You simply must be personal and conversant in social media. People want to know who you are and what you are about, so you need to be prepared to share of yourself. Strive to be professionally personal.
If you show up on social sites and are all business with no personality, you are going to fail. Yet if what you do is only about your personality and never about your value, you are just messing around and not branding yourself.
Lead with your value, then wrap your personality around your value. It’s your value, not your personality, that makes you remarkable.
People need to like you and trust you, but when they remark about you to others, make sure they can speak with clarity and enthusiasm about your value.
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The people I talk with are completely mystified by the Social Media. They seem to understand that it’s important, but they are listening to too many conflicting sources of why it is significant.
Your point is spot on. Social Media is not about business, it is not about socializing, it is not politics, nor is about one thing. It is about communicating using tools we have never had available before, and each person’s place within the new environment is three dimensional, not two (or one) dimensional.
Value and personality…of course it helps if you have both.. 🙂
By: Paul Kiser on March 30, 2010
at 11:18 am
Paul, your point about a lot of confusing advice is unfortunately true. And a lot of the advice comes from folks that don’t even use the tools themselves! Thanks for weighing in. Bret
By: bretsimmons on March 30, 2010
at 11:24 am
Great point. Too many people (on-line AND off-line) don’t focus on adding value. The one quote that has inspired me the most over the years is still as relevant as ever in our web 2.0 world.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want”.
The more of us that remember to add value and take Zig Ziglars words the heart – the better on-line communities will be for all of us. 🙂
By: jeremywaite on September 11, 2010
at 7:23 am
Welcome, Jeremy! I love the quote you contribute and think it is so true. Thanks for sharing. Bret
By: bretsimmons on September 11, 2010
at 7:27 am