Where is the Human Voice in Social Media

Note: This is a guest-post from Kris Rowlands, editor of Fresh Focus…on Productivity - a blog about her life experiences….whether it be at home, work, methodologies for Getting Things Done (GTD), life organization or productivity you can always count on the material to be new and fresh! Coupled with Motivational fodder for your psyche, Kris and co. are always discussing something interesting!

Social Media Networking: To Infinity and Beyond

Good day!

Stephen emailed me on a recent Saturday afternoon and posed this question to me:

Would you like to do a guest post about networking in social media, building your online presence? Perhaps a short “How I got 500 Twitter followers” or something like that?

This took me somewhat aback……I thought to myself “What do I know about how to build on Online Presence?” But then another part of Stephen’s sentence struck me…….”500 Twitter Followers“……..did I really have that many? I had to look to be sure, and I did. But could I tell people what I did to get there? I had to think about that for a few days…….five to be exact. Do I know enough about this to do this type of post? Am I worthy? Then I thought to myself “Why the heck not!?”!

Meeting new people and networking

Consciously, I wasn’t thinking about this as “building my social media network”, I was thinking about it in terms of meeting new people and networking: building the social media part was just a nice side-effect. I think that the first social media network I joined was Pownce, when it was still in beta testing. From there I joined LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Stumble, Digg, Twitter, Utterli, FriendFeed, Plurk……..the list goes on and on! I looked and searched for people that liked what I liked: productivity, organization, GTD and self-help.

Are we compatible?

From there I checked out their profiles to see how complete they were: what it said about them and the first impression that it made upon me. I get friends’ requests from Twitter and always check out the profile page completely, as I do with any other networking site. If people don’t have a bio, or only tweet about their own blog posts, or worse yet publish spam (gasp!), then they do not make it on my list. I look for people that talk to lots of other people: this indicates to me that they are an interesting person, and by speaking with them and them to me, that my name will get out to their friends’ lists.

Reciprocity is a great thing! Most times it happens automagically, but there are times when you need to initiate it in order to receive it. There are other times that you may initiate, and the reciprocity won’t be returned. You then make the decision about the value of keeping that contact or not. Obviously if it’s someone that you like and admire, they must just be too busy. Send them a direct message to initiate conversation!

Professional Networks vs Social Networks

LinkedIn is a site that is an online resume of sorts, but with LinkedIn you must be VERY careful. Only add people that you really know and can recommend either based on work that you have done with them, or work that they have done for you. LinkedIn is very much a professional website and should not be treated lightly. Most of the other social media avenues can be used to idle chitter-chatter, but LinkedIn is not the place for that at all. Think of LinkedIn as a mirror into your business profile and to who you are professionally. Also remember to have a complete and aesthetically pleasing profile and images - this is a direct representation of you!

But I saved my best golden jewel in regards to social media ’til last: be yourself.

Interact with people online as you would do in person. Treat them as you want to be treated, and act naturally. There are people on many social media networks that post about all the business that they have and all the new clients that are coming to them, but are constantly posting: so when do they have time for all this new business and clientele? They don’t, and they are pretending to be who they are.
Be yourself - people do notice when you are representing yourself under false pretenses.

Have a good time with social media, but please remember that you are representing yourself and your brand that you have worked hard to create - treat it with care, and nourish it. It will grow!

One of the things that I like most about Kris’ writing is the authenticity of her voice. This “human-ness” comes through in all of the places that we can find Kris online, and I suspect that is part of why she has 500+ followers on Twitter! Is your presence a human presence?

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