the first action you should take when considering social media is actually inaction, or in reality active listening! Use Google Alerts and Twitter Search to find where your community is and start watching and listening to what they have to say.

In addition there, is a wide variety of listening tools out there available to meet all your needs, some paid and some free, or with portions free.

Back type
Collective Intellect
Custom Scoop
LazyFeed
Meltwater
Monitter
My Blog Log
Radian 6
SM2
Social Mention
Trackur
Twilert
Who’s Talking
Yahoo Sideline

So if you are thinking about getting into social media for your company start listening, and if you are already involved keep monitoring and listening to your community and about you and you brand. It will keep you active and relavant.

Listen away!

I am out on vacation this week, so I asked my new friend, Frank DiCostanzo owner of the Messina Editorial Group and blogger at Writing Killer Content to guest post, or actually to allow me to re-post one of his articles. It is a great post on authenticity and personal branding. Enjoy!

Authentic Branding and New Media Transparency

THE END OF SECRECY

I borrow the phrase “The End of Secrecy” from visionary and speaker Tim Sander’s recent blog post, where he reminds us “You can’t hide anymore in the new digital world we live in…this is great news for good people. Secrecy is the ally to evil. Think about the future of business in a transparent world: No bad act gets hidden, no good act goes unnoticed. What does this mean? Same things I’ve been saying since 2002—nice, smart people succeed.”

Nice, smart people succeed. It is certainly a utopian vision. But with an internet so appealing to the masses and the inherent transparency of social media networks, such a vision of a more open and honest internet is a win-win for many passionate small businesses.

Why? Because consumers are smarter than ever. And they’re just plain tired of hard sells and traditional advertising. In short, the digital natives are restless.

But just what is “transparency” and why is it important?

Transparency in business today means exposing your intentions. It means providing real value first, and it means developing an authentic personal or small-business brand. And today, an internet-oriented “brand” must convey WHO YOU ARE, not what you do.

A couple of weeks ago, we met Steven, our aspiring food critic. Steven isn’t sure where he’ll sell his restaurant reviews and lifestyle commentaries: online, in print, maybe both. What he does know is that in order to succeed as a food critic, he needs an online presence. He needs to take himself and “get branded.”

My recent post, “Brand Myself? Are You Kidding?” takes a hard look at the importance of self-branding in an internet savvy world. In this context, branding isn’t so much an effort to sell as it is an effort to share. For entrepreneurs like Steven, it’s a process of becoming the business he sees himself becoming.

But how do I go about branding myself?

Small-business branding is a birthing process, and it’s never easy to know who you are before you’ve become it! Yet this is exactly what one must do in order to build an entrepreneurial business online. Here are some tips on branding yourself and your business successfully:

• Be authentic. Express yourself in a brand that shows us who you are—your values, your voice, and your vision. If you’re uncertain about these, ask a brand image consultant (like us) to help you develop who you are into who you’re now becoming.

• Provide value up front. This means giving something of real value to your visitors. When someone arrives at your blog, be sure to reward them for finding you. Share with them your personal experiences (lots of value there!), links to interesting places, and other helpful resources.

• Avoid the hard sell. With small business websites, it’s obvious when someone is being obvious. Decades of print and mass media advertising have conditioned us to avoid the hard sell. Remember your readers can walk away with the click of a mouse. Don’t make it easy for them by pitching yourself on your home page.

• Think like a surfer. When creating your content, think about how you surf the internet. Do you enjoy seeing cluttered homepages? When shopping for a product or service, do you find too much content overwhelming? Use your own online experience as a reference point.

Stay tuned for updates on Steven’s brand-building adventure, as well as ideas for new business bloggers.

Cross posted on Writing Killer Content

I am out on vacation this week, so I asked my friend, writer and social media guru, Julie Roads of Soc Media 101 and Writing Roads to guest post, or actually to allow me to re-post of her outstanding articles. I think you will really like this as I know a common issue is finding topics for your individual and business blogs. Enjoy!

Blog content: trunks, branches, leaves

I just came across a post by Ari Herzog where he answers the question, ‘Should bloggers only blog about one topic or is it okay for them to talk about a lot of different things?’

I was relieved actually to see that his answer was quite liberal; he (with quote help from Jake Halpern) said that bloggers need to blog about what interests them. If the topics start to spread, so be it.

But, I have to add something to that. I agree that if you aren’t writing about your passions, then the writing will fall flat. Still, I think there has to be a tie that binds. It could be an industry, a product, a service, a genre, a person, a group, a pair of pants…something.

When I talk to companies/business about blog content strategy, I use the image of a tree. The blog’s main topic, your main theme is the trunk of the tree. All of the posts that you write are the branches and leaves of the tree.

Some posts will literally spring from the trunk, like those first two or three branches that separate and grow up and out.

Some posts will be quite far removed from the trunk, they’ll be those teeny tiny branches, fifty feet out, reaching into the sun – but they will still be connected to the trunk, they’re definitively part of the same tree.

And then you’ve got the posts that are everything else in between. But there’s always a connection, no matter how small.

Why is this important?

1. You don’t want your readers to get lost or confused. Make them feel good and smart, not disoriented and dumb.
2. You want to have a point. Otherwise you might end up sounding disoriented and dumb.
3. If you’re blogging for business, it’s good to have a tie back to your product, service or industry. If your blogs purpose it to showcase your talents as a dance coach, I’m not sure how talking about the many ways to cook an egg will help you.
4. You’re building a relationship with your readers. If you always blog about painting and suddenly throw in some posts about roller derbies, they’re going to feel a rift in the relationship. They might even feel abandoned and leave you comments like, ‘I don’t even know who you are anymore.’

I’m all for expanding your content. The more branches you create, the more likely you are to catch the web traffic blowing by in your tree. Just do your readers a favor and maintain your core connection.

Image credit: joiseyshowaa

Cross-posted on Soc Media 101

Today the final installment in my series on social media sins; this is my fun way to impart sage advice for avoiding some of the pit falls which have a way of sneaking up on you. Thus far we’ve covered Envy, Sloth, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony and Pride. The only thing left is Lust.

Lust is all about inordinate cravings. You may lust after clients, numbers, success.  But the desire for things may make you lose focus on what is truly important: the authentic interaction with your clients…no matter if that is 1 or 100. You may become blind to what your intent actually is – to serve others, to provide value and share knowledge.

Having the numbers is great, but achieve them with hard work and grace.

And that’s it, I hope you found this series helpful!

Today I present part six in a series on social media sins; this is my fun way to impart sage advice for avoiding some of the pit falls which have a way of sneaking up on you. Thus far we’ve covered Envy, Sloth, Wrath, Greed and Gluttony. Today I am going to talk about Pride.

Pride or vanity can take many forms. You may be too proud to ask for help, when more than likely, given the nature of the social media community, there are plenty of people who are all too happy to lend a helping hand.  Normally all you have to do is ask.

However I have also see pride manifest itself in the form of being too vain to help others.  If you do not reach out to help or to add value there will be others who will.  The community is run by karma, what comes around goes around. Expect to give, and to give a lot.  You will be rewarded.  The person, blogger, client, friend, even the unknown email address out in the universe may be the next Chris Brogan, the next Liz Strauss. Your aid today can come back ten-fold.

And you if you are experiencing success, stay humble. Stay helpful. Listen more than you speak.

I had the opportunity to see Chris Brogan and Julien Smith share a little bit of the content of their new book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust at the SOBCon conference I attended in May in Chicago. The presentation was around an hour, but it was enough to convince me that this book was going to be great.

When I returned home I immediately pre-ordered two. I got my copies right before the weekend and last night I dove in!  It is everything that I expected and more!  I am not done, although it won’t take long, the content is so good, but I wanted to tell you to go out and buy this book!

If you are still trying to figure out what social media is all about

, this book will give you insight into how “today’s online influencers are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online.”

If you ever have the opportunity to meet Chris Brogan you will immediately see that he is just as friendly, warm, and inviting in person as he is on his blog or his newsletters.  He is gracious and helpful and there is no question that he is someone you can trust when it comes to his recommendations, his observations and his work. That is because he personifies the characteristics of a friend.

So whether you are getting into social media and want to emulate the actions that have made Chris and Julie successful trust agents, or you want to understand how to work with an online influencer, or just want to read a very good book, Trust Agents is a must read!

Follow Chris Brogan on Twitter

And now, since I did buy 2 copies, I am giving one away!  Just leave a comment about why you want to check out this book and I will select a random winner next Wednesday (8/26/09) to send you my extra copy!

I will be doing a recap of yesterday’s social media boot camp later this week, in the meantime, I present part five in a series on social media sins; this is my fun way to impart sage advice for avoiding some of the pit falls which have a way of sneaking up on you. Thus far we’ve covered Envy, Sloth, Wrath and Greed. Today I am going to talk about Gluttony.

Gluttony can be described as the over-indulgence or misplaced desire of something to the point of waste. When you “glut” your Twitter or Facebook statuses with too many updates, your messages start to be ignored.  You are causing information overload.

Consider also the mixture of contacts that you have on Twitter and Facebook – are you driving your Facebook friends crazy with all your Twitter chatter and retweets? The audiences are different, and what you achieve in efficiency, you may lose in driving interest away.

Don’t try to be all things to all people, by over-compensating and exceeding the necessary or appropriate amount of messages, you may turn off your core (and target) audience.

Part four in a series on social media sins; this is my fun way to impart sage advice for avoiding some of the pit falls which have a way of sneaking up on you. Thus far we’ve covered Envy, Sloth and Wrath. Today I am going to talk about Greed. Greed is the obsessive desire to obtain something. And in relation to social media, that easily translate to the numbers game.

Questions often heard:

• How many Fans do you have?
• How many followers?
• What are your monthly visits to your site/blog?

Running after numbers for numbers sake is bad strategy. Sure you may obtain a 1000 new followers overnight, but how many are going to stick? You can get people to come to your site, but how many are going to come back?

I like what the guru of niceness (and kick-ass blogger), Liz Strauss, has said several times, “Numbers have to have a label before they mean anything.” She has also said things like “Count your value as a human by links, stats, and number of comments” that was from a list of Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger from 2006!

Not to talk about numbers, but just to put things in perspective, Liz’s blog has over 80,000 comments, but you know where she had to start? Yes, with comment #1, just like you! As I mentioned in my envy post, most of the super stars of social media started out in the same place you did, the beginning. And with slow and steady determination, good content and a whole bunch of good intent, they made it to where they are today. Social media is a long term strategy that takes a time investment and participation.

If you are looking to constantly “fill the funnel” and make the sale (and add a number) then it will not be sustainable. Success is for you to decide, and although it may include numbers, don’t limit yourself by chasing after them needlessly.